Sunday Special: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine clears major human trial

Welcome back, Superhuman. China is closing in on America’s lead in reusable rocket technology. LandSpace is now only the third private company, after SpaceX and Blue Origin, to successfully land an orbital booster, potentially changing the economics of spaceflight. Meanwhile, a new experimental mRNA cancer vaccine has delivered highly encouraging results in a large-scale human trial.

In today’s edition:

1. Moderna’s breakthrough mRNA vaccine stops skin cancer from returning: Moderna and Merck announced that their experimental cancer vaccine helped high-risk melanoma patients stay cancer-free longer when paired with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda, in a large human trial. The vaccine takes a personalized approach to target each patient's specific tumor markers — a milestone moment for a field that started less than a decade ago, and could potentially usher in a wave of new cancer vaccines.

2. Another Chinese startup joins the reusable rocketry club: LandSpace has successfully recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket, making it only the third private firm after SpaceX and Blue Origin to pull off a leg-landed orbital booster recovery. The rocket can be reused up to 20 times, echoing SpaceX's Falcon 9 playbook. It's a real signal that China is closing the gap in reusable rocket tech, potentially making space launches genuinely affordable. Watch the breakthrough moment here.

3. A crocodile the size of a pickup truck once ruled South America: Fossils analyzed from Colombia reveal that the ‘Purussaurus neivensis’, a giant relative of modern caimans, stretched nearly 7 meters long and weighed 1,800 kilograms, making it the top predator of a Miocene-era wetland ecosystem. Bite marks on fossilized bones show it preyed on massive elephant-sized herbivores that roamed the region between 11 and 16 million years ago. Check out what the prehistoric monster may have looked like here.

4. China tests colossal, flying-wing jet that can carry 800 passengers: Chinese researchers have run wind-tunnel tests on a flying-wing jet concept with an 85-meter wingspan, 1.6 times wider than the iconic B2 stealth bomber. The blended-wing design fuses the fuselage and wings into one lifting body, promising better fuel efficiency on long hauls. Major hurdles still remain, like windowless cabins and emergency evacuations, but if it clears them, it could reshape how long-haul flights are built.

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1. Ruka Studio TD-1: A vertical record player in machined aluminum that mounts on the wall or a floor stand, and comes with mechanical knobs instead of an app or a touchscreen.

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🦁 In the Wind: After directing The Lion King, Jon Favreau decided to bring Simba’s iconic story to life — literally. Now, he has teamed up with Nat Geo to follow and film a lion cub for four years in a thrilling coming-of-age documentary, as it faces rivals, hyenas, and exile. Check out the trailer, which has amassed nearly 6 million views, here.

🐙 First Disguise: Cuttlefish are masters of camouflage, capable of transforming their appearance in seconds. This adorable clip captures a baby cuttlefish seemingly practicing that remarkable superpower for the first time, and is doing big numbers on Reddit. (61k likes)

📰 Print is Back: A new startup called Offprint has come up with a unique idea to take the stories from your forgotten “save for later” tab and package them into a personalized print edition. The unique concept has generated over 2.6 million views online.

💀 Inside Out: This eerie image marks one of medicine’s greatest breakthroughs: the first X-ray of a human body part. The subject was inventor Wilhelm Röntgen’s wife, whose reaction to becoming the first person to see inside her own living body was suitably chilling. (24k likes)

📱 Scroll Control: “Brain rot” might be more literal than we thought. A recent study suggests that endless doomscrolling may drastically weaken the cognitive systems that help us control our impulses, creating an unsettling feedback loop. (1.6M views)

🔒 Lock Breaker: This solid aluminum padlock looks practically indestructible. But add a few drops of liquid gallium, and something bizarre happens to the metal from the inside out.

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Quick Scan: Scientists at Lurie Children’s Hospital have unveiled a new scanning technique that uses light to detect early signs of necrotizing enterocolitis, a disease that affects up to 10% of the tiniest preemies. The scan works because premature babies' skin is thin enough for light to pass through, revealing changes in the intestines before symptoms show. Researchers now want to test whether it can catch the disease even earlier, potentially giving doctors a critical head start on treatment.

Pup Power: Your pet pup may know more than it lets on. A University of Vienna study used machine learning to analyze brain scans of 12 dogs and found the first solid evidence that dogs can distinguish between human facial emotions. Happy strangers activated brain regions tied to reward and higher thinking, while dogs' brains could also tell fear apart from anger and sadness. The finding could reshape how we think about communicating with our pets.

Inside Job: Scientists have used AI to redesign ordinary antibodies into tiny fragments called intrabodies, engineered with the exact electrical charge needed to survive and function inside human cells. The antibodies give scientists new tools to target the disease-causing proteins behind Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and motor neurone disease. With millions of people affected by these conditions, and no cures currently available, it's a genuinely new angle of attack.

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Until next time,

Zain, Faiq, and the Superhuman AI team