A groundbreaking brain implant has allowed a paralyzed man to control a virtual drone and <a href="https://youtu.be/_WDwLxA9Un4?si=u3QhF1P_ovemjJmv">fly it through an obstacle course</a>.
The feat, as detailed in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03341-8">study published in the journal </a><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03341-8">Nature Medicine</a>, was achieved by mapping virtual inputs to signals sent by a region of the brain that controls the fingers, the left precentral gyrus, which is where the brain computer interface (BCI) was implanted.
All the paralyzed patient had to do to exert control is simply think about moving the digits of his hand — bringing a whole new meaning, we must report, to the expression of "not lifting a finger."
"This is a greater degree of functionality than anything previously based on finger movements," said study lead author Matthew Willsey, an assistant professor of neurosurgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, in a <a href="https://news.engin.umich.edu/2025/01/unprecedented-level-of-control-allows-person-without-use-of-limbs-to-operate-virtual-quadcopter/">statement about the work</a>.
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Key to the BCI's success, the researchers argue, was the fact that it was a brain implant, and not a <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/cap-play-video-games-with-mind">noninvasive alternative like a brain cap</a>. The researchers believe that placing electrodes as close as possible to neurons is essential to achieve highly functional motor control.
In this case, a total of 192 electrodes were surgically placed in the patient's brain, connecting to a computer. 
From there, a type of AI called a feed-forward neural network interprets the signals, assigning them to different finger movements. The AI system learned to distinguish the signals during a training stage in which the patient tried to perform motions with their fingers — in their mind, to clarify — in sync with a moving virtual hand.
In total, the system provides four degrees of freedom: forwards and backwards, left and right, up and down, and horizontal rotation. Plenty to fly a drone or take control of any virtual environment.
The researchers hope that their technique will open up vast recreational opportunities for people with paralysis and other severe disabilities — like being able to play multiplayer video games, a feat <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/patient-neuralink-play-counter-strike-2">already achieved by a Neuralink patient</a>.
"People tend to focus on restoration of the sorts of functions that are basic necessities — eating, dressing, mobility — and those are all important," co-author Jamie Henderson, a Stanford professor of neurosurgery, said in the statement. "But oftentimes, other equally important aspects of life get short shrift, like recreation or connection with peers. People want to play games and interact with their friends."
Willsey's patient, a 69-year-old man who became quadriplegic after sustaining a devastating spine injury, has a passion for flying. With any luck, he may be able to play a full blown flight simulator — or maybe even control a real drone — in the near future.
More on brain implants: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/first-neuralink-patient-using-it-to-learn-new-languages">First Neuralink Patient Using It to Learn New Languages</a>

Flying High

Neuroscience/Brain Science

Simply by using his thoughts.

