Techno-Optimist #8
Results from the Bennu asteroid return mission, Eleven Labs lets you clone your voice, a possible super-Earth with a nitrogen atmosphere, AI docs make it into the real world...and a lot more!
Welcome to the eighth edition of Techno-Optimist, your go-to destination for all the latest updates and commentary on space, science, technology, medicine, energy, AI, and much more. To the 33 new readers since last time, welcome aboard.
Just a quick note about today’s quote below—while specifically about SpaceX, I think that mindset is a good one for anyone trying to increase progress and human flourishing via technology.
I want to apologize as well, I’m on the road at the moment, so this edition isn’t quite as polished as I usually like to have it. Should be back to normal next time. Because of that, I ran out of time to include some commentary on an incredibly exciting new method for editing DNA. I promise I’ll include it next time, it’s not an exaggeration to say that it could change the world.
We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s dive in.
“At SpaceX we specialize in converting things from impossible to late.”
—Elon Musk
Results from Bennu. Since samples were returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex mission, scientists have been happily engrossed in learning what they can teach us about the space rock, and about the history of our Solar System. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the presence of water-soluble phosphate minerals, indicating that Bennu could have originally been part of a larger, wetter body. Early results also showed that the sample is predominantly clay minerals—particularly serpentine—mirroring “the type of rock found at mid-ocean ridges on Earth.” The sample was also contained “dust rich in carbon, nitrogen, and organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it.” More labs in the U.S. and around the world will receive Bennu samples this year, so expect a lot more fascinating discovering to be forthcoming. (NASA) (@coreyspowell)
Eleven Labs takes voices to the next level. From their website: “ElevenLabs is a software company that specializes in developing natural-sounding speech synthesis software using deep learning.” What that means is pretty epic. You can get it to record a sample of your voice, from which their AI can clone it, and—for instance—use it to narrate an article you’ve written. As Pirate Wires’ Mike Solana quipped, “Surreal to hear yourself narrating something you never recorded.” That’s not all though, through their Iconic Voices Reader App you can “Listen to your favorite books and articles voiced by Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier on our Reader App.” One more awesome feature I noticed is their Voice Isolator, which removes “unwanted background noise and extract crystal clear dialogue from any audio to make your next podcast, interview, or film sound like it was recorded in the studio.” They mean it too apparently, as the test was a guy trying to record himself while someone had a leafblower going at full blast. I ran out of time for this edition, but next time I’m going to try the ‘narrate an article’ feature. I’ll let you all know how it turns out. (@packyM) (@elevenlabsio)
Mini-roundup of progress against cancer. A personalized treatment for advanced prostate cancer has been given an FDA go-ahead after a trial where the cancer vanished in almost 40% of patients. Across the pond, researchers in Sweden have created nanorobots (nanites, for all you Stargate fans out there) that carry a peptide capable of inducing cell death—but that only releases its cargo inside a tumor, which has different pH conditions than surrounding healthy cells. Mouse breast cancer models had a 70% “reduction in tumour growth compared to mice given an inactive version of the nanorobot.” Perhaps the biggest problem with cancer is that it often becomes resistant to treatments. Penn State scientists have tackled this by creating “a modular genetic circuit that turns cancer cells into a ‘Trojan horse,’ causing them to self-destruct and kill nearby drug-resistant cancer cells.”
