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2025-11-26 00:17:34

From restoring movement and speech in people with paralysis to fighting depression, brain implants have fundamentally changed lives.

But inserting implants, however small or nimble, requires risky open-brain surgery. Pain, healing time, and potential infections aside, the risk limits the technology to only a handful of people.

Now, scientists at MIT Media Lab and collaborators hope to bring brain implants to the masses. They’ve created a tiny electronic chip powered by near-infrared light that can generate small electrical zaps. After linking with a type of immune cell to form bio-electronic hybrid chips, a single injection into the veins of mice shuttled the devices into their brains—no surgery required.

It sounds like science fiction, but the injected chips easily navigated the brain’s delicate and elaborate vessels to zero in on an inflamed site, where the microchip reliably delivered electrical pulses on demand. The chips happily cohabitated with surrounding neurons without changing the cells’ health or behavior.

“Our cell-electronics hybrid fuses the versatility of electronics with the biological transport and biochemical sensing prowess of living cells,” said study author Deblina Sarkar in a press release.

The strategy, which the researchers call circulatronics, could radically change brain stimulation. Targeted electrical zaps have shown early promise for treatment of a variety of brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, depression, and brain tumors.

And because the devices can be engineered to dissolve after a certain amount of time, they could potentially collect neural signals from healthy people, providing an unprecedented look into our brain’s inner workings.

A Long Road

Today’s brain implants are relatively bulky and struggle to reach deep into the brain. Most use batteries, either directly inside the device or in a battery pack affixed to the skull.

An ideal implant would be self-powered, controllable, and small enough to move through the smallest nooks and crannies of the brain and its vessels. A previous device, about the size of a grain of rice, used magnetic energy for power and generated electrical zaps in rodents while they actively roamed around. But because the device was controlled by magnetic fields, the setup required large and expensive hardware. Magnetic particles also tend to move in straight lines. This makes them terrible at navigating our brains serpentine vessels.

Near-infrared light offers an alternative to magnetic control. The wavelength easily penetrates the skull and brain with minimal scattering, suggesting it could control devices deep in the brain. Earlier this month, a team engineered an infrared-powered implant smaller than a grain of salt that could record from or stimulate neurons in mice. Although the device still required minimal surgery to implant, it reliably captured brain signals for a year, roughly half a mouse’s lifespan.

Infrared light has long been on Sarkar’s radar for an injectable brain implant. For six years, her team worked to solve multiple difficult roadblocks, eventually landing on circulatronics.

Tag Team

The team first had to make a chip so small it could easily flow through blood vessels without damaging them. The team turned to photovoltaic components that convert light into electricity, similar to the way solar panels work.

The chips are made of organic semiconductors that are biocompatible and flexible. This makes them suitable for navigation of our squishy bodies. Each one is like a tiny, light-powered battery sandwich, with a positive and negative metallic layer and an organic polymer inner filling.

Roughly 10 microns in diameter and smaller than a cell, these chips can be manufactured en masse with the same technology used to make computer chips. In tests with molds simulating the brain, the chips reliably generated electrical currents.

Then there was the problem of getting the chips to their target. The brain is protected by a wall of cells called the blood-brain barrier. The barrier is extremely selective of what molecules, proteins, and other materials can enter. Electronics, no matter how small, don’t make the cut. Some studies have tried to deliberately pry open the blood-brain barrier, but even a brief opening invites pathogens and other dangerous molecules inside.

The team’s solution was a cellular Trojan horse. When the brain experiences inflammation, the blood-brain barrier admits immune cells called monocytes. These cells roam the bloodstream equipped with chemical beacons to hunt down inflammatory sites. In theory, microchips could catch a ride on these cells through the blood-brain barrier without forcing it open.

To link monocytes to their tiny chip, the team used a Nobel Prize-winning technology called click chemistry. Think of it as Velcro. The researchers altered the surfaces of the monocytes in such a way that they formed Velcro-like “loops.” Then they added chemical “hooks” to the chips. When these components met, they clicked into place—but were still easily detachable—to form the final implant.