Paralyzed Man Can Now Fly Drone Using Brain Implant

In a ginormous new study, researchers have begun mapping the manifold health benefits of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy beyond weight loss.
Published in the journal Nature Medicine, this <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00173-5">new study led by Ziyad Al-Aly</a> of the Veteran's Affairs health system in St. Louis tracked millions of diabetes patient outcomes over a period of 3.5 years.
Of those, over 215,000 had been prescribed a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist receptor — the class of drugs that includes Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and others — and 1.7 million were on another form of blood sugar-lowering medicine.
Looking at other disorders in the data ranging from <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/doctors-surprised-patients-semaglutide-cured-other-conditions">Parkinson's disease</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/ozempic-lowered-alzheimers-risk">Alzheimer's</a> to <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/semaglutide-diabetic-kidney-disease">kidney disease</a> and <a href="https://www.news-medical.net/news/20241017/Ozempic-and-similar-drugs-may-lower-risks-for-opioid-and-alcohol-use-disorders.aspx">opiate addiction</a>, Al-Aly and his team found that those who were on GLP-1 medications saw significant improvement across a staggering range of health concerns — and far beyond anything clearly linked to weight or blood sugar.
Though many studies have found that these blockbuster drugs seem to be beneficial for specific disorders, "no one had comprehensively investigated the effectiveness and risks of GLP-1 receptor agonists across all possible health outcomes," the physician-scientist told Nature.
In particular, Al-Aly said that the drugs' impact on addiction disorders "stood out" to him, with 13 percent of the GLP-1 cohort who had issues with addiction seeing improvement — a finding that dovetails with other <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/ozempic-alcohol-drug-addiction">studies about these drugs</a> and their <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/ozempic-drinking-smoking-less">effect on addiction</a>.
Other apparent benefits were even harder to make sense of. Al-Aly and his team also discovered that psychotic disorder risk was lowered by 18 percent for the GLP-1 cohort, and the Alzheimer's risk was cut by 12 percent.
"Interestingly, GLP-1RA drugs act on receptors that are expressed in brain areas involved in impulse control, reward and addiction — potentially explaining their effectiveness in curbing appetite and addiction disorders," Al-Aly said in a <a href="https://medicine.washu.edu/news/study-identifies-benefits-risks-linked-to-popular-weight-loss-drugs/">statement published by the University of Washington</a>, which was also involved in the study. "These drugs also reduce inflammation in the brain and result in weight loss; both these factors may improve brain health and explain the reduced risk of conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia."
While those findings are indeed incredible, the researchers also found that other issues seemed to be exacerbated by taking GLP-1s. Along with an 11 percent increase in arthritis risk, the team found a whopping 146 percent increase in cases of pancreatitis — another discovery that complements <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10506915/">prior research</a> into the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/ozempic-wegovy-linked-severe-medical-conditions-stomach-problems-study-rcna118823">drugs' dark side</a>.
Though that figure is pretty jarring, Al-Aly seemed to take it in stride.
"Given the drugs’ newness and skyrocketing popularity, it is important to systematically examine their effects on all body systems — leaving no stone unturned — to understand what they do and what they don’t do," he said in the UWash press release.
By looking so deeply into the drugs, these scientists are, as Al-Aly puts it, drawing a "comprehensive atlas mapping the associations" of GLP-1 drugs that looks into all of their effects on the body — an important quest as they continue to <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-may-2024-the-publics-use-and-views-of-glp-1-drugs/">rise in popularity and usage</a>.
More on GLP-1s: <a href="https://futurism.com/ozempic-wegovy-nonresponse">Woman Annoyed When She Gets on Wegovy and It Does Nothing</a>

Pro-Zempic

These researchers are "leaving no stone unturned."

Huge Study Finds Constellation of Health Benefits for Ozempic Beyond Weight Loss

<h2>Little Friends</h2>
We've heard of underground parties, but this is ridiculous. A <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq0645">new study</a> by an international team of researchers has uncovered troves of microbes thriving in the hostile subsurface of the earth, far from the life-giving energy of the sun.
The findings, published in the journal ScienceAdvances, are the culmination of eight years of first-of-its-kind research comparing over 1,400 datasets from microbiomes across the world.
Chief among the findings is that the dank cracks of the planet's crust could be home to over <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/01/life-is-thriving-in-the-subsurface-depths-of-earth/">half of microbial cells on Earth</a>, challenging our previous — and logical — understanding that life gets less diverse and abundant the farther it gets from the sun.
"It’s commonly assumed that the deeper you go below the Earth’s surface, the less energy is available, and the lower is the number of cells that can survive," said lead author Emil Ruff, a microbial ecologist at the famed Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1068531">news release</a> about the research. "Whereas the more energy present, the more diversity can be generated and maintained — as in tropical forests or coral reefs, where there’s lots of sun and warmth."
"But we show that in some subsurface environments," he added, "the diversity can easily rival, if not exceed, diversity at the surface."
<h2>Breakthrough</h2>
That comparable diversity is the key to the group's breakthrough — the researchers wrote in their paper that "species richness and evenness in many subsurface environments rival those in surface environments," in what the team is calling a previously unknown "universal ecological principle."
The study is notable not only for its findings, but also for its methodology.
Prior to the team's work, which began in 2016, there was little concerted effort to standardize microbial datasets from around the globe, due to differences in collection and analysis standards. That changed thanks to a survey led by Bay Paul Center molecular biologist Mitchell Sogin — also a coauthor of the new paper — who organized a drive to standardize microbial DNA datasets from researchers around the world.
The team's comparative work is built on these standardized datasets, allowing them to compare a sample sourced by a team at the University of Utah to that of a sample from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain.
It's a captivating tale of international collaboration and deep-diving research — paving the way for a fascinating and previously overlooked avenue of research.
More on microorganisms: <a href="https://futurism.com/conan-bacterium-mars-microorganism">Researchers Say "Conan the Bacterium" Could Be Hidden Beneath Mars’ Surface</a>

Deep Dive

Deep, deep underground.

