An Experimental Obesity Pill Mimics Gastric Bypass Surgery

The drug is based on research conducted at MIT by Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist and mechanical engineer, and Robert Langer, a chemical engineer who has launched more than two dozen biotech companies. The two discovered the mechanism when working on a way to develop liquid drug formulations that could be given to children. They soon […]

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Muscle Implants Could Allow Mind-Controlled Prosthetics—No Brain Surgery Required

Alex Smith was 11 years old when he lost his right arm in 2003. A drunk driver operating a boat collided with his family’s vessel on Lake Austin, sending him overboard. He hit a propeller, and his arm was severed in the water. A year later, he got a myoelectric arm, a type of prosthetic […]

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Neuralink Plans to Test Whether Its Brain Implant Can Control a Robotic Arm

Elon Musk’s brain implant company, Neuralink, announced on Tuesday that it is launching a study to test its implant for a new use: allowing a person to control a robotic arm using just their thoughts. “We’re excited to announce the approval and launch of a new feasibility trial to extend BCI control using the N1 […]

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The First Crispr Treatment Is Making Its Way to Patients

Nearly a year after its approval, the first medical treatment that uses the Nobel Prize–winning technology Crispr is now being given to patients. Called Casgevy, the gene-editing treatment is for people with sickle cell disease and a related blood disorder called beta thalassemia. UK regulators approved the treatment in November 2023, followed by the US […]

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Bone Marrow Donors Can Be Hard to Find. One Company Is Turning to Cadavers

“Today’s ecosystem is based around living volunteers,” Ossium’s CEO and cofounder, Kevin Caldwell, says. While the US organ donor system has existed for decades, bone marrow has never been regularly collected from those deceased donors in the same way that hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers have. Nobody had come up with an efficient way of […]

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Thousands of People Are Cloning Their Dead Pets. This Is the Woman They Call First

Nine years ago, a pair of freshly weaned British longhair kittens boarded a private plane in Virginia and flew to their new home in Europe. These kittens were no different than any other, except that they’d been created in a lab. They were clones: genetically identical to their predecessor, now sadly deceased. It had taken […]

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RFK Jr. Wants to Reshape US Health Policy. Good Luck With That

Kennedy’s past makes him an unlikely candidate for agriculture secretary, according to Daniel Glickman, who served in the role during Bill Clinton’s presidency. “It’s hard for me to imagine, given Trump’s traditional base in the heartlands, that he would pick somebody who was an advocate for breaking up large farms and breaking consolidated agriculture,” says […]

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A Neuralink Rival Says Its Eye Implant Restored Vision in Blind People

One of these, called the Argus II, was approved for commercial use in Europe in 2011 and in the US in 2013. That implant involved larger electrodes that were placed on top of the retina. Its manufacturer, Second Sight, stopped producing the device in 2020 due to financial difficulties. Neuralink and some others, meanwhile, are […]

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Eight Scientists, a Billion Dollars, and the Moonshot Agency Trying to Make Britain Great Again

“It’s great that ARIA exists, and I think it’s great that there is a plants program in it,” says Langdale. “There’s no doubt about that because for far too long, people like Gates have been driving the moonshot projects, and of course they have a very specific focus on what it is they want to […]

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An Ultrathin Graphene Brain Implant Was Just Tested in a Person

In 2004, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester in England achieved a breakthrough when they isolated graphene for the first time. A flat form of carbon made up of a single layer of atoms, graphene is the thinnest known material—and one of the strongest. Hailed as a wonder material, it won […]

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This Brain Implant Lets People Control Amazon Alexa With Their Minds

“It’s pretty exciting and freeing to keep my independence,” Mark says. “Some days can be more challenging, especially depending how I’m feeling, but the layout of the Amazon tablet makes it pretty easy to interact with and complete the tasks I need to.” Amazon declined to respond to a request for comment. Synchron has also […]

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Elon Musk’s Neuralink Is Ready to Implant a Second Volunteer

A second person will soon receive Neuralink’s experimental brain implant, according to Elon Musk, the company’s cofounder. In a video update on Wednesday, Musk said the surgery is planned to take place in “the next week or so.” The company is making changes to the surgical procedure and placement of the device to avoid problems […]

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The First Person to Receive a Pig Kidney Transplant Has Died

Richard “Rick” Slayman, the first person to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig, has died almost two months after the transplant. He was 62. The historic procedure was carried out on March 16 at Massachusetts General Hospital. In a statement released on May 11, the hospital said it had “no indication” that Slayman’s […]

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