“The living cells camouflage the electronics so that they aren’t attacked by the body’s immune system, and they can travel seamlessly through the bloodstream. This also enables them to squeeze through the intact blood-brain barrier without the need to invasively open it,” said Sarkar.

Roaming Biohybrid Bots

To test their hybrid implants, the team tagged them with glow-in-the-dark trackers and injected them into the veins of mice. The critters had been given a chemical that triggered inflammation at a specific site deep in their brains.

Within 72 hours, the hybrid chips self-implanted into the inflamed area, whereas electronics lacking a cellular partner were barred from the brain. On average, around 14,000 hybrid implants latched onto the brain.

The devices worked as expected. After receiving pulses of near-infrared light for 20 minutes, neurons in the implanted region spiked with electrical activity at a magnitude similar to spikes trigged by current brain implants. Neighboring neurons were undisturbed.

The hybrid implants didn’t seem to affect the brain’s activity. Animals with the implant roamed around as usual. They showed no sign of changes to mood, memory, or other cognitive functions, happily sipping water and maintaining body weight for six months. Despite circulating in the blood after injection, the hybrid implants had no observable impact on other organs.

Although this study focused on brain inflammation, a similar strategy could be used to shuttle brain stimulation chips into stroke sites to aid rehabilitation. The system is relatively plug-and-play. Swapping monocytes for other cell types, such as T cells or neural stem cells, could allow them to act like cellular taxis for a wide range of other diseases.

The team hopes to kick off clinical trials of the technology within three years through MIT spinoff company, Cahira Technologies.

“This is a platform technology and may be employed to treat multiple brain diseases and mental illnesses,” said Sarkar. “Also, this technology is not just confined to the brain but could also be extended to other parts of the body in future.”

The post These Brain Implants Are Smaller Than Cells and Can Be Injected Into Veins appeared first on SingularityHub.

2025-11-25 08:43:40

Mosquitos are perhaps one of the most universally loathed creatures. Not only are their bites itchy and annoying, they carry diseases that kill nearly 600,000 people worldwide—making them the deadliest animal.

Yet they’ve thrived for millions of years, partly due to the female’s efficient “stinger.” Called a proboscis, the organ’s stiffness allows it to penetrate the skin and into the bloodstream with high precision, but its tiny size and structure don’t tip off the host until it’s too late.

These advantages caught Changhong Cao’s eye at McGill University. Inspired by mosquitos, the bioengineer and his team developed a high-resolution 3D printer using a mosquito proboscis as the nozzle. Called necroprinting, the system prints lines half the width of commercially available printers. In tests, it reliably completed multiple complex 3D structures in bioink, including honeycombs, a maple leaf, and a waffle-like housing encapsulating cancer and red blood cells.

“Repurposing dispensing structures from uninfected, laboratory grown, deceased organisms represents a new avenue for engineering applications, which not only reduces the cost of high-resolution dispense tip production but also minimizes environmental impact,” wrote the authors.

Tips From Evolution

Engineers have long tapped Mother Nature for inspiration.

Early successes relied on mimicry, including self-cleaning surfaces inspired by lotus leaves or Velcro’s famous hook-and-loop structure derived from burdock burrs. More recent innovations combine soft, flexible biomaterials and living cells with plastics to form biohybrid robots capable of sensing, healing, and adapting to environments.

Another trend, perhaps more macabre, takes advantage of the complexity of animal anatomy. Mud eels, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and beetle legs have been used to create biohybrid devices to monitor medical conditions and the environment. Necrobots repurpose spider legs into microgrippers that allow the legs to expand when activated and reverse to their natural state in a claw-like motion. The grippers can grasp randomly shaped objects up to 130 percent of their own weight, offering a low-cost, efficient, and biodegradable alternative to conventional grippers.

While biohybrid systems have mainly focused on robotics and sensing, Cao’s team had a different idea: Using animal materials in the manufacturing process, rather than the final product.

Nozzles were a favorable choice. For one, they’re widely used in 3D printing and in labs. Similar liquid-dispensing tips are currently made of nonbiodegradable materials—such as metals and plastics—with the US alone churning through over four billion annually.