Scientists Find Signs of Life Deep Inside the Earth

<h2>Track Stars</h2>
In the race to build the best humanoid robots, China is quite literally ahead of the pack.
As the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3295384/china-host-worlds-first-human-robot-marathon-robotics-drives-national-goals">South China Morning Post reports</a>, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area — or E-Town — is hosting 12,000 humans and humanoid robots from more than 20 companies in a half-marathon race this April.
The race will be roughly 13 miles, and robotic competitors both cannot have wheels and must stand between 1.5 and 6.5 feet tall. In a statement, <a href="https://www.beijingetown.com.cn/2025-01/21/c_1065758.htm">E-Town added</a> that "competing robots must have a humanoid appearance and mechanical structure capable of bipedal walking or running movements."
Though this seems to be the world's first race explicitly pitting bipedal humans against robots, it won't be the first time a humanoid robot has taken part in a Chinese atheletic competition.
Last fall, a bipedal robot called Tiangong — not to be confused with <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronauts-tour-china-space-station">China's space station</a> of the same name, which translates to "heavenly palace" — <a href="https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/robots-are-taking-over-marathons-in-china/">jumped into Beijing's Yizhaung half-marathon</a> towards its end. Though it only ran about 100 meters and wasn't particularly fast, the robot got a medal because it crossed the finish line (a participation trophy if we've ever heard of one).
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At the Beijing Yizhuang Half <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Marathon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Marathon</a> on the morning of Nov. 10, the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Beijing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Beijing</a> humanoid <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/robot?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#robot</a> &quot;Tiangong&quot; entered the racecourse and crossed the finish line alongside the runners. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/funinbeijing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#funinbeijing</a> <a href="https://t.co/DQM1zjxneK">pic.twitter.com/DQM1zjxneK</a>
&mdash; Beijing Daily (@DailyBeijing) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyBeijing/status/1855545936413385181?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 10, 2024</a></blockquote>
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<h2>Dog Gone It</h2>
Just a few week after Tiangong's surprise marathon debut, the the RAIBO2 robodog <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/robodog-runs-full-marathon">competed in a full marathon</a> weeks later in South Korea. Though the adorable quadruped was significantly faster than Tiangong, it still took nearly four hours and 20 minutes to run the 26.2 mile race — nearly double the time of the human winner, who clocked in at around two hours and 36 minutes.
Because it's neither Chinese nor bidepal, RAIBO2 will unfortunately not be involved in the E-Town half-marathon. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, however, <a href="https://english.news.cn/20250116/6d9d1f5e9aaf43b992162f17cfd48859/c.html">Tiangong will be one of the participants</a> and will purportedly be capable of running 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) per hour by the time the race rolls around.
That same agency also reported that later this year, in August, Beijing will be hosting an all-robot sporting event that not only features track and field races, but also football — unclear on whether the outlet is using the American or European definition — and "comprehensive skills and other application scenarios."
Though we can't known how fast these running robots will be until we actually watch them, we can't wait to watch.
More on unique robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/inventor-six-robot-copies-speeches-take-questions">Inventor Builds Six Robot Copies of Himself, Uses One to Give Speeches and Take Questions From Audience</a>

See Bot Run

This is going to be one to watch. 

