Sunday Special: Eggs, skulls, and bone-healing guns

Welcome back, Superhuman. What a time to be alive. Patients suffering from kidney disease had to wait for years before finding a suitable organ compatible with their blood type. Now, scientists claim to have created a "universal" kidney that could save thousands of lives a year. Meanwhile, a skull found in China could potentially change everything we know about our origins as a species.

SCIENCE SUNDAY

The most interesting scientific discoveries and breakthroughs this week

1. Scientists create human eggs in a lab dish: In a world-first, researchers claim to have created viable human eggs from ordinary skin cells. The novel process forces skin cells to divide their 46 chromosomes in half, mimicking natural egg development and potentially paving the path for fertilization. While only 9% of the lab-created embryos reached early development stages, and we’re still years away from successful fertilization, this proof-of-concept could eventually usher in a new era of reproductive medicine.

2. Enzyme-made universal kidney tested for the first time: Scientists have performed the first-ever human transplant of a "universal" kidney converted from blood type A to the type O. The team snipped away blood-type markers from donor kidneys using special enzymes, potentially eliminating compatibility barriers that force type-O patients to wait years longer for suitable organs. If the technology clears clinical trials, it could dramatically cut average wait times for type-O patients, potentially saving thousands of lives each year.

3. Skull discovery may "totally change" the story of human evolution: Scientists believe a million-year-old skull, discovered in China's Hubei Province, suggests Homo sapiens may have begun emerging over 1M years ago — pushing our species' origin back by a staggering 400,000 years. The discovery could finally resolve what scientists call the "Muddle in the Middle", a glaring gap in our understanding of human evolution between 300,000 and a million years ago.

4. Potential biosignatures from Saturn’s moon hint at signs of life: Scientists claim to have found new organic compounds in the icy geysers erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, strengthening the case for its potential habitability. The discovery makes the tiny moon one of our solar system's most promising candidates for discovering the first extraterrestrial life forms, intriguing scientists enough that both ESA and China are planning future landing missions to investigate further.

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NEW TECH

Our favorite new tech gadgets this week

1. Meadow: A companion device that works with your main phone number. It has full LTE service, runs essentials like Uber, Spotify, and Strava, and is half the size of a smartphone.

2. Taya: An intelligent necklace that doubles as a private AI journal. It records and transcribes conversations, attaches time and location, and organizes everything into searchable notes.

3. GoPro Max 2: The company’s toughest 360 action camera yet. It has field-replaceable lenses, is built for harsh environments, and captures everything around you so you can pick the best angle later in the app.

4. Eight Sleep Pod Pillow Cover: A cooling and heating layer for your pillow. It adjusts from 55°F to 110°F and adapts to your sleep stages — all without changing the feel of your pillow.

SOCIAL SIGNALS

What’s trending in tech on socials this week

🧲 Blind Ball: A fascinating video, currently going viral on Reddit, appears to show visually-impaired fans following a football match using special magnetic technology.

🌀Descent into Darkness: Ever wonder what it would feel like if you fell into a black hole? A video by NASA just resurfaced on social media and may have an answer.

⏱️ Blast from the Past: Reddit is buzzing over a video of the original Coca-Cola vending machine from the 1950s. The machine appears to still be functional and has blown up on social media.

👁️ Space Stare: The first-ever image of another multi-planet solar system is doing massive numbers on social media. Redditors can’t help but feel uneasy at the fact that it looks eerily similar to an eye.

🔥 Battery Blaze: Lithium batteries are dangerously susceptible to catching fire. To combat this, engineers at an aerospace firm built a creative safety system to contain dangerous lithium battery thermal events.

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ONLY GOOD NEWS

A healthy dose of optimism to kickstart your week

Quick Fix: Korean researchers claim to have developed a "bone-healing gun" that works sort of like a handheld 3D printer for fracture repair. The device shoots out biodegradable polymer scaffolds directly onto broken bones at a safe 60°C, forming custom-fit frameworks that support natural bone regeneration. The breakthrough could potentially make personalized bone repair accessible to more patients without the high costs or delays of traditional methods.

Perfect Match: The "needle in the haystack" behind Parkinson's disease may have finally been caught on camera for the first time. Scientists have finally visualized the microscopic protein clusters suspected of triggering Parkinson's disease using a new imaging technique called ASA-PD. While not an immediate path to treatment, this discovery creates an "atlas of protein changes" that marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the world’s fastest-growing neurological disease.

Dual Strike: Scientists say they’ve created a nanovaccine that delivers a dual attack against cancer by targeting both regular tumor cells and the elusive cancer stem cells responsible for recurrence. The immunotherapy uses tiny particles for precise immune system delivery, showing promising results in laboratory models of breast cancer, melanoma, and highly invasive tumors. It offers new hope for the one-in-eight women who develop breast cancer and countless others fighting difficult-to-treat malignancies.

SUNDAY SCIENCE TRIVIA

The life of Dr. Jane Goodall

Don’t Cheat: You can read more on her life and work here.

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Until next time,

Zain and the Superhuman AI team