You don’t have to be terribly smart to be a pessimist… Optimists are busy building the future.
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
Spotlight of the week
is a legendary investor turned venture founder known for marrying finance with creativity. He built O’Shaughnessy Asset Management into a Wall Street powerhouse before its acquisition, and now leads O’Shaughnessy Ventures (OSV), a creative investment firm backing bold ideas across tech, science, art, and more. Jim’s approach centers on optimism and long-range vision: he views optimism as an invaluable edge in long-term investing and champions imaginative thinking over dystopian pessimism. In that spirit, OSV’s publishing arm Infinite Books recently launched White Mirror, an anthology of science fiction that challenges dystopian narratives with a hopeful, future-focused perspective. Jim also distills timeless wisdom in his Two Thoughts series – sharing daily paired insights from great minds – which culminated in a book collecting 500 insights from 250 influential minds. Through these projects and his Infinite Loops podcast, O’Shaughnessy has emerged as an inspiring thinker who celebrates creativity, encourages long-term thinking, and believes in humanity’s capacity for progress. This Week in Technology
AI + Ultrasound = A $500 Brain Hack?
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman just led a $12 million investment into Sanmai, a startup building an AI-powered ultrasound headset for brain therapy. The device aims to non-invasively stimulate targeted brain regions using low-intensity focused ultrasound, potentially treating mental health conditions like depression in a home setting. Think of it as a neural gadget that could beam ultrasound into your brain to modulate neural circuits, without surgery or implants. Hoffman was so impressed he joined Sanmai’s board. The goal is a device costing under $500 – far cheaper and more accessible than current brain stimulation tech. If successful, this could open a new frontier for at-home treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. It’s still early (years of R&D ahead), but the backing of a prominent tech billionaire underscores the excitement around “brain tech” that merges AI (to guide and personalize the stimulation) with medical hardware. Hoffman tweeted that Sanmai is “actualizing a better, healthier future via AI,” capturing the big promise of using tech to directly improve our brain health.
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Stratospheric Internet Platforms (HAPS) on the Rise
In connectivity news, startup Sceye received a strategic investment from Japan’s SoftBank Corp to scale up its High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS). Sceye builds solar-powered airships that float in the stratosphere (about ~20 km up) to deliver broadband, IoT connectivity, and Earth observation. With SoftBank’s backing, they plan to launch pre-commercial HAPS services in Japan by 2026, aiming to supplement satellites and ground networks with these floating cell towers. The concept: HAPS can stay aloft for months, cover a wide area like a satellite but with lower latency, and be redeployed as needed – useful for rural coverage or disaster response. SoftBank has been interested in HAPS for years (it previously partnered on Project Loon balloons and its own “Hawk 30” solar drone). By investing in Sceye, SoftBank moves closer to making stratospheric internet a reality in Asia. It’s part of a broader trend of bridging space and telecom, whether through low-orbit satellites or high-altitude vehicles. Soon, your data might bounce not just through cell towers or space satellites, but via airships cruising at the edge of space.
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Eco-friendly Robots
University of Bristol researchers found a delightfully low-tech way to build eco-friendly soft robots – by using rice paper (the kind in spring rolls) instead of silicone. The edible, nontoxic rice paper can be 3D molded into soft robotic grippers or structures, then biodegrade completely within a month. It performs as well as traditional polymers for prototyping but leaves zero waste (and is safe if, say, a biomedical robot were left inside a body). It’s a reminder that innovation in robotics isn’t only about AI and circuits – sometimes it’s about the materials, and a sustainable twist can come from the kitchen pantry.
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This Week in Health
Scorpion Venom vs. Breast Cancer
In an amazing biotech twist, scientists found a molecule in Amazonian scorpion venom that can kill certain breast cancer cells. The compound, dubbed BamazScplp1, triggers cancer cell death (necrosis) similarly to chemo drugs, but without harming healthy cells in lab tests. To produce it in quantity, researchers didn’t milk a bunch of scorpions – they used heterologous expression, splicing the venom’s gene into yeast, which then churns out the cancer-fighting protein. This work, presented at a FAPESP conference, is still early-stage, but it highlights how nature’s toxins can be repurposed as medicine. By synthesizing venom proteins, the team also discovered a snake-venom protein that promotes blood vessel growth. It’s a frontier of bio-inspired therapy: using creatures’ chemical arsenal to develop new treatments.