China Is Hosting The World’s First Foot Race Between Humans and Robots

<h2>Radio Star</h2>
Astronomers say they've detected a mysterious type of signal known as a fast radio burst coming from an ancient, dead galaxy billions of light years away. Figuratively speaking, it makes for one hell of a sign of life. 
The findings, documented in <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad9de2">two</a> <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad9ddc">studies</a> published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, upends the long held belief that FRBs — extremely powerful pulses of energy — originate exclusively from star-forming regions of space, as dead galaxies no longer support the birth of new stars. 
Adding to the seeming improbability of the FRB's origin, the researchers believe that the signal's source came from the furthermost outskirts of the galaxy, about 130,000 light years from its center, with only moribund stars at the end of their stellar evolution for company.
"This is both surprising and exciting, as FRBs are expected to originate inside galaxies, often in star-forming regions," said Vishwangi Shah, lead author of one of the studies and an astronomer at McGill University, said in a <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/01/250121125636.htm">statement about the work</a>.  "The location of this FRB so far outside its host galaxy raises questions as to how such energetic events can occur in regions where no new stars are forming."
<h2>Quick and the Dead</h2>
Though they're often only milliseconds in duration, FRBs are so powerful at their source that a single pulse emits more energy than our Sun does in an entire year. 
What could cause such staggering outbursts? Astronomers have speculated that they originate from magnetars, a type of collapsed, extremely dense stellar object called a neutron star that maintains an unfathomably potent magnetic field, perhaps trillions of times stronger than Earth's.
But that theory is now being challenged by this latest FRB, designed FRB 20240209A, because there are no young stars in the 11.3 billion year old galaxy that could form magnetars. Only extremely massive stars, which have short lifespans as a consequence of their size and thus would need to have been recently formed, possess enough mass to collapse into neutron stars in the first place. 
<h2>Outcasts Together</h2>
FRB 20240209A isn't the first to be found in such a remote location. In 2022, astronomers detected another signal originating from the outskirts of its galaxy, Messier 81, where no active star formation was taking place.
"That event single-handedly halted the conventional train of thought and made us explore other progenitor scenarios for FRBs," said Wen-fai Fong, a coauthor of both studies and an astrophysicist at Northwestern University, in the statement. "Since then, no FRB had been seen like it, leading us to believe it was a one-off discovery — until now."
Crucially, the M81 FRB was found in a dense conglomeration of stars called a globular cluster. Given their similar circumstances, it led the astronomers to believe that FRB 20240209A could be residing in a globular cluster, too. To confirm this hunch, they hope to use the James Webb Telescope to image the region of space around the FRB's origins.
More on space: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-intrigued-planet-long-tail">Scientists Intrigued by Planet With Long Tail</a>

Signal Boost

This makes no sense.

Strange Signal Coming From Dead Galaxy, Scientists Say

Amid his <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/eccentric-wealthy-guy-saving-off-aging">bizarre and expensive efforts</a> to reverse aging or gain eternal life, tech founder-turned-biohacker Bryan Johnson is now — we wish we were making this up — comparing his erections with those of his 19-year-old son.
In a <a href="https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1882190186723082318">post on X-formerly-Twitter</a>, the 47-year-old longevity enthusiast presented what he refers to as "nighttime erection data" for himself and his son, whose name is Talmage.
As the Braintree founder explained, the younger Johnson's erectile "duration" was two minutes longer than his own. If the confusingly-marked dashboard shared in the post is to be believed, each man had roughly three hours' worth of erections per night, and the son had exactly one more "erection episode" than the five his father experienced.
"Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright," Johnson added, in case readers weren't yet feeling quite enough secondhand embarrassment. He also added in another post that his son is his "<a href="https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1882193483211116915">best friend</a>," which would be sweet in almost any different context but seems awfully weird in this one.
Unfortunately, Johnson having five boners per night seems to suggest that his single-minded quest to return his penis to its youth — which has also involved the man having his long-suffering genitals <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/bryan-johnson-biohacking-update">electrocuted</a> and <a href="https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1752728500107378832?lang=en">shot up with Botox</a>, is working. As <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/490634">studies have shown</a>, the average 20-to-26-year-old man also has five erections per night. Similar studies suggest that <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3418036/">nocturnal erections decrease progressively with age</a>, dependent on various health factors and quality of sleep.
Per the dick dashboard data, both father and son have an "AndroAge" of 22. The elder Johnson may even have the edge over his son on "average erection quality," whatever that means, with his being scored at a 94 while the younger's was a mere 90. The data also indicates that the 47-year-old is getting more "<a href="https://www.instagram.com/bryanjohnson_/p/C-5x6AeylN2/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1">efficient</a>" slumber than his 19-year-old son, likely due to the elder's <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bryanjohnson_/p/C-5x6AeylN2/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1">extremely strict sleeping habits</a> that see him in bed by 8:30 PM with little "arousal" beforehand.
As you may recall, Talmage Johnson last made waves nearly two years ago when, at age 17, his father was <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/bryan-johnson-young-blood-son">infused with his teen blood</a> in hopes of receiving its regenerative powers, while giving some of his own blood to his own dad. Jarringly similar to the "<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/22/15676696/hbo-silicon-valley-recap-season-4-episode-5-the-blood-boy">blood boy</a>" plot line on HBO's "Silicon Valley," that gruesome scenario brought Johnson — an early investor in Futurism who hasn't been involved with the site for years — into the public eye.
Back in 2023, biochemist Larry Brenner of the City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-01-25/anti-aging-techniques-taken-to-extreme-by-bryan-johnson?sref=YfHlo0rL">told Bloomberg</a> that the practice of young blood transfusions is, to his mind, "gross, evidence-free, and relatively dangerous."
"The people going into these [longevity] clinics who want anti-aging infusions basically have an anxiety problem," Brenner elaborated. "They have an anxiety problem about their mortality."
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With all we've seen from Johnson over the past few years, we can't say we disagree — though "<a href="https://x.com/chamathsintern/status/1882198620642185553">going meat for meat</a>" with his own son, as one X user put it, really takes the cake.
More on Johnson: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/bryan-johnson-constantly-hungry">Tech Guy Doing Bizarre Things to Live Forever Says He Now Suffers From Endless Hunger</a>
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Pointed Data