Another important part of cancer research involves improving quality of life for patients—often treatments like chemotherapy can cause nerve damage, which is sometimes permanent. A German group has found that simple exercises can greatly reduce this problem. Patients spent 15-30 minutes per day balancing on an unstable surface or standing on a vibration plate; both were able to “reduce the incidence of nerve damage by 50 to 70 percent.” (New Atlas) (Karolinska Institutet) (Medical Xpress) (Science Daily)
Space
Observations by the JWST have found that super-Earth LHS 1140b may have an atmosphere composed almost entirely of nitrogen. The habitable zone planet orbits its parent red dwarf star 48 light years from Earth in the constellation Cetus (which fittingly means “the whale”), and is 1.73x larger and 5.6x heavier that our planet. While relatively massive, the planet’s density is less than you’d expect for a rocky world, suggesting that 10-20% of it by mass may be water. If follow-up observations confirm at atmosphere, it’s likely that “LHS 1140b should resemble an ice world with an Atlantic-sized ocean on its dayside.” (@MartianColonist) (Phys.org)
An article just published by scientists in China suggest using a common desert moss with a global distribution, Syntrichia caninervis, as a pioneer plant for terraforming Mars. It’s able to survive -112°F (-80°C) for 5 years, and -321°F (−196°C) for at least 30 days—the length of the experiment. It’s also able to take exposure to high levels of gamma and ultraviolet radiation, and the low pressure mostly CO2 Martian atmosphere. It’s not quite ready to be dumped onto the Martian surface, as it currently survives but doesn’t thrive in these conditions; but maybe we could engineer it so that it could thrive there. (@ChinaScience) (Science Daily)
Through observations with advanced telescopes like the JWST or the ALMA array (a radio telescope) we’ve started to get a much better idea of how young solar systems form. By observing multiple systems in various stages of formation, it looks like planets don’t start forming until about half a million to two million years after their star is born, and could keep forming for anywhere up to a few hundred million years. (@StartsWithABang) (Big Think)
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has made another close pass to the Sun on June 30th, swinging by at only 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers), far closer than Mercury. At perihelion—its closest approach—it was moving at a blistering 394,736 miles per hour (635,266 kilometers per hour), or 0.059% the speed of light. What I’m looking forward to more is its flyby in November, where it will come to just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface, and move at about 430,000 miles per hour (692,018 kilometers per hour, or 192.2 kilometers per second). (@coreyspowell) (NASA)
Some launch updates: It’s been confirmed that Starship Flight #5 will include an attempt to catch the booster in the arms of their launch/landing tower mechazilla. It’s expected to be in early August according to Elon Musk. Firefly Aerospace launched 8 cubesats built by various American universities into orbit on July 4th in their fifth ever launch. Ariane 6 took to the heaven’s in its inaugural flight July 9th. The rocket replaces the Ariane 5, and is designed to be the EU workhorse to get mass to orbit. Pity it’s not reusable. (@elonmusk) (Space.com) (@esa)
China is doing all it can to catch up to the States (SpaceX), but while imitating the SpaceX motto of “move fast and break things” is admirable, one must always make sure one’s rocket is tied down before doing a static test fire. Have a watch of a not so static test fire of the Tianlong-3 first change build by Chinese company Space Pioneer. Thankfully it seems like nobody was hurt, pictures of the impact site—the explosion was pretty epic—showed it was in a forested region away from any buildings. (@AJ_FI)
AI, Energy, Engineering, & Physics
Humanoid robots are starting to be used for real-world jobs. West Japan Railways has built a giant robot (possibly Wall-E inspired?) to do heavy machinery work on rail lines. While its duties will likely expand, for starters it will “focus on trimming tree branches along rails and painting metal frames that hold cables above trains.” Elsewhere, a humanoid robot build by Figure is starting to learn how to assemble BMWs. As you can see in this video, it’s got a ways to go yet, but progress is being made. (Railway Technology) (Tech Xplore) (New Atlas)
It turns out that increasing atmospheric moisture can change weather patterns over Africa—which is where the ‘seeds’ of many hurricanes begin, making it harder for Atlantic hurricanes to form. Current models suggest that warmer weather and increased atmospheric moisture could cause hurricanes to become stronger, but that’s only already formed storms. Until now, nobody bothered to look at how these factors affect hurricane formation in the first place. Weather control here we come! (Science Daily)