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Rejuvenating Aging Hearts with a Biomaterial
A breakthrough in Nature Materials suggests some heart aging may be reversible. Scientists from NUS engineered a hybrid scaffold called DECIPHER – part natural heart tissue (extracellular matrix), part synthetic hydrogel – to mimic the environment around heart cells. By tuning this scaffold’s stiffness and biochemical signals, they tested how old heart cells react. The result: when aged heart cells were placed on a “young” matrix (with youthful biochemical cues), they behaved more youthfully, reactivating thousands of genes associated with healthy function. Even if the material was stiff (like an old heart), the young chemical environment pushed cells to a healthier state. Conversely, young cells on an “aged” matrix started showing aging signs. This shows that age-related cell decline isn’t one-way – change the cell’s environment and you can change the cell. It’s not science fiction: the team literally saw old cells “de-age” at the genetic level. The hope is to develop therapies that target the heart’s support matrix to restore youthful signals, potentially improving cardiac function in the elderly.
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DeepMind’s AlphaGenome Cracks Gene Regulation
Google’s DeepMind isn’t just about games – it’s tackling the code of life. Meet AlphaGenome, a new AI model that takes a 1 million DNA-letter sequence and predicts a huge range of genomic functions and how mutations will affect them. While AlphaFold solved protein folding, AlphaGenome focuses on the other 98% of the genome (the non-coding regions that regulate genes.). It can predict things like: where genes start/stop and how much they’re expressed in different tissues, which DNA regions are open or closed, where proteins bind, and more. Essentially it’s a general model of how DNA sequence translates into gene activity. Trained on massive datasets (ENCODE, etc.), it uses a hybrid of convolutional and transformer neural networks to handle long sequences at single-base resolution. Previous models had to choose between looking at huge sequences in low detail or small sequences in high detail – AlphaGenome manages both long-range context and base-level precision.
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That rockets can be made to happen, once minds emerge that can imagine them, is a nontrivial feature of our universe.
— Sara Imari Walker “From Two Thoughts”
Computers were bicycles for the mind; AI is a rocket ship for the mind.
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
This Week in Science
Time Has Three Dimensions?
A new physics theory out of University of Alaska proposes that time is actually 3-dimensional, while space emerges as a secondary effect. In this mind-bending framework, time isn’t a single line but has three perpendicular axes (like a 3D grid of time). We experience one axis as the forward flow of time, but there could be two additional “time directions” corresponding to alternate outcomes and path. The researcher, Gunther Kletetschka, developed math showing this 3D time + 3D space model can reproduce known particle physics results. Importantly, his model still preserves cause-and-effect (no bizarre time loops where effects precede causes) by structuring how the dimensions interact. Why do this? It might help unify quantum mechanics and gravity – the holy grail of physics. If extreme conditions (like the early universe or high-energy collisions) unveil these extra time dimensions, it could explain fundamental puzzles and predict new particles. It’s highly speculative, but as the article notes, mainstream physics has long treated time as one-dimensional; this bold idea says maybe that was too “flat” a view of reality.
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Living Materials for Mars (and Earth)
Engineers are developing “living building materials” – a concept that could turn science fiction into reality for building on Mars. In one study, Texas A&M researchers created a synthetic lichen (a symbiosis of fungus and cyanobacteria) that can grow on Martian soil simulant using just sunlight, air, and dust. The cyanobacteria harvest atmospheric CO₂ and nitrogen, producing oxygen and nutrients for the fungus, which in turn binds Martian regolith (dust) into solid material. Essentially, it’s self-growing bricks – add some Martian dirt and this living system glues it into a structure with no human intervention. This could revolutionize extraterrestrial construction, enabling habitats to build themselves using local resources. Read More. Meanwhile on Earth, scientists at ETH Zurich developed a photosynthetic hydrogel that hosts living cyanobacteria to capture CO₂ from the air. This 3D-printable gel grows like a plant and mineralizes CO₂ into solid form, acting as a carbon sink. Impressively, over 400 days it absorbed significant CO₂, much of it locked away as stable carbonate mineral. They even built architectural installations with it in Venice and Milan, showing how future buildings could literally inhale CO₂ and harden over time. Read More. Whether for fighting climate change here or building colonies on Mars, living materials offer a thrilling glimpse at sustainable tech.