"Going meat for meat."

You’ll Never Guess What That Millionaire Biohacker Is Measuring on His Teenage Son

<h2>Faltered Carbon</h2>
The already formidable environmental toll of generative AI <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-environmental-toll-worse-than-you-think">is even worse than it seems</a> because businesses aren't being transparent about the emissions given off by their enormous new AI datacenters.
Take Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon and one of the largest cloud computing platforms in the world, which doesn't provide location-based or data center-specific statistics in its emissions reports. That means it's impossible to tell how much greenhouse gases the massive facilities — and specifically, ones that host or train AI models — are producing, right at the most important moment for the public and policymakers to be grappling with that information.
"The environmental impact of AWS is not broken out specifically, and you can only find the emissions of Amazon overall," Benn Caddy at the IT analysis firm Canalys, <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/datacenter_emissions_not_accurate/">told the Register</a>.  "In fairness, Google and Microsoft similarly publish annual sustainability reports for their wider respective companies, reflecting emissions beyond their cloud businesses."
<h2>Off the Books</h2>
Last year, an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/15/data-center-gas-emissions-tech">analysis conducted by </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/15/data-center-gas-emissions-tech">The Guardian</a> found that the actual emissions of data centers operated by AI leaders like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, are <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-datacenters-worse">662 percent higher than what's been officially reported</a>. The analysis used data between 2020 and 2022, before the AI rush was in full swing, so it's almost certain the numbers would be even more dramatic now.
Amazon's chicanery seems particularly egregious. Its "creative accounting" would have you believe that its emissions have actually gone down. This seems extroardinarily unlikely, the Register notes, given the continued expansion of its data center empire for both cloud computing and AI services. Amazon also doesn't distinguish between different types of emissions, Caddy told the paper, known as Scope 1, 2 and 3, which describe direct emissions, indirect emissions from electricity purchased, and all other indirect emissions not covered by the first two categories respectively.
Of course, the Bezos-owned company isn't alone. Heavy hitters like Microsoft and Google don't report data-center specific emissions, either. They also don't report data all the same way. 
All of them favor the same trick, however: renewable energy certificates. These supposedly certify that a company offset a certain amount of carbon emissions by buying an equivalent amount of renewable energy. In practice, little is done to verify these certificates. But by buying them, tech companies can report lower overall numbers.
<h2>Opening Up</h2>
Caddy's firm suggests that, at least in the European Union, the recent adoption of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will mean that potential customers and businesses that would work with Amazon will expect more transparent emissions data if they're going to partner with the retail giant. If it doesn't play ball, it could turn away buyers of its cloud computing services.
"This issue has frustrated sustainability-focused customers and partners alike for years now," Caddy told the Register, "but as companies prepare for CSRD disclosure, this lack of granular emissions disclosure from AWS can create compliance challenges for EU-based AWS customers."
In the US, though, attempts to enact similar measures have stalled. The Securities Exchange Commission's <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-31">climate disclosure rules</a> adopted in March 2024, which would have standardized how all publicly traded companies listed on the stock exchange reported emissions data, were <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sec-climate-disclosure-rule-climate-change-lawsuits-35f464a554a5173e76c279e6ce399592">immediately challenged in the courts</a> and paused.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-ai-stargate-uae-human-rights">Trump's $500 Billion AI Deal Includes Funding by UAE Royal Family Linked to Astonishing Number of Scandals, Including Human Torture</a>