They’re also costly, especially for high-resolution tips. The finest commercially available metal printer tips have an inner diameter of around 35 micrometers—roughly the size of a single human skin cell. A hefty price tag of over $80 per tip limits the technology’s use.

Natural Selection

Cao’s team started their search for a natural printer head with a vast survey of animal appendages.

Among these were scorpion stingers, snake fangs, harpoons from cone snails, and claws from a variety of deadly bugs. Each had a unique shape, length, and inner diameter optimized for the animal—but not necessarily for a printer nozzle.

An ideal nozzle should be straight like a needle, with relatively high stiffness to keep its shape as fluid flows. A small inner diameter is also crucial for high printing resolution, with a length that’s easy to manipulate but not too long, as this leads to pressure buildup and failure.

In their search, the female mosquito proboscis stood out. Its biopolymer core helps maintain a straight structure, similar to a microneedle, as liquids flow through. The organ also boasts a tiny diameter of just 20 micrometers. It’s smaller than commercially available tips and has a stiffness similar to common plastics.

The mosquito proboscis previously inspired microneedles used in biopsies to diagnose cancer with minimal trauma to nearby tissues. Those needles use human-made materials. The new study used the actual organ itself from lab-farmed mosquitos into their 3D printing setup.

A Sustainable Printer

To harvest each proboscis, the team bathed frozen, lab-raised female mosquitoes in alcohol to sterilize them before removing the organ. They then designed a custom adapter to connect the proboscis to a metal tip attached to a mechanical extruder, which regulates the flow of fluids.

Resin seals the gap between the commercial and biological dispense tips to prevent leakage. The custom 3D bioprinter has a vertical arm that lifts the nozzle up and down and a horizontally moving “stage” at the bottom that acts as the printing canvas.

In tests, the team found the necroprinter could generally handle commercial inks used for bioprinting, although the proboscis tore if the liquid ran through too quickly. Similar to a tiny straw, the system also failed if the ink clogged at the bottom and ruptured that end. Balancing the speed of ink released from the nozzle and the speed of nozzle movement took calibration.

Imbalance of those forces generated a pressure buildup, “ultimately leading to either gushing of ink or catastrophic rupture of the mosquito proboscis,” the team wrote.

But once the parameters were dialed in, the necroprinter performed accurately and predictably. It readily printed lines roughly 20 micrometers in width, outperforming state-of-the-art nozzles. It also managed to precisely print more complex shapes such as honeycombs and maple leaves.

The microscopic structures surpassed the resolution capabilities of standard metal and plastic dispense tips, wrote the authors.

A third demo used a bioink containing cancer or red blood cells. The necroprinter generated structures laden with cells, which remained alive and healthy. Finally, the printhead showed promise for high-resolution drug delivery. Loaded with hydrogel, it deposited the material into pig skin at extremely low volumes that mimicked therapeutic delivery.

Compared to engineered 3D printheads, a mosquito proboscis is highly consistent in inner diameter and wall thickness. It’s also very affordable. According to the team, it costs just two cents to raise a single mosquito, and assembling a necroprinting dispense tip is less than a dollar.

However, because the tips contain biological tissue they may not be as long-lasting as plastic components. Initial tests found they last for about nine days on the counter and at least a year stored in a freezer. The nozzles also operate in temperatures comfortable for mosquitoes (roughly 20 to 30 degrees Celsius or 70 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit), but extreme shifts can cause catastrophic failure. The team is now mapping temperature boundaries.

Despite potential roadblocks, the system shows the promise of integrating biological material into advanced manufacturing.

The post Super Precise 3D Printer Uses a Mosquito’s Needle-Like Mouth as a Nozzle appeared first on SingularityHub.

2025-11-22 23:00:00

The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through November 22) appeared first on SingularityHub.

2025-11-22 02:24:34

The global investment frenzy around AI has seen companies valued at trillions of dollars and eye-watering projections of how it will boost economic productivity.

But in recent weeks the mood has begun to shift. Investors and CEOs are now openly questioning whether the enormous costs of building and running AI systems can really be justified by future revenues.

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, has spoken of “irrationality” in AI’s growth, while others have said some projects are proving to be more complex and expensive than expected.

