Health tech, space, energy, research and science breakthroughs.
ESA’s Hera spacecraft has completed the first of two major braking burns, a 93-minute firing of three thrusters to slow its approach to Didymos and Dimorphos. The European Space Agency confirmed the next day that the maneuver stayed within expected parameters. A second burn is scheduled for October 22; together, the operations should bring Hera … Read more
A Columbia University-led team has found that water touching microplastic surfaces can spontaneously produce hydroxyl radicals—highly reactive oxygen species capable of damaging proteins and cell membranes. The peer-reviewed paper challenges the assumption that plastic debris is chemically inert and harms health mainly through physical accumulation. The experiments were laboratory-only, not in living organisms. Core finding: … Read more
Google researchers have shown that AI-designed binding proteins can be aimed at large, complex targets for a fraction of the usual compute bill — provided you shrink the target first. Their trick, which they call epitope excision, keeps only the patch of the protein where binding will occur instead of folding the whole molecule. With … Read more
Google Quantum AI has dragged one of quantum computing’s least glamorous chores off the whiteboard and onto real silicon. In a paper published in Science on 15 October, the company’s researchers report that a technique called magic state cultivation works on the Willow processor, cutting state-preparation errors by roughly 40-fold and lifting logical fidelity for … Read more
Blending road pavement with recycled plastic packaging waste has long tempted engineers with a double promise: a destination for hard-to-recycle material and longer-lasting highways. Fresh laboratory work from a Penn State-led research team now adds evidence to that case — while also flagging a measurement problem that could complicate how such pavements are judged in … Read more
Science Corp has reported that the first patient with Stargardt disease to receive its PRIMA retinal implant has recovered a fragment of functional reading: the man, implanted in May at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia, picked out a single letter during his first rehabilitation session and read a full word during his second. The company … Read more
Intero Biosystems, a Denver startup spun out of the University of Michigan, has won the Startup Battlefield competition at Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco, taking home the $100,000 prize and the cup. It beat 19 rivals in a 20-strong finalist field drawn from the Battlefield 200, pitching a technology that could reshape how pharmaceutical companies … Read more
Researchers at Stanford Medicine have used a computational screening pipeline to identify a naturally occurring peptide that curbs appetite in animals without the digestive side effects that make semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — difficult for some patients to tolerate. The molecule, a 12-amino-acid peptide dubbed BRP, was described in a … Read more
NASA and France’s CNES space agency have delivered something hydrologists have wanted for decades: a direct, month-by-month accounting of how much water the world’s rivers gain and lose over a full year. During its first observation cycle, running from October 2023 to September 2024, the SWOT satellite logged a swing of roughly 313 cubic kilometers … Read more
MIT engineers have developed a breathable hydrogel that embeds tiny air channels inside its polymer network, increasing oxygen permeability by roughly ten times while preserving the material’s softness. The advance, published in Nature in July 2026, could extend the wear time of medical patches, sensors and bandages that currently suffocate the skin after a few … Read more