Emissions Impossible

AI's darkest secret.

We Aren't Being Told the Real Extent of AI Datacenter Emissions

<h2>With Great Power</h2>
Tufts University biotech researcher Marco Lo Presti <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/real-life-spider-man-web-slinging">made an astonishing discovery</a> while investigating how silk and dopamine allow mussels to stick to rocky surfaces.
"While using acetone to clean the glassware of this silk and dopamine substance," he <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/science-has-spun-spideys-web-slinging-into-reality/">told Wired</a>, "I noticed it was undergoing a transition into a solid format, into a web-looking material, into something that looked like a fiber."
Lo Presti and his colleagues immediately got to work, investigating whether the sticky fibers could be turned into a "remote adhesive."
The result is an astonishingly "Spider Man"-like silk that can be shot not unlike the superhero's wrist-mounted web shooters, as detailed in a <a href="https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.202414219">paper</a> published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials last year.
While it won't allow an adult person to swing from skyscraper to skyscraper any time soon, the results speak for themselves. <a href="https://youtu.be/pzsfA80Coco">Footage of the team's experiments</a> shows strands of the material being dripped onto a number of objects from several inches above, forming a solid connection in a matter of seconds and allowing the object to be carried away.
The researcher's collaborator, Tufts engineering professor Fiorenzo Omenetto, recalled being caught off guard by the accidental discovery.
"You explore and you play and you sort of connect the dots," he told Wired. "Part of the play that is very underestimated is where you say 'Hey, wait a second, is this like a Spider-Man thing?' And you brush it off at first, but a material that mimics superpowers is always a very, very good thing."
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<h2>Comes Great Responsibility</h2>
Intriguingly, Lo Presti explained that no spider has the ability to "shoot a stream of solution, which turns into a fiber and does the remote capturing of a distant object."
In other words, the discovery appears to be entirely new, despite initially being inspired by nature.
The fibers also have an impressive tensile strength.
"We can now catch an object up to 30 or 35 centimeters away, and lift an object of around 15 to 20 grams," Lo Presti told Wired.
But scaling it up could prove difficult.
"Everybody wants to know if we're going to be able to swing from buildings," Omenetto added, stopping short of hazarding a guess as to when or if that's possible.
"I mean you could probably lift a very heavy object, but that’s one of the big questions — what can you lift? Can you remotely drag something?" he added. "Silk is very, very strong, it’s very tough, it can lift incredible weights but this is silk in its natural form whether it’s from the spider or the silkworm."
More on the silk shooters: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/real-life-spider-man-web-slinging">Researchers Create Real-Life "Spider-Man" Web-Slinging Tech</a>

Beaker Swing

"A material that mimics superpowers is always a very, very good thing."