Meanwhile, global stock markets have declined, with tech shares taking a particular hit, and the value of cryptocurrencies has dipped as investors appear increasingly nervous.

So how should we view the health of the AI sector?

Well, bubbles in technology are not new. There have been great rises and great falls in the dot-com world, and surges in popularity for certain tech platforms (during Covid for example) which have then flattened out.

Each of these technological shifts was real, but they became bubbles when excitement about their potential ran far ahead of companies’ ability to turn popularity into lasting profits.

The surge in AI enthusiasm has a similar feel to it. Today’s systems are genuinely impressive, and it’s easy to imagine them generating significant economic value. The bigger challenge comes with how much of that value companies can actually keep hold of.

Investors are assuming rapid and widespread AI adoption along with high-margin revenue. Yet the business models needed to deliver that outcome are still uncertain and often very expensive to operate.

This creates a familiar gap between what the technology could do in theory, and what firms can profitably deliver in practice. Previous booms show how quickly things wobble when those ideas don’t work out as planned.

AI may well reshape entire sectors, but if the dazzling potential doesn’t translate quickly into steady, profitable demand, the excitement can slip away surprisingly fast.

Fit to Burst?

Investment bubbles rarely deflate on their own. They are usually popped by outside forces, which often involve the US Federal Reserve (the US’s central bank) making moves to slow the economy by raising interest rates or limiting the supply of money, or a wider economic downturn suddenly draining confidence.

For much of the 20th century, these were the classic triggers that ended long stretches of rising markets.

But financial markets today are larger, more complex, and less tightly tied to any single lever such as interest rates. The current AI boom has unfolded despite the US keeping rates at their highest level in decades, suggesting that external pressures alone may not be enough to halt it.

Instead, this cycle is more likely to end from within. A disappointment at one of the big AI players—such as weaker than expected earnings at Nvidia or Intel—could puncture the sense that growth is guaranteed.

Alternatively, a mismatch between chip supply and demand could lead to falling prices. Or investors’ expectations could quickly shift if progress in training ever larger models begins to slow, or if new AI models offer only modest improvements.

Overall then, perhaps the most plausible end to this bubble is not a traditional external shock, but a realization that the underlying economics are no longer keeping up with the hype, prompting a sharp revaluation across related stocks.

Artificial Maturity

If the bubble did burst, the most visible shift would be a sharp correction in the valuations of chipmakers and the large cloud companies driving the current boom.

These firms have been priced as if AI demand will rise almost without limit. So any sign that the market is smaller or slower than expected would hit financial markets hard.

This kind of correction wouldn’t mean AI disappears, but it would almost certainly push the industry into a more cautious, less speculative phase.

The deepest consequence would be on investment. Goldman Sachs estimates that global spending on AI-related infrastructure could reach $4 trillion by 2030. In 2025 alone, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google’s owner Alphabet have poured almost $350 billion into data centers, hardware, and model development. If confidence faltered, much of this planned expansion could be scaled back or delayed.

That would ripple through the wider economy, slowing construction, dampening demand for specialized equipment, and dragging on growth at a time when inflation remains high.

But a bursting AI bubble would not erase the technology’s long-term importance. Instead, it would force a shift away from the “build it now, profits will follow” mindset which is driving much of the current exuberance.

Companies would focus more on practical uses that genuinely save money or raise productivity, rather than speculative bets on transformative breakthroughs. The sector would mature. But it would probably do so only after a painful period of adjustment for investors, suppliers and governments who have tied their growth expectations to an uninterrupted AI boom.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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2025-11-21 06:37:16

A host of startups are racing to achieve commercial fusion power. Zap Energy just drew a line in the sand after announcing its latest device recorded the highest-ever plasma pressures for its particular class of reactors.

Getting atoms to fuse typically requires you to subject an ionized gas, known as a plasma, to extreme heat and pressure. This normally involves massive rings of powerful magnets or enormous laser arrays. But Zap Energy is pursuing a novel approach known as a sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch configuration, which uses electrical currents to compress and heat the fuel.