Large, “Nano Transparent Screens” capable of adjusting their “transparency according to the environment and can be produced at low cost” are about to become more common, especially for uses such as displays in stores, and smart windows for buildings. Until now their high cost has prevented widespread use. The screen are “made by evenly dispersing titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles, with a diameter of 100 nanometers” inside a support structure. When light is projected into it, you get a clear image viewable from 170 degrees (so anything but edge on). (Tech Xplore)
Proteins capable of growing semiconductors have been designed by researchers at the Institute for Protein Design. In nature proteins exist “which control the formation of hybrid organic-inorganic materials such as bone and enamel with greater complexity than is accessible with conventional top-down manufacturing." Let’s tweak those capabilities and use them ourselves. Biology, after all, is nanotechnology. (@ElliotHershberg)
The world’s first passenger train whose body and frame are built entirely out of carbon fiber is running in China. This translates into an 11% weight reduction for the train, and 7% in energy savings. It’s also designed to go almost twice as fast as the average Chinese metro trains. Apparently the lighter weight means less vibrations and noise, so a more pleasant ride for passengers. Let’s build our own here! (Interesting Engineering)
Last time I told you about studies reading the minds of rodents and predicting their behavior. Now there’s a study out that does something similar with monkeys, but with the added step that the AI looking at the recordings can focus on specific brain regions—leading to more accurate picture reconstruction. (New Scientist)
A new study scanning the brains of living people has let scientists create “the highest resolution map yet of the neurons that encore the meanings of various words.” How human brains do this is similar across individuals, suggesting that there are “standard categories” our brains use to classify and understand the sounds making up spoken words. This study is just in English, but it’s a big step towards figuring out how the brain builds its library of language. (Nature) (@Dr_Singularity)
Medicine
In a world first, an AI doctor has made it out of the lab and into the real world. The AI doc from Eureka Health “currently specializes in endocrine conditions like thyroid and diabetes.” The company says it’s “90x faster than most care in the US, and 9 out of 10 users want to continue with Eureka’s recommendations.” Just in case anyone was wondering, a certified human doctor still has to review Eureka’s plan before it’s implemented. Starting with something relatively simple to measure and detect is probably a good place for the AI doc to start. It’s only uphill progress from here! (@EurekaHealthApp)
Researchers from North Carolina have designed synthetic platelets that will hopefully start human testing soon. Natural platelets stored by themselves—as opposed to part of whole blood—have a shelf life measured in days, and have to be kept under special conditions to prevent clumping. These artificial platelets built from hydrogel nanoparticles can be stored much more easily for long periods of time, and have been successfully tested in mice and pigs. This could really save a lot of lives. (Medical Xpress)
A megadose of sodium ascorbate—a mineral salt of ascorbic acid, aka vitamin C—can prevent or even reverse brain injury from sepsis, according to a new study. Sepsis can cause dramatic drops in blood flow and oxygen levels in the brain, which can cause brain damage in sepsis survivors. The sodium ascorbate restored blood flow and oxygen in the brains of animal test subjects; in human patients this treatment could save brain function and give doctors more time to get the infection under control. (Medical Xpress)
An MIT lab has built a prosthetic limb that gives feedback to the person using it, allowing for a more natural gait and easier time avoiding obstacles and climbing stairs. Senior study author Hugh Herr, himself an amputee, said that “This is the first prosthetic study in history that shows a leg prosthesis under full neural modulation, where a biomimetic gait emerges. No one has been able to show this level of brain control that produces a natural gait, where the human’s nervous system is controlling the movement, not a robotic control algorithm.” (MIT News)
Adding a “bioinspired hydrogel” to the site of spinal cord injury prompted nerve regeneration and improved motor function and bladder control in animal tests. It also decreased scarring, making the regrowth of neurons easier. If this translates to humans, it could improve treatment and help reduce paralysis for a lot of people. (@Dr_Singularity) (Science Advances)
University of Queensland scientists have analyzed “molecular datasets from both people and mice and then compared different age groups over time,” allowing them to investigate “the activity of genes involved in both developmental and ageing processes.” Previously, how gene activity changed throughout someone’s life “was largely unknown.” Much of it appears to be controlled by a master regulatory protein called Activator Protein 1 (AP-1), and “by pinpointing AP-1 as a master controller linked to ageing across cell types, we can not study the effects of drugs that reduce its activity to extend quality of life.” (UQ News) (@Dr_Singularity)
