Sunday Special: SpaceX launches the most powerful rocket ever built

Welcome back, Superhuman. Better late than never. After multiple delays, the most powerful mega-rocket ever built finally thundered off the launchpad on Friday, in a blistering display of engineering, scientific ambition, and human ingenuity. Meanwhile, researchers have successfully hatched chicks from an artificial egg in the lab, bringing us closer to reviving a giant bird that has been extinct for over 500 years.

1. SpaceX successfully launches the most powerful rocket ever built: The V3 Starship, SpaceX's biggest, most powerful rocket yet, lifted off from Texas on Friday, carrying 20 mock Starlink satellites on its maiden test flight. At 407 feet tall, it's the version NASA is counting on to finally land astronauts on the moon. It's the 12th Starship test flight, and the first of the next-generation design SpaceX hopes will eventually reach Mars. You can watch the exact moment the historic rocket blasts off here.

2. New drug outperforms every weight loss drug on the market: Eli Lilly claims its experimental drug Retatrutide has successfully delivered 28% average body weight loss over 80 weeks in a new trial. These results, which are still pending regulatory approval, rival gastric bypass surgery and outperform both Wegovy and Zepbound. Though higher doses come with certain side effects, the drug could potentially help the 24M Americans with severe obesity drop weight while avoiding the operating table.

3. Scientists hit a major milestone in the journey to de-extinction: Colossal Biosciences has hatched 26 healthy chicks using a 3D-printed artificial egg platform designed to replicate the internal environment of a real egg. It’s a huge step in the startup’s quest to bring back the South Island Giant Moa, a massive, 12-foot bird that’s been extinct for over 500 years, and whose eggs are too large for any living surrogate to carry. The artificial egg potentially solves that problem. Watch it in action here.

4. This newly-discovered sea predator makes the T. rex look tame: Scientists have identified a new species of mosasaur, a massive marine reptile that ruled prehistoric oceans 80M years ago, and have named it Tylosaurus rex. Found in Texas, the 43-foot predator was twice the length of the largest great white shark, built with serrated teeth and jaw muscles designed for brute force. Fossil evidence suggests it regularly fought others of its own kind, making it one of the most violent predators ever discovered.

80% of CEOs say their role is at risk if they fail to deliver results by the end of 2026. That's what Dataiku/Harris Poll found when they surveyed 900 CEOs worldwide on AI risk, control, and accountability.

Read the global AI confessions report: CEO edition 2026 to learn why:

See what 900 CEOs revealed

1. Nuttii E-Coffee: A portable espresso maker designed for travel. It shows real-time brewing data on a built-in OLED display and heats water without an outlet.

2. Trettitre TTT Series: A wall-mounted audio system for vinyl, CDs, and cassettes. The players snap onto a magnetic rack, and the turntable has a self-balancing tonearm, built-in phono preamp, and ambient light panel.

3. Weber Grill: A live-fire grill for cooking over wood or charcoal. The built-in brasero, sear grate, firebrick cookbox, and vented tailgate help control heat across different cooking zones.

4. ZIEA One: A physical AI calendar that sits on your desk and plans your day for you. It can lock your phone and start a deep focus session with one tap while automatically building your schedule into a single view.

🌊 Eel Deal: The ocean’s depths are home to creatures so strange they look like they’re from another planet. In case you’re wondering what we’re talking about, this video of a transparent eel recoiling in the darkness should help clear things up.

🐦 Flap Trap: For centuries, humans have dreamed of flying like birds. Now a giant experimental “ornithopter” shows why the idea is both mesmerizing and wildly impractical.

⚛ Spot On: It sounds impossible, but here it is — scientists have isolated a single strontium atom and made it visible as a glowing point of light in this iconic photo that is resurfacing on social media.

🫧 Clean Sweep: What looks harmless in a kitchen sink becomes something far more intense under a microscope. A video of what dish soap does when it meets microscopic life up close is doing massive numbers on Reddit. See it here.

📷 Space Selfie: This image looks simple at first — until you realize it was taken on Mars. China’s Zhurong rover pulled off one of the cleverest space photo ops ever on the Red Planet.

On June 10 GitLab Transcend returns with new research, new announcements, and a new chapter. See what's next from GitLab with a preview of GitLab 19 and Duo Agent Platform advancements before the broader market does. 

Last year’s event drew thousands, but the stakes are even higher this year.

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Beat It: Scientists claim to have created the world's first lab-grown sinoatrial node, the tiny cluster of cells that controls your heartbeat. Built from human stem cells, the organoid generates real electrical impulses, responds correctly to heart rate medications, and mimics how the nervous system communicates with the heart. The breakthrough could potentially replace electronic pacemakers with biological ones, offering a living alternative to the devices currently implanted in millions of patients worldwide.

Patch Perfect: Scientists from the UChicago say they’ve built a skin-like computing patch that maps the electrical wavefront positions associated with fatal heart rhythms with 99.6% accuracy. Unlike conventional wearables, the device processes everything locally using neuromorphic computing, mimicking how the brain handles information. The team is now working to add wireless connectivity, moving toward a fully wearable system that senses, analyzes, and responds to health crises in real time.

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Zain, Faiq, and the Superhuman AI team