Welcome back! We’re trying out a new section this week, “The Bet”. Let us know if it earns its place, or if it should be quietly buried in the next issue…

A new cancer vaccine looks closer than ever to achieving the Holy Grail; teaching the immune system to recognise cancer before it takes hold. In lab tests, mice that received the injection didn’t just fight off tumours, they stayed cancer-free even when re-exposed. 

The secret is breadth. Instead of training the immune system on a single protein, the vaccine presents the body with a catalogue of molecular signatures that cancers share. That pushes T cells (a type of white blood cell) to become generalists, able to spot malignant cells even when they mutate around a single target. It’s the difference between your immune system squinting at one blurry ‘Wanted’ poster vs. running facial-recognition on every suspect in town.

🧐 What's in it for me? If it translates to humans, care could shift from treating cancer to pre-emptive protection and preventing recurrence. The ultimate outcome might look like a periodic booster to keep your immune system alert, alongside screening and standard care. 

💵 The Bet:

A new plant-based serum appears to be yanking furloughed follicles back to work. Early tests of extracts from the Centella asiatica plant show visible regrowth within weeks, which is extremely fast in hair time. The mix appears to nudge stem cells in the follicle out of idling mode and improve micro-circulation around the root. 

That means more nutrients reach hair-producing cells and more of them enter the growth phase. Crucially, it does this without blocking hormones. This is crucial given that finasteride, the incumbent pill for hair loss, works by altering testosterone metabolism and a new analysis has linked it with a small but persistent rise in depression and suicidal thoughts, especially among younger users.

🧐 What's in it for me? The early results will likely aim to be replicated in wider studies, and if confirmed, hair restoration could become more like skincare. Topicals that support growth biology may suit far more people than hormone blockers.

💵 The Bet:

In the scientific equivalent of finding a five pound note in your old jacket pocket, researchers have trained an AI model to trawl millions of forgotten papers, lab reports and microfiche scans, rediscovering studies that predate the internet. By some estimates, around 90% of published science has been lost, buried in obsolete formats or unindexed archives, and this model is starting to bring it back.

The system builds a semantic map of science, linking similar results across time and spotting patterns that repeat in different labs and journals. In practice, it reconstructs the world’s collective lab notebook and flags findings that deserve a second look. The lesson is not that we need more data, but that we need to remember what we already learned and then misplaced. Progress sometimes starts with a tidy-up.

🧐 What's in it for me? Rediscovered insights can cut years from R&D and almost more importantly, putting systems like this in place now can reduce the amount of good research that goes unnoticed and unused going forward.

💵 The Bet:

Perovskite solar cells have been touted as the future of renewable energy for years, but there's been a problem: nobody could work out why they kept falling apart... 

Swedish researchers seem to have now cracked the code using machine learning to model a particularly tricky material called formamidinium lead iodide at the molecular level. This let scientists see that molecules were getting stuck in a semi-stable state when it cooled.

The discovery could unlock ultra-thin, flexible solar cells that wrap around phones, coat windows or blanket entire buildings.

🧐 What's in it for me? If you've ever wished your phone could charge itself, your dreams may soon come true. We're still a long way off commercial rollout, but perovskite solar cells could make solar power genuinely ubiquitous, turning every surface into a potential power source. 

💵 Out of the Lab:

A new AI model known as DOLPHIN is learning to cut to the chase when hunting for cancer. Rather than waiting for neatly labelled examples, it studies raw datasets from numerous cancers and looks for recurring molecular patterns that predict disease. 

These patterns often appear as subtle shifts in gene expression or protein levels that humans might dismiss as noise. By comparing thousands of samples, the system forms a statistical sense of what a pre-cancer signature looks like, even when it varies from person to person. In tests it already surfaced hundreds of candidate biomarkers across tumour types.

🧐 What's in it for me? Earlier detection with less invasive procedures becomes plausible. A smarter analysis of blood or tissue could do what scans and biopsies currently do, only sooner. As we all know, when it comes to cancer “sooner” makes a very big difference 

💵 The Bet:

Surprisingly, glowing sharks are a thing. Unsurprisingly, they live in Australia.

Scientists believe the shark’s light helps it hide against faint sunlight from above, pretty sneaky. With any luck, this discovery will have zero commercial implications. Let’s hope they don’t turn out to be delicious. 

Until next time, stay curious.

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_{Views expressed in “The Bet” are speculative and for informational purposes only, not investment advice.}