Weekly Piece of Future #97
From Brain Stimulation Coils to Body Heat Conversion and Fusion Energy Breakthroughs
Hey there, fellow future-addicts!
Welcome to this week's edition of Rushing Robotics, where we bring you the most groundbreaking developments from the world of science, technology, and innovation. In this issue, we dive into astonishing advances in brain stimulation, fusion energy, robotics, and more! From ultra-small coils for targeted brain treatments to futuristic flight technology and the rise of AI-driven tools, the future is unfolding before our eyes. Ready to be amazed? Let’s dive in!
🤯 Mind-Blowing
This week, we’re highlighting some of the most jaw-dropping innovations—from ultra-small coils for brain stimulation to AI-enhanced robotic dexterity. Dive into revolutionary ideas that could reshape the way we think about health, technology, and energy.
🔊 Industry Insights & Updates
In this section, we cover the latest developments from across industries, showcasing groundbreaking research, game-changing products, and transformative advancements that are shaping the future. Whether it’s humanoid robots mastering new skills or companies taking major steps in sustainability, stay informed on the top trends.
🧬 BioTech
The world of biotechnology is evolving at an unprecedented pace. This week, we highlight cutting-edge breakthroughs in biomolecular research, stem cell technology, and the future of animal healthcare, offering a glimpse into the transformative potential of science in medicine and beyond.
💡 Products/Tools of the Week
From AI-powered creation tools to social media automation, these new products are designed to boost productivity, creativity, and innovation. Discover the latest tools that are helping businesses and creators stay ahead of the curve.
🎥 Video Section
In this week’s video section, explore live demos and exciting visual content, including robotics in action. Check out the Figure: MagicBot’s Walking Revolution, a demonstration of its breakthrough walking technology; Sanctuary AI’s In-hand Manipulation, showcasing dexterous robotic hands in action; and Clone: Torso 2 with Actuated Abdomen, which highlights the latest in humanoid robotics. These live demos give you a front-row seat to the future!
The innovations featured here are just the tip of the iceberg, with even more breakthroughs on the horizon—by sharing these exciting updates, you’ll be helping others get excited about the future and the possibilities it holds. Stay hungry, stay futurish!
🤯 Mind-Blowing
Scientists have developed an ultra-small coil for targeted brain stimulation, which, when activated, generates a precise magnetic field to stimulate specific regions of the brain. The human brain, composed of billions of neurons, is the control center for our thoughts, emotions, and actions. When this complex system malfunctions, it can result in serious neurological disorders. To address these challenges, scientists have been investigating new ways to treat these conditions, with brain stimulation emerging as a promising approach. However, existing methods often face challenges, including invasiveness and imprecise targeting. A team of researchers from Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea has now developed a revolutionary technology that uses a tiny, implantable coil to precisely stimulate targeted brain areas. This innovation offers a safer, more effective treatment option with fewer side effects compared to current methods.
Novatron Fusion Group, a Sweden-based company, has launched the TauEB project to make fusion energy commercially viable by advancing plasma confinement technology. The TauEB project aims to revolutionize the containment of plasma and energy in fusion reactors by integrating three groundbreaking confinement techniques: Magnetic Confinement, Ambipolar Plugging, and Ponderomotive Confinement. Novatron emphasizes that fusion power plants must achieve stability and ensure plasma confinement with minimal leakage to succeed. With funding from the EIC Pathfinder Program, the TauEB project is working to improve plasma confinement time (τE) by over a hundred times, marking a critical breakthrough toward commercially viable fusion energy.
Nvidia has introduced a new compact supercomputer designed to boost generative AI capabilities, now available at a significantly lower price. The Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, is aimed at a broad range of users, from commercial developers to students and hobbyists. With a reduced price of $249, down from $499, the kit delivers remarkable improvements in performance. It offers up to 1.7 times the inference performance for generative AI tasks compared to its predecessor. Additionally, the kit features a 70% increase in performance, achieving 67 INT8 TOPS, and a memory bandwidth boost to 102 GB/s—enhancements that will support various AI applications, including chatbots, visual AI agents, and robotics.
Sanctuary AI, a company focused on creating human-like intelligence for general-purpose robots, has achieved a major technological breakthrough. The company’s dexterous robotic hands, with 21 degrees of freedom (DOF), can now perform in-hand manipulation, expanding the range of industrial fine manipulation tasks. This success is made possible by Sanctuary’s unique miniaturized hydraulic valves. These valves offer a higher power density than traditional cable and electromechanical systems, granting the robot exceptional speed, strength, control, and durability, including heat management and impact resistance. Demonstrating in-hand manipulation with a scalable, reliable system is a crucial milestone in advancing general-purpose robots.
Scientists have developed an ultra-thin, flexible film that can convert body heat into electrical energy. This breakthrough marks a significant advancement in wearable technology and could change how we power wearable devices. The technology also holds potential for cooling electronic chips, enhancing the efficiency of smartphones and computers. The flexible thermoelectric devices can be worn directly on the skin, harnessing the temperature difference between the human body and surrounding air to generate electricity.
🔊 Industry Insights & Updates
The Figure 01 humanoid robot is fully controlled by neural networks and learned how to make coffee using a coffee machine in just ten hours. Over the course of a year, the robot also mastered dynamic walking. Figure, a California-based company focused on building general-purpose humanoid robots, secured $70 million in Series A funding in May 2023. Founded by Brett Adcock, the company will use the funding to advance the development of the Figure 01, enhance its AI data pipeline for autonomous operations, and work towards commercialization.
