Quantum Pill Weekly #074 - Innovations in biomedical engineering, Quantum Physics breakthroughs, Latest news in AI.
Empowering minds, one Pill at a time.
💊Bioprinted blood vessels
💡Description: Researchers at Stanford have developed groundbreaking software that can swiftly design ultra-complex vascular networks for a variety of tissue shapes, up to 230 times faster than previous methods.
💭Mental Meal: Their workflow integrates multiple algorithms to slice 3D models into manageable parts, avoid vessel overlap, and guarantee full connectivity, enabling the design and 3D printing of realistic blood vessel trees.
💊 Midjourney’s first AI video model
💡Description: Midjourney has launched V1, its first AI‑powered image‑to‑video tool, allowing users to animate still images into 5–20 second clips with customizable motion prompts.
💭Mental Meal: The feature is available on web and Discord, starts at $10/month with video processing roughly equal to image generation cost, and positions Midjourney amid a competitive landscape alongside tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 3.
💊 Big concerns regarding AI use
💡Description: Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab used EEG brain scans to track cognitive engagement among three groups writing essays: one using ChatGPT, one using Google Search, and one unaided. The ChatGPT group showed significantly weaker neural connectivity, decreased linguistic effort, and poorer performance overall.
💭Mental Meal: Recently, many studies have been conducted on the impact of AI use for humans. They almost unanimously highlight slower cognitive function, with potential for a decline in long-term cognitive capabilities. AI isn’t inherently good or bad. Just as we exercise physically, we need to make sure we continue to do the same for our brains.
💊 Meta’s Oakley smart glasses
💡Description: Meta has unveiled the new Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses showcasing a 12 MP camera capable of 3K video capture, eight hours of typical battery life, a 48‑hour charging case, open‑ear speakers, integrated Meta AI, and IPX4 water resistance.
💭Mental Meal: These glasses signal a pivot toward performance-centric smart wearables, which not only elevates wearable tech but also shows how form-factor collaborations can drive both adoption and innovation in AI-enhanced daily gear.
💊 New self-replicating microbe
💡Description: Scientists have uncovered a newly identified microbe, provisionally named Sukunaarchaeum, with an astonishingly minimal genome of just 189 protein‑coding genes, focused almost entirely on self‑replication, suggesting it’s parasitic and possibly evolving into a virus.
💭Mental Meal: This microbe was found inside dinoflagellates and lacks essential cellular machinery, indicating it steals resources from its host. Researchers discovered similar genomes in global ocean samples, revealing a broader lineage of these enigmatic organisms.
💊 First 3D-printed workout from recycled waste
💡Description: A team has created a small, fully functional robot using recycled 3D-printed parts, demonstrating sustainability in robotics. They collected outdated or misprinted parts, shredded them, and turned them into new PLA filament to build fresh robot components.
💭Mental Meal: This process not only cuts plastic waste but also lowers costs: by recycling old prints, they maintain a circular production cycle and reduce dependency on new materials. It shows that even in high-tech fields, ecological responsibility can be integrated seamlessly.
💊 Honda enters the space race
💡Description: Honda’s R&D division successfully launched and recovered a 6.3 m, 2 800‑lb reusable rocket from Taiki Town, Hokkaido, reaching approximately 271 m (890 ft) altitude and landing within 37 cm of the target.
💭Mental Meal: The experimental suborbital hop lasted 56.6 seconds and leveraged tech from Honda’s automotive expertise, marking its first such test as it pursues a 2029 suborbital flight goal.
💊 Adobe Project Indigo
💡Description: Adobe Labs has launched Project Indigo, a free computational photography camera app designed for recent iPhones. The app captures bursts of up to 32 frames and intelligently merges them to deliver DSLR‑like photos with high dynamic range and natural tones.
💭Mental Meal: Project Indigo marks a bold step forward in mobile photography, demonstrating how advanced computational techniques can elevate smartphone imaging to rival dedicated cameras.
💊 Quantum vacuum breakthrough
💡Description: Scientists at the University of Oxford have successfully used 3D simulations to demonstrate that intense laser pulses can stimulate the quantum vacuum, the famously “empty” space filled with fleeting virtual particles, to emit real light through a process called vacuum four‑wave mixing.
💭Mental Meal: With future confirmation, scientists might use vacuum manipulation to hunt hypothetical particles (like axions, millicharged candidates), deepen our understanding of dark energy, and develop advanced laser technologies with unprecedented control over light itself.
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