Watch How Scientists Grow Mini-Brains

Time for another "science-is-awesome-yet-freaks-me-out" moment.

While this may not surprise anyone who has recently been following politics, apparently we are now in the era of the mini-brain.

Courtesy of the Boston Globe's Stat, check out this video about Tufts University researchers who have concocted a way to create a tiny brain using mice neurons.

Scientists "have perfected a recipe for growing millions of neurons inside a scaffolding of pure silk," Stat says. "The neurons, drawn from mice, join together and send signals to each other, like real brains do. And they can survive in these brain-like webs for months."

The brains are about a centimeter long, and the webs that hold them are shaped into a doughnut-shaped cocoon made of silk.

It must be cool when someone asks, "So what do you do?" you can answer, "I grow brains." But the real reason behind the project: a better understanding of how the human brain works. Currently, researchers are studying how the mini-brains respond to drugs and concussion-like injuries.

Let's just hope the famous tiny swarming robots do not get a hold of these, lest we give up our role as the pre-eminent species on planet earth.