Sunday Special: Viral startup claims to turn mercury into gold

Welcome back, Superhuman. Flying cars haven’t even hit the mainstream, and industry players are already trash-talking each other. California-based startup Alef marked its latest milestone by soaring its flying car over a Tesla Roadster, reminding everyone it’s been in this race for years. Meanwhile, a dark horse startup claims to have pulled off something alchemists spent centuries dreaming about.

1. US startup claims it turned mercury into real gold: Fusion company Marathon claims it produced stable gold by bombarding mercury with neutrons, beating CERN’s record tenfold. The method fires neutrons from fusion reactions at mercury, creating an unstable form that decays into gold. Although the claim hasn’t been independently verified, it has ignited a frenzy on social media, with many people wondering if the breakthrough could crash gold prices globally. Here’s a possible answer to that question.

2. Alef’s flying car soars over Tesla’s Roadster to welcome its newest rival: California startup Alef marked its claimed 1,000th test flight by flying above a Tesla Roadster, declaring that it’s been in the “flying car race” for 11 years. Unlike Tesla’s brief thruster-assisted jumps, Alef’s $300,000 Model A seems to use electric propulsion for sustained flight. However, unrestricted customer use still requires further regulatory approval. See the unbelievable test flight here.

3. New hair-loss pill boosts growth in a late-stage trial: Veradermics claims its extended-release oral minoxidil treatment has produced significantly more hair growth than a placebo after six months in over 500 men with pattern baldness. The pill was generally well tolerated, with no treatment-related serious side effects reported. The news instantly blew up on social media, but the key commercial question remains whether patients will pay a premium over inexpensive generic minoxidil.

4. Scientists treat a patient with AI-designed viruses for the first time: Startup Radical Numerics claims they used its Omnii AI model to customize bacteria-killing viruses, called phages, for a patient whose E. coli infection resisted antibiotics and existing phage treatments. The FDA reportedly authorized the trial; if successful, the approach could produce personalized treatments for drug-resistant infections within days, but whether it actually works remains unknown.

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1. Dyson CameraJet: An AI-powered toothbrush that uses a camera to spot missed gaps in your teeth and blast them clean with a cone-shaped water jet.

2. Fitbit Luffu Link: A screenless health band to help families keep track of aging parents, kids, partners, and loved ones without turning it into another fitness tracker.

3. Aironox GO: A travel device that dries and irons your clothes automatically. It’s built to make suitcase-wrinkled clothes ready to wear in minutes without a hotel iron, ironing board, or handheld steamer.

4. Light Phone Flip: A $299 modern minimalist flip phone for people tired of doomscrolling. It packs 5G, a physical keypad, and comes without a touchscreen, browser, email, social feeds, or ads.

📱 Folded Too Far: If you’re thinking of buying the iPhone Duo, this video may have you thinking again. A viral stress test put the foldable through 10,000 bends, hinge close-ups, and brutal side-by-side comparisons. More than 52M views later, the video has become a mini crisis of confidence for people already planning to buy one.

👿 Devil’s Aquarium: A fisherman pulled something out of Australian waters that looks less like a fish and more like a rejected movie monster. One social media user pulled no punches, quipping, “Australia is where the devil keeps his favorite pets.”

🐜 Ant World War: According to a 2006 study that’s getting renewed attention on social media, two ant supercolonies near San Diego have spent years locked in a gruesome territorial war, with the frontline stretching across miles. Researchers have counted casualties on a scale that sounds absurd for insects. Read more about it here.

🏥 Self-Help: Choking can become life-threatening within minutes as oxygen to the brain is cut off. The Heimlich maneuver is usually performed by someone else to force a blockage out. But when one man started choking alone, he had to become both the patient and the first responder.

🌠 Rush Hour: One composite photo has turned invisible satellite traffic into something you can actually see. The calm night sky above New Zealand looks surprisingly busy once hundreds of exposures are layered together.

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Pocket Lab: A $10 chip could put a miniature medical lab on your wrist. Cambridge researchers have developed a tiny optical sensor that identifies substances by analyzing how they interact with light. In tests, it classified foods, medicines, and plastics with 100% accuracy and measured biomarkers including glucose, alcohol, and lactate. The results are promising, but much larger clinical studies are needed before the chip can become a reliable consumer-health device.

Fighting Back: An experimental treatment has helped people with stiff person syndrome regain movement and dramatically reduce falls. The therapy works by reprogramming a patient’s immune cells to attack the cells causing the rare autoimmune disease. One participant can now walk around her home and work in her yard after previously relying on a wheelchair. The improvements have lasted two years, but larger studies are still needed to confirm the treatment’s safety and long-term effectiveness.

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Until next time,

Zain, Faiq, and the Superhuman AI team