Sunday Special: Scientists edit human embryo DNA in world-first

Welcome back, Superhuman. Imagine having breakfast in New York and making it to London just in time for lunch. Those days may be closer than you think, as the world's fastest business jet just marked a new speed record. Meanwhile, a major advance in gene editing could potentially make inherited genetic diseases a relic of the past.

1. Gene-editing breakthrough could fix inherited diseases before birth: Columbia University scientists have successfully edited human embryo DNA using base editing (a more precise successor to CRISPR) without the catastrophic chromosomal damage seen in earlier experiments. The technique is still years from clinical use, but the results bring scientists closer to a future where hereditary diseases can be corrected at the embryo stage, before a pregnancy even begins. Dive deeper into the breakthrough here.

2. The world's fastest business jet crosses the Atlantic in six hours: Bombardier's Global 8000 set its first speed record this week, completing a transatlantic flight from Montreal to Nice in just over six hours. The aircraft tops out at Mach 0.95 and can fly 8,000 nautical miles nonstop, connecting virtually any two cities on Earth without refueling. For anyone who travels long distances for work, it signals a new benchmark for what business aviation can deliver. Watch it break the sound barrier last year here.

3. The terrifying mystery predator that hunted early birds finally gets a name: For years, scientists found clusters of crushed bird bones at a Chinese fossil site and couldn't explain them. Now, they’ve discovered a massive, four-winged dinosaur that glided between trees and may have been responsible. One of the largest microraptors ever found, its discovery sheds light on how modern birds evolved to outlast their dinosaur relatives. Check it out here.

4. Brazil's experimental spinal cord treatment is causing a huge frenzy: Polylaminin, a placenta-derived protein that may promote nerve regeneration after spinal cord injuries, has become a phenomenon in Brazil, drawing international patients, celebrity endorsements, and dozens of lawsuits demanding access. In an early study, one patient made a full recovery after a broken neck. But Phase 1 safety trials are still underway, and scientists warn that the excitement may be premature. Read more about it here.

Registration for Vercel Ship 26 is now open.

Vercel is the agentic infrastructure teams use to build and ship the apps and agents you use every day. Ship 26 is where the teams actually doing it show you how.

Expect talks from builders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Notion, Flora, and more. See how teams are shipping agents to production with model routing, durable workflows, and secure tool calling. Walk away with practical ideas you can put to work right away.

Join us in New York on June 30 or in a city near you.

1. ShapeScale: This fitness device combines a 3D body scanner with a weighing scale, allowing you to monitor fat loss and muscle gain more effectively. 

2. Dune: A context-aware keypad for Mac that adapts to what you’re doing. It reads which app is in the foreground and automatically changes what its keys do based on what you’re working on. Starts shipping next month.

3. Lissome R1: A countertop dishwasher built for small kitchens, RVs, and studios. It uses sweeping jet arms and AI water sensing to adjust pressure, spray direction, and detergent based on how dirty the dishes are.

4. Sony Reon Pocket Pro: A wearable cooler and heater that sits under your collar and uses a thermoelectric plate on the back of your neck instead of blowing air like a fan.

🎥 Go Big or Go Home: Germany is home to an IMAX screen so big that one Reddit user suggests using a Boeing 737 jet as a useful unit of measurement. See the massive screen here.

☀ Redemption Arc: For over 800 years, people thought that a Japanese poet’s description of the sky turning red for three nights was just dramatic symbolism. Scientists have now linked his account to one of the most extreme space weather events in recorded history — one that could have crippled modern civilization.

📝 Cheat Code: Just when teachers thought they had adapted to AI, a crafty new gadget has just popped up, and it’s got social media users wishing they could do high school all over again. See it in action here.

🏑 Pixels to Pucks: A developer trained an AI agent entirely in a virtual environment, then deployed it onto a real air hockey table. The result is a robot with lightning-fast reflexes that's giving skilled human players a serious run for their money.

🌌 Cosmic Clusters: If black holes were invisible, you'd still know they were there. This new simulation by NASA reveals how their immense gravity bends surrounding light, turning the universe itself into a warped mirror.

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Smart Jab: Cambridge scientists have successfully tested a vaccine designed entirely by AI in humans for the first time. Rather than targeting a single virus strain, the vaccine uses an AI-designed "super-antigen" that covers multiple coronaviruses simultaneously, including strains in bats that haven't yet jumped to humans. In 39 volunteers, it proved safe and generated broad immune responses. The goal is to create a vaccine that stays effective as viruses evolve, ending the cycle of constant updates.

Cancer Crusher: Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat. Once it spreads, most patients have months to live. A new pill called daraxonrasib just changed that calculation. In a 500-patient phase 3 trial, it nearly doubled survival compared to chemotherapy in patients whose disease had already spread, with one oncologist describing the results as "unprecedented." The drug still has ways to go, but it's already changing how researchers think about one of medicine's hardest problems.

Beat It: MIT scientists have developed a wearable ultrasound pacemaker that regulates heart rhythm from outside the body without the need for surgery. The device uses focused sound waves to trigger genetically modified heart cells to beat on cue. In lab tests, it corrected dangerous arrhythmias in rats rapidly. The two-step approach requires a one-time gene therapy injection, potentially replacing implanted pacemakers for millions of patients.

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Until next time,

Zain, Faiq, and the Superhuman AI team