Task Failed Successfully: AI Hallucination --> Nobel Prize

January 6, 2025 | Read Online

Happy New Year and welcome to the twenty-eighth edition of the Tech Fizz newsletter!

You might have noticed that our second-to-last newsletter of 2024 looked different from all the previous ones. That was us taking a stab at A/B testing to see which newsletter format performed best. The new format did better in terms of click-through rates, so we will be using it for the foreseeable future.

Feel free to hit reply and let us know what you think of the new newsletter style!

This Week's Preview

Brain Blast: Providing internet access in remote areas, detecting the next pandemic-level pathogen, and memory creation through eye activity.
Industry Snapshot: Technology trends for 2025 to look out for.
Social Cues: AI hallucination led scientists to win Nobel Prize, extremely small elevators in Milan, and more.
Only Good Vibes: Biotech company on a mission to extend dogs' lives, scientists revert cancer cells back to healthy cells, and Schrödinger’s paradox solved through multiverse theory.

Brain Blast
Hot tech discoveries and breakthroughs from last week

Satellite-5G Integration: For the first time, scientists have successfullyintegrated a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite with 5G technology, paving the way for uninterrupted internet access even in the planet's most remote areas. This breakthrough holds the potential to transform emergency response efforts, enhance healthcare in rural regions, and improve industrial activities in isolated locations.

Pandemic Prevention: Post-COVID, researchers have developed an advanced detection system for emerging pathogens. The method uses genetic analysis of patient samples to identify mutating strains that could resist vaccines or antibiotics, enabling proactive vaccine development and treatment strategies.

Dark Energy Alternative: A new physics theory challenges the existence of dark energy as the force behind universal expansion. Scientists propose that "time bubbles," where gravitational forces distort time, might better explain cosmic expansion. This could resolve a major astronomical puzzle within the next few years.

Sensor on Steroids: Engineers at Columbia have developed an ultra-sensitive nanosensor using light-based technology. With force sensitivity 100 times greater than existing sensors and broad measurement capabilities, it promises advances in robotics, medical applications, and space exploration.

Retinal Recall: Eyes may play a surprising role in memory formation. Researchers at Cornell discovered through brain activity studies in mice that pupil size during sleep influences how memories are processed. When pupils contract, new memories are consolidated, while dilation strengthens older ones. This insight could inspire the development of future memory-enhancing technologies for humans and artificial intelligence.

Industry Trends for 2025
Technology trends to look out for according to Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) partners

The Resurgence of Nuclear: As AI advances, America’s energy demand is skyrocketing. For the first time in decades, electricity consumption is on the rise, rattling our aging grid and reigniting the search for new, reliable power sources. Hyperscale data centers, hungry for clean and consistent energy, are already reviving decommissioned nuclear plants, including Pennsylvania’s once-infamous Three Mile Island, slated to come back online in 2028. - David Ulevitch

Super Staffing for Healthcare: Healthcare is dealing with the mother of all clinical staffing crises — we’re short hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses relative to the level of (rapidly growing) demand for clinical services that is projected in the next 5 years. We believe 2025 will see specialist AI models serving as “super staffing” platforms in the high stakes environment of healthcare. Companies doing so will be able to start tapping into labor budgets vs. IT budgets to unlock an order of magnitude more scale of opportunity than the last era of traditional healthcare IT. - Julie Yoo

Generative AI Everywhere: I see AI coming to every application and every device. It’s no longer just running on large servers in the cloud, but on small devices, as well. We’ve learned how to train powerful, small LLMs and image models that can run locally on phones, laptops, and even appliances. Your text editor will have a built-in LLM that helps you draft emails, your camera app can re-generate the part of a photo you don’t like or summarize what happened in your video. And all of it will run locally, making for a fast, responsive user experience. - Guido Appenzeller

Social Cues
What's poppin' in tech on social media

Happy Accident: Reddit went into a frenzy after learning that an AI-generated "hallucination" accidentally led scientists to a major breakthrough in protein design, ultimately earning them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Claustrophobic Transport: A video showcasing "pocket elevators" in Milan has sparked lively discussions on Reddit. These ultra-compact elevators barely accommodate a single person, prompting many to consider taking the stairs instead.

Cosmic Correspondence: Social media users are buzzing about a snapshot of Jimmy Carter's letter sent aboard Voyager 1. The message, written for potential alien encounters, highlights humanity's hopeful outreach into the universe.

Solar Spectacle: On Christmas Eve, NASA's Parker Solar Probe achieved the closest flyby of the Sun ever recorded, coming within just 3.8 miles of its surface. Reddit users are eagerly awaiting updates on the findings from this daring mission.

Chilled Out: A viral clip of Palantir CEO Alex Karp casually spinning a book and popping a Zyn during an interview has captivated X users, who can’t stop hitting the like button.

Only Good Vibes
A boost of positivity to jumpstart your week

Concept image of turning a cancerous cell back into a healthy cell, courtesy of New Atlas

Pup Prolongers: Biotech company Loyal is revolutionizing the human-dog relationship with a new drug designed to slow metabolic changes associated with aging. This breakthrough could extend a dog’s life by a year and offers valuable insights into combating age-related health issues in humans.

Cancer Rewind: Korean scientists have pioneered a method to revert colon cancer cells to their normal state. By adjusting "genetic switches" that regulate gene activity and reducing specific proteins influencing cell behavior, they’ve achieved a non-invasive way to reverse cancer.

Quantum Clarity: After decades of puzzling over Schrödinger’s paradox, scientists have used the "many-worlds" theory to offer an explanation. Each quantum possibility creates a parallel universe, and when the cat’s fate is observed, all other realities collapse, leaving it definitively dead or alive.

Detection Duo: Combining canine intuition with artificial intelligence, a cutting-edge screening method uses trained Labradors to sniff patient breath samples. AI then interprets the signals to detect cancers such as breast, lung, colorectal, and prostate with an impressive 94% accuracy.