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DTN 140: First Nuclear Startup Achieves Criticality

Plus: A new New Glenn, edible robots, lab grown brains, Britney Spears' guide to semiconductor physics, Trump takes aim at state AI laws, a propellantless space propulsion system, and more.

21 Nov 2025 — 6 min read

Valar Atomics Says It’s the First Nuclear Startup to Achieve Criticality

“Startup Valar Atomics said on Monday that it achieved criticality—an essential nuclear milestone—with the help of one of the country’s top nuclear laboratories. The El Segundo, California-based startup, which last week announced it had secured a $130 million funding round with backing from Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, claims that it is the first nuclear startup to create a critical fission reaction.

It’s also, more specifically, the first company in a special Department of Energy pilot program aiming to get at least three startups to criticality by July 4 of next year to announce it had achieved this reaction. The pilot program, which was formed following an executive order President Donald Trump signed in May, has upended US regulation of nuclear startups, allowing companies to reach new milestones like criticality at a rapid pace.” – WIRED

“If you were to eat this robot, the actuator and valve would taste a little bit sweet, since they have glycerol in them, with a texture like gummy candy.” Image via IEEE Spectrum / EPFL

“In a new paper, researchers from Dario Floreano’s Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL in Switzerland have demonstrated ingestible versions of both of batteries and actuators, resulting in…the first entirely ingestible robot capable of controlled actuation. The concept is that you could infuse something like a swine flu vaccine into the robot. Because it’s cheap to manufacture, safe to deploy, completely biodegradable, and wiggly, it could potentially serve as an effective strategy for targeted mass delivery to the kind of animals that nobody wants to get close to, such as wild boars.” (via IEEE Spectrum)