A new device has been developed that can produce ammonia, a key fertilizer ingredient, directly from the air using wind energy. Researchers from Stanford University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia have shown how the device works by using wind energy to draw air through a mesh, facilitating ammonia production. This new method could potentially replace the energy-intensive, century-old process, which uses high pressure and temperatures to produce ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen. The new approach is more sustainable, requiring less energy and producing fewer carbon emissions. It efficiently generates ammonia from the air at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, with the ammonia being concentrated enough to use in hydroponic fertilizers. This innovation could allow farmers to produce fertilizer on-site, improving both efficiency and sustainability.
A Chinese aerospace company has successfully tested a detonation ramjet engine for the first time, aiming to revolutionize air travel by enabling flights between Beijing and New York in just two hours. Known as the Jindouyun, or JinDou400, the engine was developed by Space Transportation, also known as Lingkong Tianxing Technology. According to a Chinese media outlet, the engine reached speeds of 3,106 mph (5,000 km/h), or Mach 4, at altitudes exceeding 65,600 feet (12.4 miles). Unlike traditional jet or rocket engines, this innovative design generates thrust through shock waves produced by detonation combustion, eliminating the need for compressors or turbine parts. This results in a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, reduced costs, and a simplified engine structure.
IT researchers have unlocked a new method for controlling magnetic states in materials, paving the way for advancements in memory chip innovation. Using a terahertz laser—a light source oscillating at over a trillion cycles per second—they induced a durable magnetic phase in an antiferromagnetic material. The breakthrough was achieved by synchronizing the laser’s frequency with the material’s atomic vibrations, allowing the team to manipulate atomic spins and create a magnetic state previously beyond reach. Antiferromagnetic materials are distinguished by their alternating spins that cancel each other, rendering them resistant to external magnetic fields. This makes them strong contenders for robust and reliable data storage solutions.
🧬 BioTech
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have unveiled Boltz-1, an innovative open-source AI model designed to accelerate the understanding of biomolecular structures. This is a key component in the development of new drugs and therapies. Created by researchers at the MIT Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, Boltz-1 represents a significant breakthrough as the first fully open-source model that matches the advanced capabilities of Google’s AlphaFold3. Boltz-1 aims to democratize access to cutting-edge structural biology tools, providing researchers worldwide with the opportunity to collaborate and advance scientific discovery.
For the first time, researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have successfully created human stem cell models that incorporate a functional notochord. This essential tissue plays a key role in early embryonic development, directing the formation of the spine and nervous system. This breakthrough provides unprecedented insight into the early stages of human development and the underlying causes of spinal and neurological disorders. Previously, generating this critical tissue in a lab setting had been challenging, hindering our understanding of these processes. With a working model now available, researchers can explore developmental conditions that were previously difficult to study.
Seoul-based bio startup Artblood is revolutionizing veterinary medicine and biomedical research by specializing in the production of cell-based artificial blood. The company recently reached a groundbreaking achievement: the world’s first successful in vitro production of dog blood. This milestone was made possible through collaboration with Hanyang University and Gyeongsang National University. The lab-grown dog blood offers a reliable and ethical solution for veterinary transfusions, addressing a critical need in animal healthcare. In-vitro blood production, a cutting-edge field in biomedical research, involves cultivating blood cells outside a living organism. While traditionally focused on human applications, this innovative approach is now making significant strides in veterinary science with the successful cultivation of dog red blood cells in the lab.
💡Products/tools of the week
Google AI Studio provides a dynamic platform for AI creation, offering intuitive tools for image generation, code assistance, speech transcription, and text processing. With pre-built templates and integrated AI models, it serves a wide audience, from tech-savvy developers to non-technical users. The platform’s strengths include a friendly interface, a comprehensive toolset, scalable solutions, and collaborative capabilities, making it a reliable choice for efficiently executing AI projects in multiple sectors.
Analytics Model is a sophisticated software tool that gathers, processes, and interprets data to deliver meaningful insights and accurate predictions. Utilizing advanced mathematical and statistical techniques, it efficiently handles large datasets from various sources. This enables businesses to make informed decisions, enhance operational efficiency, and predict future trends. Widely used in fields such as business analysis, marketing, and data science, Analytics Model helps organizations gain a competitive edge, streamline processes, and craft data-driven strategies.
SiteRails revolutionizes social media management with AI that converts website content into personalized posts optimized for multiple platforms, including Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Threads, and Bluesky. It analyzes websites to generate engaging content, adjusts posts for platform-specific needs, and schedules them strategically to maximize engagement. Users can create branded templates and manage all content, drafts, and performance analytics through a single dashboard. With features like bulk scheduling and visual analytics, SiteRails offers a cost-effective, flexible solution for content-rich businesses aiming to simplify their social media operations and boost efficiency.
AirCaption simplifies transcription by utilizing AI to produce accurate captions, transcripts, and subtitles for audio and video files. The tool supports multiple languages and includes offline functionality to ensure user privacy. With editable transcriptions powered by advanced AI, it caters to content creators, professionals, and businesses seeking to save time, enhance accessibility, and deliver higher-quality media to global audiences.