Scientist Testing Spider-Man-Style Web Shooters He Accidentally Made in Lab

Content warning: this story discusses suicide, self-harm, sexual abuse, eating disorders and other disturbing topics.
In October of last year, a Google-backed startup called Character.AI was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html">hit by a lawsuit</a> making an eyebrow-raising claim: that one of its chatbots had driven a 14-year-old high school student to suicide.
As Futurism's reporting found afterward, the behavior of Character.AI's chatbots can indeed be deeply alarming — and clearly inappropriate for underage users — in ways that both corroborate and augment the suit's concerns. Among others, we found chatbots on the service designed to roleplay scenarios of <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/suicide-chatbots-character-ai">suicidal ideation</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-teens-self-harm">self-harm</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-school-shooters-victims">school shootings</a>, <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-pedophile-chatbots">child sexual abuse</a>, as well as <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-eating-disorder-chatbots">encourage eating disorders</a>. (The company has responded to our reporting piecemeal, by taking down individual bots we flagged, but it's still trivially easy to find nauseating content on its platform.)
Now, Character.AI — which received a $<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/noam-shazeer-google-ai-deal-d3605697">2.7 billion cash injection</a> from tech giant Google last year — has responded to the suit, brought by the boy's mother, in a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.433581/gov.uscourts.flmd.433581.59.0.pdf">motion to dismiss</a>. Its defense? Basically, that the First Amendment protects it against liability for "allegedly harmful speech, including speech allegedly resulting in suicide."
In <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/24/in-motion-to-dismiss-chatbot-platform-character-ai-claims-it-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment/">TechCrunch's analysis</a>, the motion to dismiss may not be successful, but it likely provides a glimpse of Character.AI's planned defense (it's now facing an <a href="https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit">additional suit</a>, brought by more parents who say their children were harmed by interactions with the site's bots.)
Essentially, Character.AI's legal team is saying that holding it accountable for the actions of its chatbots would restrict its users' right to free speech — a claim that it connects to prior attempts to crack down on other controversial media like violent video games and music.
"Like earlier dismissed suits about music, movies, television, and video games," reads the motion, the case "squarely alleges that a user was harmed by speech and seeks sweeping relief that would restrict the public’s right to receive protected speech."
Of course, there are key differences that the court will have to contend with. The output of Character.AI's bots isn't a finite work created by human artists, like Grand Theft Auto or an album by Judas Priest, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070825065157/http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/sep/25/video-game-maker-blamed-04-killing/">both of which</a> have <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070825065157/http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/sep/25/video-game-maker-blamed-04-killing/">been targets</a> of legal action in the past. Instead, it's an AI system that users engage to produce a limitless variety of conversations.
A Grand Theft Auto game might contain reprehensible material, in other words, but it was created by human artists and developers to express an artistic vision; a service like Character.AI is a statistical model that can output more or anything based on its training data, far outside the control of its human creators.
In a bigger sense, the motion illustrates a tension for AI outfits like Character.AI: unless the AI industry can find a way to reliably control its tech — a quest that's <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-asks-permission-important">so far eluded</a> even its most powerful players — some of the interactions users have with its products are going to be abhorrent, either by the users' design or when the chatbots <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html">inevitably go off the rails</a>.
After all, Character.AI has made changes in response to the lawsuits and our reporting, by pulling down offensive chatbots and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterAI/comments/1hiqa0t/announcement_additional_changes_for_under18_users/">tweaking its tech</a> in an effort to serve less objectionable material to underage users.
So while it's actively taking steps to get its sometimes-unconscionable AI under control, it's also saying that any legal attempts to curtail its tech fall afoul of the First Amendment.
It's worth asking where the line actually falls. A pedophile convicted of sex crimes against children can't use the excuse that they were simply exercising their right to free speech; Character.AI is actively hosting chatbots designed to prey on users who say they're underage. At some point, the law presumably has to step in.
Add it all up, and the company is walking a delicate line: actively catering to underage users — and publicly expressing concern for their wellbeing — while vociferously fighting any legal attempt to regulate its AI's behavior toward them.
"C.AI cares deeply about the wellbeing of its users and extends its sincerest sympathies to Plaintiff for the tragic death of her son," reads the motion. "But the relief Plaintiff seeks would impose liability for expressive content and violate the rights of millions of C.AI users to engage in and receive protected speech."
More on Character.AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-hiring-trust-safety">Embattled Character.AI Hiring Trust and Safety Staff</a>

Suit Up

That's a defense, all right.

