DTN 016: An Alzheimer's Breakthrough
Plus: Brain surgery on a fetus, Dorsey's Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund goes to court, scientists rail against Germany's nuclear phaseout disaster, and more.
Welcome to The Deep Tech Newsletter, a weekly exploration of the business, science, and engineering behind the world’s most important frontier technologies.
The Big Picture
Eli Lilly Trial Finds Alzheimer’s Drug Can Slow Progress of Disease
“The drug manufacturer Eli Lilly announced that a clinical trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug showed it can slow progress of the feared disease and allow patients to have more time when they can still live independently, performing tasks like cooking meals, going to the store and driving a car. The results come after decades of failed attempts, despair, discouragement and billions of dollars spent. Most big pharmaceutical companies simply gave up on Alzheimer’s drugs. (New York Times)
Geothermal Everywhere: Finding the Energy to Save the World
“What Jamie was aiming to do is the hard part: create geothermal everywhere. That meant figuring out how to corral the heat from all of the dry rock below ground. That heat could provide a reliable, abundant, always flowing source of power. No need for the sun to shine or the wind to blow. No need for batteries to store it all. And it wouldn’t be geopolitically volatile, subject to complicated supply chain disruptions.” (WIRED)
Brain surgery on a fetus
“She doesn't know it yet, but a baby girl living somewhere near Boston has made history. The seven-week-old is one of the first people to have undergone an experimental brain operation while still in the womb. It might have saved her life. Before she was born, this little girl developed a dangerous condition that led blood to pool in a 14 millimeter-wide pocket in her brain. The condition could have resulted in brain damage, heart problems, and breathing difficulties after birth. It could have been fatal.” (MIT Tech Review)
Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out Has Been a Disaster
“German scientists are warning that the national energy transition has pushed Germany into an energy shortage. “We demand an immediate stop to the nuclear phase-out,” wrote twenty renowned technological and economic scientists in the “Stuttgart Declaration,” which is being widely discussed in Germany. The continued operation of Germany’s nuclear power plants, they said, should be guaranteed “as the third climate protection pillar” alongside solar and wind power to secure Germany’s power supply and prosperity. “Rising energy prices and declining security of supply endanger competitiveness and prosperity,” the scientists warned. “With a one-sided focus on sun, wind and natural gas, Germany has been maneuvered into an energy shortage.” (The National Interest)
Deep Tech News
AI startup Synthesia made waves this week on both sides of deepfake debate
Nuview emerges from stealth with plans to map the Earth using lidar
VC interest in wildfire tech grows as the world burns around us
The first of China’s desert solar and wind projects is online, and it’s huge
Crypto News
Jack Dorsey’s Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is fighting for the future
a16z crypto urges the UK to consider ‘more nuanced’ regulatory framework
Balaji loses $1 million bitcoin bet as U.S. dollar fails to collapse
Bitcoin Focused Non-Profit OpenSats Receives $10 Million From Jack Dorsey’s #Startsmall Initiative
Montana Passes Bill Protecting Bitcoin Mining From Undue Requirements
Peer Review
Scientists develop plant-based cell culture scaffold for cheaper, more sustainable cultured meat
Engineering graphene-based quantum circuits with atomic precision
Researchers develop novel AI-based estimator for manufacturing medicine
Funding x M&A
DEEP TECH
Joby Aviation lands $180M equity investment from returning backer Baillie Gifford
Magenta Medical, an Israeli startup developing miniaturized blood pumps, raised a $55M round
Digital therapeutics startup Hygieia extended its Series B round to $22M
CRYPTO
Tristero, a startup developing decentralized dark pool tech, raised a $4.8M seed
Tangem, a provider of secure hardware wallet solutions, raised an $8M round
Miscellanea
Western firms are becoming interested in a Soviet medicine / Cops Just Revealed a Record-Breaking Dark Web Dragnet / Mach-9 12-passenger jet will fly from New York to Tokyo in one hour / A $45k digital personal telescope / A DIY Thermal Camera / Space startups need to start preparing for a post-Starship world / What happens when we run out of data for AI models / Tesla is building a new ‘Lithium Lab’ in Nevada
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