The company says this should make its devices much smaller and cheaper than competitors, but the technology is considerably less mature than other leading fusion reactor designs. Now, though, the company has achieved plasma pressures of 1.6 gigapascals—roughly 10,000 times atmospheric pressure at sea level—in a machine only 12 feet long, a record for a sheared-flow Z-pinch system and a major step toward commercialization, according to the company.

“This was a major effort by the team that was successful because of a tightly coupled cycle of theoretical predictions, computational modeling, rapid build and test engineering, experimental validation, and measurement expertise,” Ben Levitt, vice president of research and development at Zap, said in a press release.

“With a smaller system we have the benefit of being able to move quickly, and achieving these results in systems that are a fraction of the size and cost of fusion devices of comparable performance is a big part of what makes this such a significant accomplishment.”

The idea behind Zap’s reactor design is surprisingly simple. Like most fusion systems, it uses special hydrogen isotopes as fuel. These are contained as gas in a thin tube at the reactor’s heart. The machine fires a massive electrical current through this gas, superheating and turning it into a plasma.

The electrical current also creates a powerful magnetic field that squeezes the plasma—a phenomenon known as a Z-pinch—and generates extremely high pressures in a small area. In theory, with careful design and high enough currents, this should generate the conditions for fusion.

The process is actually a little more complicated in reality. Zap’s reactor first uses electrical current to accelerate the plasma along the length of the tube, which helps stabilize it. When the plasma reaches the cone-shaped end of the tube, the magnetic field squeezes it into a Z-pinch.

Zap’s recent record-breaking pressure was thanks to a new design separating the processes of accelerating and compressing the plasma. Earlier devices used two electrodes to deliver current to the reactor. These achieved good levels of heating but didn’t allow the team to hit the high pressures they were targeting.

The new FuZE-3 system incorporates a third electrode, which makes it possible to deliver two power pulses rather than just one, spokesperson Andy Freeborn told TechCrunch. The company says this new setup allows them to independently control plasma acceleration and compression—key to achieving the latest record-breaking results.

Generating useful power from fusion reactions requires a careful balance between plasma density, temperature, and confinement time. Zap says their approach represents a middle-ground, aiming for relatively high pressures and reasonably long confinement times.

However, TechCrunch notes that Zap believes it will have to boost plasma pressures at least tenfold before it hits scientific breakeven—the point where energy created by the reaction outweighs the amount required to kickstart it.

Scientific breakeven doesn’t account for the energy use of supporting infrastructure or the ability to extract energy from the reaction, so even this is only a stepping stone towards commercial viability.

Nonetheless, Zap is powering ahead with work on a next-generation device, due to come online this winter even as FuZE-3 tests are ongoing. Given the huge uncertainties around the feasibility and timelines of different fusion approaches, the more people driving progress in this field the better.

The post Startup Zap Energy Just Set a Fusion Power Record With Its Latest Reactor appeared first on SingularityHub.

2025-11-19 07:48:32

Before the age of one, KJ Muldoon had already made medical history. He was the first person to receive a gene editing therapy specifically designed for him. KJ was born with a deadly gene mutation. His body couldn’t remove ammonia, a byproduct of eating protein. The illness eventually leads to serious brain injury. Roughly half of infants with the disease don’t survive, and those who do suffer severe debilitation and often require liver transplants.

The disease stems from a single mutated DNA letter that prevents the body from making a working enzyme. The clock ticking, teams of scientists developed a gene editor to replace the mutated letter with a normal version. Just weeks after three infusions, KJ was tolerating more protein in his diet and meeting developmental milestones.

Gene editors usually require years to test and perfect. KJ’s treatment took only six months.

Now, his doctors are looking to bring the “transformative” technology to others with rare inherited diseases. In an ambitious clinical trial, they will use base editing—an offshoot of CRISPR gene editing—to correct DNA mutations in rare metabolic diseases. After months of negotiation with the FDA, they have streamlined the convoluted and time-consuming process of gene therapy approval, saving precious time that many young patients don’t have.

A trial could start as early as 2026. At least five kids will receive customized gene editors to test each treatment’s safety and efficacy.

More than 30 million people in the US suffer from rare genetic diseases. Most are so unique that drug companies aren’t willing to invest years to develop gene therapies that only benefit a few, leaving these patients in limbo.

