How to Build a Power Grid on the Moon
“The system we intend to build on the moon, dubbed LunaGrid, will consist of a network of solar-power generating stations, or nodes, connected by transmission cables. This grid is designed to deliver power where it’s needed via a fleet of robotic rovers. Astrobotic plans to demonstrate the first-generation system as early as 2026, with the first full LunaGrid becoming operational by 2028 at the lunar south pole.” (IEEE Spectrum)
Lab-Grown Meat Approved to Sell for the First Time in the U.S.
“The Agriculture Department approved the production and sale of laboratory-grown meat for the first time on Wednesday, clearing the way for two California companies to sell chicken produced from animal cells. It will likely be years before shoppers can buy lab-produced meat in grocery stores. But the government’s decision will eventually allow the sale of lab-produced meat across state lines after passing federal inspections.” (New York Times)
It Looks Like We’re in a Golden Age for Medicine
“The pandemic has exhausted many Americans of medicine, and it has become common to process the last few years as a saga of defeat and failure. And yet these brutal years might also represent an unprecedented watershed of medical innovation. Beyond Crispr and Covid vaccines, there are countless potential applications of mRNA tools for other diseases; a new frontier for immunotherapy and next-generation cancer treatment; a whole new world of weight-loss drugs; new insights and drug-development pathways to chase with the help of machine learning; and vaccines heralded as game-changing for some of the world’s most intractable infectious diseases.” (New York Times)
- Virgin Galactic sets first commercial space tourism flight for this month
- Full ignition for ESA’s reusable rocket engine
- Harvard’s new computer science teacher is a chatbot
- Hackers Leak Over 100,000 ChatGPT Credentials on the Dark Web
- Ford patent describes drone moonroof pad allowing take off and landing from moving vehicles
Crypto News
- More than 50% of Fortune 100 companies report blockchain initiatives
- SEC Approves First Leveraged Bitcoin Futures ETF
- New York City Spa Gets Heat for Heating with Bitcoin Mining
- ‘Adversarial’ search for neural basis of consciousness yields first results
- Researcher 3D prints world’s smallest wineglass with new method
- We Live in the Rarest Type of Planetary System
- GPS alternative taps cosmic rays for underground or underwater navigation
- Fish farm waste can be used to produce biogas
- Sequoia makes first defense tech investment in Mach Industries for $5.7M
- Planeteer launches new pre-seed and seed-stage climate fund
- Ford, SK On secure loan commitment of up to $9.2B from DOE for construction of 3 battery plants
- Voice cloning AI startup ElevenLabs nabs $19M
- Tagworks Pharmaceuticals, a startup developing click-release therapeutics, raised a $65M Series A
- Apex, a spacecraft mass manufacturing company, raised a $16M Series A
- Kanvas Biosciences, a microbiome mapping technology company, raised a $12M pre-Series A
- Laser-based nuclear fusion startup Focused Energy raised an $11M Series A
- Swave Photonics, a Leuven-based startup focused on holographic AR, raised a $3.3M seed extension
- Autonomous and electric truck startup Fernride raised a $31M Series A
Military AI’s Next Frontier: Your Work Computer / The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet / AI Killed Venture Capital / How to Kill a Decentralised Network / Meet Pause AI, the Protest Group Campaigning Against Human Extinction / A defense of embryo selection / The world’s most efficient energy network is at an Antarctic research base / The Challenges Of Making Fuel From Air / When Dying Patients Want Unproven Drugs