Rubin Observatory’s First Cosmic Haul
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory hasn’t even officially begun its survey, but its first test images are already record-breaking. In just 10 hours of “first light” observations, Rubin’s 8.4-meter telescope – equipped with the world’s largest digital camera – captured millions of galaxies and thousands of asteroids. For context, that’s as many galaxies in one night as previous surveys might catalog in months. In fact, among 2104 newfound asteroids were 7 near-Earth asteroids that had been invisible until now. Rubin will scan the entire sky repeatedly over 10 years, creating an ultra-HD time-lapse of the universe. Scientists expect it to gather more data than all previous optical telescopes combined – enough to finally probe mysteries like dark matter, dark energy, transient phenomena (supernovae, etc.), and potentially things we’ve never seen before. The first images (unveiled in Washington D.C.) are a teaser of this “cosmic treasure chest” to come. Rubin’s ability to see faint objects and motion will vastly improve asteroid tracking (it may find millions of new asteroids in its first years), helping planetary defense. It’s a shining “first look” for a facility that promises to revolutionize astronomy by essentially “scanning the sky on turbo mode” for the next decade.
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France’s VORTEX Spaceplane – Plane Meets Shuttle
At the Paris Air Show, Dassault Aviation unveiled VORTEX, a reusable orbital spaceplane concept that “lands like a jet, operates like a shuttle.” The craft (Véhicule Orbital Réutilisable de Transport et d’Exploration) would launch atop a rocket, ferry people or cargo to orbit, then glide back to land on a normal runway. In other words, no disposable capsules or splashdowns – it’s fully reusable. Backed by €30M from the French military, VORTEX is France’s bid for independent access to space and versatile mission capabilities. The plan has four phases: a 4 m prototype for re-entry tests, a two-thirds-scale “smart” free-flyer, a full-scale cargo vehicle, and finally a full-scale manned spaceplane ~12 m long. Why a spaceplane? Unlike traditional capsules, VORTEX would be maneuverable in orbit and able to service satellites, inspect orbital assets, remove debris, and even perform defensive space operations. Dassault draws on a long lineage of spaceplane R&D – from the Hermes mini-shuttle in the 1980sRead More to Europe’s IXV reentry vehicle. VORTEX is their shot at “the next generation of space aeronautics,” marrying aviation and space tech. With rapid reusability and runway landings, it aims to lower costs and broaden what’s possible in orbit.
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Editors Choice of the Week
Can focused prayer and intention influence reality? A fascinating convergence of mysticism and modern physics suggests maybe so. In “The Physics of Prayer,” author
explores how quantum mechanics blurs the line between observer and outcome. Ultimately, the piece argues that “consciousness is participatory, not passive. We are co-creators of the world we experience”. Prayer, in this view, isn’t about magic words – it’s about aligning our mind, heart, and spirit to tap into deeper layers of reality.Read More
Did you see…? that reel from …. or that concert or that movie…? no…? well entrepreneur
introduces the concept of YAMA – “You’re Always Missing Out,” a liberating antidote to FOMO. It acknowledges our finite time and energy, allowing us to choose from curiosity instead of fear. As Le Cunff writes, “Missing out isn’t the problem we thought it was.”Did you eat…? a credit card of plastic a week? Yes, by one estimate humans unwittingly ingest or inhale ~5 grams of microplastics each week – about the weight of a credit card. A Nautilus deep-dive examines what all these microplastics might be doing to our health.
Did you hear…? about the meaning behind hope?
delved into hope as more than wishful thinking – it’s a psychological drive that can shape our reality. When we maintain hope, we’re more resilient and creative in problem-solving, almost turning hope into a self-fulfilling prophecy.Did you read…? the meaning of life from school of life – well it’s for everyone. Meaningful lives can be lived by anyone through everyday pursuits of love, kindness, curiosity, and creativity. By “writing our own story” – viewing our life as a narrative – we can overcome setbacks and see even hardships as part of a meaningful journey.
Closing the loop with yet another awesome quote from Jim what a time to be alive. What a time to be young. It’s so insanely cool to me.
xxx
FusionNote
Because the future is brighter when we build it together, I’d love your help—whether that’s sharing stories, suggesting breakthroughs, or simply adding a drop of your own creativity to our cosmic cauldron. Let’s fuse knowledge, wonder, and hope into something beautiful.
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