If successful, the trial could launch “a future of ‘interventional genetics’ in which such therapies are the standard of care,” wrote Drs. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Kiran Musunuru at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a recently published roadmap of the approach.

A Single Miracle

KJ’s mutation was in the CPS1 gene. A single swapped DNA letter shuts down the liver’s ability to make an enzyme that rids the body of ammonia. Symptoms include vomiting, lethargy, and brain damage. The condition is called urea cycle disorder, or UCD.

Scientists have long known about UCD. While there is a drug to manage symptoms, patients must adhere to a very low protein diet, which limits a baby’s normal development. Viral infections, common in young infants, can also spike ammonia to dangerous levels.

Before treatment, KJ was sequestered in a hospital room, unable to go home and meet his siblings. His symptoms were so severe that at one point his physician discussed palliative care with his heartbroken parents.

Mutations in seven known genes can cause UCD, making a one-size-fits-all gene therapy impossible. But doctors already knew KJ’s mutation—a single letter swap—making him a perfect candidate for base editing.

A version of CRISPR gene editing, base editing is especially good at swapping single DNA letters. Flipping one DNA letter out of the roughly three billion in the human genome seems inconsequential, but the change often alters the final form and function of a protein. In KJ’s case, it saved his life.

Base editing is already in clinical trials for people genetically prone to dangerously high cholesterol levels, with promising initial results. One trial is being led by Verve Therapeutics, which Musunuru co-founded. Other studies are using the tool to correct genetic faults in stem cells that lead to sickle cell disease.

These attempts all target a known mutation in a disease-causing gene shared by people with the same illness. KJ’s genetic typo was unique to him. Any life-saving base editor had to be made from scratch.

Over the next six months, a remarkable collaboration between doctors, academics, and biotech companies crafted KJ’s treatment. Base editors require two components: A guide RNA “bloodhound” that scans the genome for the defect and a protein that swaps out the faulty DNA letter. The team wrapped instructions for both inside tiny bubbles of fat, which once injected, made their way to the liver, the target organ for the therapy.

Within weeks KJ started feeling better. By roughly 10 months of age, he was discharged from the hospital and is now learning to take his firsts steps at home.

The treatment was tailored to KJ, but base editing is plug-and-play. Guide RNA can easily be reprogrammed to hunt down other single-letter DNA mutations that lead to rare diseases. At least in theory. The cost of development can be prohibitive, partly because of the time it takes to test each individual treatment. Regulatory hurdles further draw out the process.

One for All

KJ’s doctors are now pushing for an even faster timeline to treat kids with his condition.

In their proposed trial, five kids with genetic mutations across seven genes will receive a custom treatment similar to KJ’s. The only difference between the treatments will be the guide RNA, which will be tailored to each child’s particular mutation. Doctors will then follow the children’s health for 15 years.

The FDA usually requires safety data for each new gene therapy formulation. Here, however, they agreed on a single safety trial that covers all formulations based on the same principle. KJ’s safety data will also be taken into consideration. This “regulatory innovation” could massively accelerate development time, wrote the team.

KJ’s success story has brought others on board. In July, the Center for Pediatric CRISPR Cures launched at the University of California, Berkeley to pursue technologies for life-saving custom gene therapies in children.

Meanwhile, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, a US government agency, launched two new programs in mid-September to make custom gene therapies for people with rare genetic disorders a reality.

One of these, called THRIVE, is focused on building a platform to rapidly develop personalized gene editing tools. Another, GIVE, aims to bring high-quality cell and gene therapy manufacturing technologies to local clinics, slashing transportation costs. Both initiatives are now welcoming proposals.

“Our vision is to rapidly produce multiple kinds of genetic medicines so that breakthrough treatments are accessible, affordable, and ready to dose within a week of diagnosis,” GIVE program manager Dr. John Schiel said a press release.

Ahrens-Nicklas and Musunuru are confident personalized gene therapy can play a role in future healthcare. “With full-throated support from funding bodies…and from regulatory agencies such as the FDA, we are optimistic that in the coming years, our team and other teams will be able to take tangible steps toward making interventional genetics the standard of care for many diseases,” they wrote.

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