Biotech & Agriculture
Only targeting the Colorado Potato Bettle, a new pesticide called Calantha uses RNAi [Sidebar: RNA interference is “ a biological process in which RNA molecules are involved in sequence-specific suppression of gene expression”] to specifically eliminate the beetle while sparing other insects. Once the beetle larva eat leaves sprayed with it, the RNAi pesticide gets into their cells and silences a gene they need to survive. (@AgBioWorld) (Science)
The fight against weeds seems like a never-ending battle, but that could change with news from two recent studies that show gene drives work in plants as well as animals—spreading new traits through a plant population in 10 – 30 generations. In a nutshell, a gene drive uses CRISPR to drive a beneficial heritable trait through a population at a far higher rate than it would naturally spread. It can be used to spread lethal mutations as well, potentially allowing us to eliminate entire species of weeds. (Singularity Hub)
Most people don’t realize just how efficient modern agriculture is, and there’s no reason to think it’s going to stop anytime soon. Thanks to “fertilizer, irrigation, genetic modification, and Norman Borlaug, we’ve managed to [greatly] decrease the amount of land required to feed a person.” We’ve also hit—or if not than almost hit—peak farmland usage globally. As yields continue improving the most marginal land will revert to grazing or simply be left to rewild. (@HumanProgress)
Weird & Wonderful
There’s a massive library on an open world in Minecraft (anyone can join) filled with “uncensored articles, journals, and information from all over the world.” It’s accessible everywhere, and allows people in places with low levels of freedom to access texts they otherwise couldn’t. Based. (@Rainmaker1973) (80LV)
Not exactly a news flash, but it seems that despite some debate evidence is mounting that humans really did play the leading role in the extinction of ice age megafauna such as mammoths, woolly rhinos, and ground sloths. All the more reason we should bring them back in my opinion, which a company called Colossal Biosciences is already working to do. (Aarhus University) (Colossal Biosciences)
Photos & Videos
Check out this beautiful timelapse of a Falcon 9 launch by spaceflight photographer John Kraus. (@johnkrausphotos)
Despite being the biggest animals to ever live on our planet, blue whales are actually difficult to study, tending to stay far offshore. For the first time we’ve finally caught on film a blue whale mother feeding her calf. Oddly enough, the calves don’t attach to their mothers when feeding. Instead, the mother “releases oily milk into the water, which is then swallowed by the calf.” (NewScientist)
Comet 13P/Olbers is on its closest approach to the Sun in its 69 year orbit. It’s faint—you’ll need a telescope to see it—but the interesting thing about the comet right now is it’s tail. Constant buffeting by our currently very active star has bent the tail in interesting and beautiful ways. (@ExploreCosmos_)
Epic shot from hurricane hunting aircraft as it flies into the eye of Hurricane Beryl to collect data and help with forecasting. (@NOAA_HurrHunter)
Feast your eyes on the most perfect trilobite fossil ever found, preserving all segments of both the hard shell and underbelly limbs and tissue. We have a volcanic eruption 510 million years ago to thank for this one, perfectly preserving the ancient arthropod for us to study. (New Atlas)
Recommendations & Reviews
Today, I’d like to take a moment to highlight a white paper on fusion energy that I had the privilege of co-authoring. If you’re curious about what fusion is, the science behind it, and how research and investment are driving fusion energy towards commercialization, you can download it for free here.
The Fusion Energy Revolution Table of Contents:
· A Brief History of Energy
· Fossil Fuels, Renewables, and Fission Fall Short. Fusion is the Solution.
· Fusion Energy is Clean, Unlimited, Safe, High-Output, and Politically Neutral
· The Current Landscape of Fusion Development
· Fusion Energy as an Investment Case
That’s all for today, but Techno-Optimist will be back in your inbox a fortnight from now. Thank you all for reading — and until next time, keep your eyes on the horizon.
-Owen
I enjoy these newsletters and appreciate the fusion white paper. Having spent four decades in or near fusion research, it seems to me that there is a very substantial omission from that paper. DT Fusion systems that are successful but not yet able to provide economically competitive power are prodigious neutron sources. Among other options, they can breed thorium into U235, which can be used to power fission reactors. One moderately sized fusion system could fuel 25 of those reactors. This would be a natural intermediate step toward "pure fusion". The pure dreamers seem uninterested, however.
I used ElevenLabs. Well... tried to. Their interface is much worse than play.ht or Speechify, and voice selection is poorer.