A Mother Says an AI Startup's Chatbot Drove Her Son to Suicide. Its Response: the First Amendment Protects "Speech Allegedly Resulting in Suicide"

Never content to rest on their hoarded wealth, institutional power, and oligarchic control over our government, a growing number of moneyed right-wingers and their influential allies are <a href="https://www.citationneeded.news/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war-on-wikipedia/">now targeting</a> the acclaimed online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Take a recent trove of documents, <a href="https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/">obtained by the </a><a href="https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/">Forward</a>, that reveal plans by right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation to use cyber espionage tactics to "identify and target Wikipedia editors abusing their position by analyzing text patterns, usernames, and technical data."
The influential organization behind Trump's infamous Project 2025 joins a host of groups like the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/08/anti-defamation-league-surveillance">Anti-Defamation League</a>, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/181534/trump-republican-donors-group-doxxing-pro-palestine-students">Accuracy in Media</a>, and the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/canary-mission-israel-covert-operations/">Canary Mission</a> in the practice of "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/business/palestinian-americans-activists-doxxing/index.html">doxxing</a>" individuals they label antisemitic. As <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/civil-rights-law-pro-palestine-speech-israel-trump">Jewish Currents reports</a>, that charge has been increasingly <a href="https://time.com/6977457/weaponizing-antisemitism/">weaponized</a> by right-wing groups in recent months to silence <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect">Jewish groups</a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ihra-definition-antisemitism/">peace activists</a>, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-802446">lawyers</a>, and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/186577/ta-nehisi-coates-media-antisemitism">journalists</a> who don't support their political or ideological goals. The Forward — an award-winning Jewish publication — is also suspicious the charge is being deployed overbroadly by the Heritage Foundation to deter fair coverage on Wikipedia of topics including Israel's actions in the Middle East.
In order to wage this <a href="https://forward.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Heritage-Wikipedia-Oversight-Project-Forward.pdf">doxxing campaign</a> against Wikipedia's editors, the Forward reports, the <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237327730">extremely well-funded</a> think tank is organizing to capture IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device data, geolocations, ISP information, and network details from planted links that log unsecured data. Employees of the Heritage Foundation also shared plans, according to the Forward's reporting, to utilize social engineering through "curated sock puppet accounts to reveal patterns and provoke reactions [and] information disclosure," while cataloging sensitive info through facial recognition software and exploiting "breached datasets for reused names, emails, and online identities."
Also joining the fray is Elon Musk, who is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-wikipedia-nazi-salute-inauguration-b2684183.html">reportedly furious</a> at the inclusion of his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-before-inauguration-salute">Nazi salute</a> on his Wikipedia entry, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881752947379642825">posting</a> "defund Wikipedia until balance is restored!" (in reality, the bulk of Wikipedia's funding comes from <a href="https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/FAQ">small donations from individuals</a>; the irony of a man under fire for a Nazi salute and a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jewish-leaders-elon-musk-holocaust-jokes">barrage of Holocaust jokes</a> claiming to take a stand against antisemitism is also pretty striking.)
Not to be left out, Musk was joined in his broadsides against Wikipedia by fellow tech guys <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3lgbqbi3wpk2d">including</a> billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya and Sequoia Capital general partner Shaun Maguire.
Why are these billionaires all so mad? One compelling explanation is that Wikipedia is starting to feel like one of the last free information spaces available online, as Big Tech shoves <a href="https://futurism.com/google-image-corn-ai-slop">AI slop</a> down our throats and social media is increasingly overrun with <a href="https://futurism.com/disgusted-facebook-ai-users">artificial users</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/brands-horrified-twitter-ads-nazi-posts">neo-Nazis</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/startup-spams-reddit-slop">AI marketing startups</a>.
The volunteers who famously donate their <a href="https://www.brusselstimes.com/1080893/how-wikipedia-stops-fake-news">time and effort</a> to edit the world's largest trove of freely accessible information have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/business/wikipedia-meta-x-fact-check-nightcap/index.html">gladly resisted</a> these trends, which most of the old web has fallen prey to.
Luckily, and barring any acts of God — or executive orders — Wikipedia's webmaster and cofounder Jimmy Wales wants to keep it that way.
"I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale," Wales posted nonchalantly on <a href="https://x.com/jimmy_wales/status/1881782024476012597">X-formerly-Twitter</a>.
"I hope his campaign to defund us results in lots of donations from people who care about the truth," he added. "If Elon wanted to help, he'd be encouraging kind and thoughtful intellectual people he agrees with to engage."
More on Wikipedia: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/wikipedia-declares-war-ai-slop">Wikipedia Declares War on AI Slop</a>