Sunday Special: Vera Rubin telescope reveals first photos

Welcome back, Superhuman. We just got our most detailed look at the cosmos thanks to the world’s largest digital camera at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, offering us a glimpse into the universe in a way we’d never seen before. Meanwhile, the “world’s narrowest car” just rolled out on the streets of Italy and has taken the internet by storm.

P.S. The Sunday Special is designed to help you discover the most interesting and important scientific and technological breakthroughs outside of AI. Our regular AI updates will resume as usual on Monday.

SCIENCE SUNDAY

The most interesting scientific discoveries and breakthroughs this week

1. The largest digital camera ever built drops its first shots of the cosmos: The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has finally unveiled its first test images, showing cosmic phenomena in unprecedented detail. In just 10 hours, the facility snapped millions of far-off galaxies, thousands of new asteroids, and spectacular cosmic structures. It’s slated to start its primary mission later this year — a 10-year time-lapse of the southern sky, generating more data than all previous optical telescopes combined. Check out the historic images here.

2. Scientists spot previously unknown structure in human cells: The organelle, named ‘the hemifusome’, sorts and manages vital cellular materials, and is transient, which means it appears and disappears as needed. Scientists suggest that problems with this structure may contribute to certain genetic conditions like the Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, which affects around 200,000 people in the US. The breakthrough could potentially lead to new treatment strategies for complex genetic disorders.

3. Controversial project to recreate the human genome gets the go-ahead: Scientists have kicked off a project to build sections of the human DNA molecule by molecule, eventually constructing entire chromosomes. They believe this could revolutionize treatment for incurable diseases and enable the development of disease-resistant cells. But critics warn that in the wrong hands, the technology could potentially be misused to create enhanced humans or build biological weapons.

4. Stamp-sized drive could potentially hold 3 years’ worth of music: In sandwiching a rare earth element called dysprosium between nitrogen atoms, scientists claim to have enabled stamp-sized hard drives to hold a staggering 3 terabytes of data per square centimeter. That's enough for 40,000 CDs worth of music or 3 years of non-stop listening. While the technology still needs super-cooling to -279°F to function, it could eventually overhaul how data centers handle our ever-growing digital footprint.

PRESENTED BY IBM

Delve into the dungeon with Granite

IBM Granite gets tested in an unexpected sandbox: tabletop roleplaying games.

The experiment? Use LLMs to handle dense rulebooks, improvise dynamic characters, and log interactions—without breaking immersion. The benefits:

• Parsing game logic and mechanics on the fly with AI

• Context-aware character generation with slight prompt tuning

• Lightweight data tracking for multi-session continuity

See how open models handle messy, unpredictable scenarios.

NEW TECH

Our favorite new tech gadgets this week

1. Twelve South AirFly SE: A compact Bluetooth transmitter that lets you connect your wireless headphones to any 3.5mm audio jack. Perfect for in-flight entertainment, gym equipment, or gaming devices.

2. Elemind: A headband designed to optimize your sleep. The company claims that the device helped 76% of participants in a study fall asleep significantly faster.

3. HOTO Air Pump Pro: A portable high-speed electric air pump that inflates a car tire from 0 to 35 psi in under 5 minutes. It packs four preset modes, a smart auto-stop for precise inflation, and a 12-lumen light for low visibility.

4. Elfin Fountain: A pumpless pet water fountain with smart motion sensing. It only runs when your pet is nearby and has no exposed wires, slashing the risk of electric shock.

SOCIAL SIGNALS

What’s trending in tech on socials this week

⏩️ Fast Forward: Through satellite images, Google Earth has captured the impact of humans on the Earth over 3 decades. Here’s a snapshot that reveals the stunning transformation.

🚗 Slim Ride: A video of what could very well be the narrowest car in the world has got Redditors talking.

💥 Blast from the Past: Reddit turned 20 years old this week. A screenshot of what the Reddit webpage looked like at 1 minute old just blew up on social media.

👶 Three’s Not a Crowd: In 2016, a groundbreaking medical procedure led to the birth of the world's first "three-parent baby". The healthy baby was born after doctors replaced his mother's disease-causing mitochondrial DNA with a donor's healthy version, preventing him from inheriting a fatal disorder.

🔎 Mystery Solved: A powerful 30-nanosecond signal detected last June had astronomers stumped. Now, they’ve found that the signal was coming from NASA's long-dead Relay 2 satellite — a space probe that hadn’t transmitted anything since 1967.

ONLY GOOD NEWS

A healthy dose of optimism to kickstart your week

One Shot Wonder: MIT scientists claim to have developed a new HIV vaccine approach that could immunize against the virus with just a single dose. The vaccine lingers in lymph nodes for nearly a month, allowing the body to produce more unique B cells than traditional approaches. The technique could potentially unlock the "holy grail in vaccine design": broadly neutralizing antibodies that work against multiple viral strains, and could even be used to create vaccines for future pandemic threats.

Pain Zapper: USC engineers say they’ve created a groundbreaking ultrasound-powered implant that could potentially relieve chronic pain without drugs. It uses AI to track brain signals, detect pain levels with 95% accuracy, and automatically adjust stimulation, delivering personalized relief in real time. For countless people dealing with chronic pain across the world, the implant could potentially offer a non-addictive alternative to opioids and eliminate the need for repeated surgeries.

Veins on Demand: Cincinnati Children's Hospital scientists claim to have engineered liver tissue that grows its own blood vessels — solving a major roadblock in bioengineering organs. Using specialized stem cells in a novel culture system, the livers successfully produced critical clotting proteins and stopped severe bleeding in hemophilic mice during testing. For the 33,000 Americans suffering from hemophilia, this could potentially offer new treatment possibilities and could serve as biological factories.

Under the Hood: California startup Ocutrx Technologies has unveiled HemoLucence, a groundbreaking system that makes blood translucent during surgery, allowing doctors to see beneath pooled blood. Using AI-powered algorithms and computational physics, the technology can visualize through 3 millimeters of whole human blood in lab tests, with expectations to reach half an inch soon. If it’s proven to be successful, it could reduce the need for blood-clearing techniques like suction, potentially slashing surgical times.

SUNDAY SCIENCE TRIVIA

Don’t Cheat: You can read more about the crazy incident here.

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Until next time,

Zain and the Superhuman AI team