Sunday Special: A rare peek into an exploding star

Welcome back, Superhuman. Astronomers just got a sneak-peek into the heart of an exploding star, and they claim it looks “nothing like anyone has ever seen before.” And a new breakthrough could make your household gadgets operate battery-free.

SCIENCE SUNDAY

The most interesting scientific discoveries and breakthroughs this week

1. Scientists get rare peek inside of an exploding star: In a world-first, scientists have caught a dying star during its explosive finale — shedding not just its outer hydrogen and helium layers, but stripping down to its dense silicon and sulfur core during a supernova explosion. The rare glimpse confirms long-held theories about how massive stars are structured in layers — something researchers had never seen before. You can watch a reconstructed animation of the event here.

2. Scientists crack the code on solar cells that work indoors: The breakthrough uses engineered perovskite materials to harvest ambient light, converting 37.6% of office lighting into usable electricity and potentially making batteries obsolete for small gadgets. After fixing microscopic "traps" in the crystal structure, the cells retained 92% of their performance over 100 days of testing. For IoT devices, keyboards, sensors, and alarms that constantly drain batteries, this could possibly mean never changing a battery again.

3. Newly discovered dinosaur species has a sail on its back: A paleontology PhD student has discovered a new dinosaur species with a distinctive sail on its back, hidden in plain sight for nearly 50 years. Jeremy Lockwood spotted unusual spinal structures in 125-million-year-old fossils originally excavated in the 1970s, realizing they belonged to an entirely different species than previously thought. The newly named Istiorachis macarthurae (meaning "sail spine") was likely used for visual signaling or sexual display.

4. New AI model can accurately predict solar weather: IBM and NASA have dropped Surya, an open-source AI model that can predict solar weather with 16% more accuracy than existing systems. The model, trained on over 9 years of high-res solar images, can predict solar flares up to 24 hours in advance, while running on less powerful hardware. For power systems, having an early warning system could be the difference between staying online and suffering another Québec-style blackout. You can try it out for yourself here.

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NEW TECH

Our favorite new tech gadgets this week

1. Google Pixel 10: The latest version of the company’s flagship phone, powered by the new Tensor G5 chip and Gemini AI integration. It features ‘Magic Cue’ for proactive insights and ‘Gemini Live’ for hands-free visual and voice assistance.

2. Agari AI Smart Cooker: A countertop device that combines low-temp cooking with automatic searing. It scans your food with AI, cooks under pressure for sous-vide quality 3x faster, then sears at 550°F in under 60 seconds.

3. Flowtica Scribe: An AI-powered recorder built inside a working pen. It records, transcribes, and creates searchable summaries while you write on paper.

4. Withings BPM Pro 2: A next-gen blood pressure monitor that tracks your symptoms, medication routine, and lifestyle with BPx3 technology, using the insights to deliver personalized health tips.

SOCIAL SIGNALS

What’s trending in tech on socials this week

😸 Whisker Express: A man in China has built a fully-functional subway system for his cats. Redditors are amazed at how extensive the system is. Here’s the bizarre footage.

🌀Reality Warper: Someone dropped their cellphone with the camera on. The cellphone, falling at 150mph, recorded a video that looks like it was “bending reality itself”.

🌊 Wheels on Water: A video showing a man gliding through the water on what appears to be a "water bicycle” is going viral on Reddit.

📱 Blast From The Past: Footage of the Nokia 3108, released in 2003, which came packed with a handwriting input feature, is reminding social media users of how innovative Nokia was during the early 2000s.

🚚 Reverse Ruse: A video of someone engineering their pickup truck and trailer to run in a way where it appears it’s going in reverse has racked up hundreds of thousands of views on Reddit.

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ONLY GOOD NEWS

A healthy dose of optimism to kickstart your week

Cancer Killshot: Scientists claim to have developed an mRNA cancer vaccine that, in some cases, completely wiped out tumors in mice. It works by tricking the immune system into fighting cancer like it's battling a virus. It simply revs up immune responses so powerfully that T cells multiply and kill the cancer on their own. The results were dramatic when the vaccine was combined with common immunotherapy drugs, but it was effective in eliminating tumors as a solo treatment as well.

Skin in a Syringe: Swedish scientists say they’ve created a gel packed with live cells that can be injected into wounds or 3D-printed into skin grafts to help the body build functional skin instead of scar tissue. In mouse tests, the gel successfully grew blood vessels and produced the substances needed for new skin formation. For burn victims and anyone facing severe wounds, this could mean going through the healing process without the devastating scarring that comes from current skin transplant methods.

Voice Vault: Sarah Ezekiel lost her ability to speak at 34, leaving her children never knowing how their mother once sounded. Using a muffled eight-second clip from an old home video, researchers used technology by ElevenLabs to isolate her voice and fill in the gaps to restore her London accent and slight lisp. For the 80% of MND patients who lose their voice, this breakthrough in AI voice technology could mean preserving their identity and humanity in ways that were impossible a couple of years ago.

SUNDAY SCIENCE TRIVIA

Don’t Cheat: You can read more about the strange experiment here.

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Zain and the Superhuman AI team