Singularity Hub

Chronicling the technological frontier with coverage of the breakthroughs, players, and issues shaping the future. By @singularityu.

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The broader question this raises: if similar dynamics apply in Alzheimer's, ALS, or Parkinson's — where protein clumps have also been the primary treatment target — the field may need to rethink not just what it's targeting, but when. https://t.co/wpizjJ2r3Z

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The protein clumps in Huntington's disease have been treated as the enemy for 30 years. Drugs built to destroy them have largely failed. A new study suggests scientists may have been fighting the wrong target. 🧵

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The caveat the researchers are clear about: these are early results from cell models, not patients. And the protection may be temporary — what shields neurons early in the disease could become harmful as clumps accumulate over time. Timing matters enormously.

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The researchers are clear: careful validation is still needed before this moves toward clinical use. Full article: https://t.co/wjezBJVn6D

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Harvard scientists just published a biological clock that reads gene activity across four species — and predicts not just biological age, but how many years remain. 🧵

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Caveats matter here. Gene activity shifts with stress, illness, even time of day — making it noisier than DNA methylation. And different aging clocks frequently disagree.

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If it scales, regions currently locked out of lithium production by infrastructure costs could build smaller, solar-powered refineries close to the rock itself — shifting a three-country chokepoint into a distributed global supply chain. Full story: https://t.co/8Dd6D0TGxq

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74% of the world's lithium comes from three countries. An MIT startup thinks a process discovered during a bathroom renovation could break that stranglehold. 🧵

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It runs below 100°C, produces no toxic fumes, and recovers lithium at 99% purity — plus alumina and silica as usable byproducts rather than waste. The chemicals can be reused. They call it nose-to-tail mining.

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One woman entered a gene-editing trial with an LDL cholesterol level of 190 and no remaining treatment options. Two weeks after a single infusion, her level was 50.
https://t.co/8cSM4PiXe8

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full article from @theinformation featured on This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through May 23) https://t.co/3tzwFEH8IP

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SpaceX just made its IPO prospectus public. The target valuation: $1.75 trillion. What the filing actually reveals about the business is worth understanding before that number gets repeated uncritically. 🧵

[Singularity Hub @singularityhub]

That's not necessarily irrational. Visionary bets have paid off before. But the prospectus makes the structure of that bet explicit. Investors buying at the headline number are paying roughly $1 trillion for things that haven't happened yet. Whether that's the right trade is the actual question.