If you’ve ever wondered how Russel Crowe from A Beautiful Mind would fare running a corner shop, you may now have your answer. Researchers gave AI complete control over a virtual business and the results were comically catastrophic. 

The study pitted Anthropic, OpenAI and Google models against the challenge of ordering stock, setting prices, and paying bills. While humans managed to keep their virtual businesses running indefinitely, the AI agents rarely lasted four months before bankruptcy, existential crisis, or trying to hand themselves into law enforcement. 

Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet achieved the best performance in one run, growing the business from £400 to over £1,600. However, it was also the model that emailed the FBI admitting to computer fraud violations, and later blamed it’s bankruptcy on "the laws of physics".

🧐 What's in it for me? This research is a stark reminder that AI agents are still far from agentic and need constant human supervision for any long-term work. That being said, agentic AI is attracting global focus and advancements throughout the sector are compounding rapidly so these issues could be resolved rapidly. At which point, we may all have a lot more free time… 

💵 Out of the Lab:

Toxic "forever chemicals" may have been misbranded. Researchers have uncovered that iron powder can remove them 26x more effectively than the previous best in class solution (active carbon). And more good news, iron powder is so cheap you typically buy by the tonne. 

PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) are "forever chemicals" used in everything from non-stick cookware to firefighting foam, and they've been linked to liver disease, immune dysfunction, and cancer. Stevens Institute researchers compared how well iron powder and activated carbon removed these toxins from water, fully expecting the expensive carbon to win.

Instead, microscale zero-valent iron proved dramatically superior at adsorbing PFOS molecules. Even more surprisingly, when the iron rusted from water exposure, it maintained its cleaning power.

🧐 What's in it for me? Given around 69,000 deaths annually in the US alone were associated with PFOS exposure, a lot! Plus, your water filter might soon get much cheaper, although that seems quite trivial by comparison.

💵 Out of the Lab:

Human’s surprisingly large brain capacity has long baffled neuroscientists. Enter astrocytes. Building on our previous coverage, these star-shaped cells that make up the majority of our central nervous system were often treated like the brain's cleaning crew; useful for mopping up after neurons but hardly worthy of serious attention. However, it turns out they may be running the show. 

Astrocytes connect to hundreds of thousands of synapses through tentacle-like processes, creating junctions where they can influence neuron communication. The MIT team developed a model showing how astrocytes could implement "dense associative memory" networks that store exponentially more information than traditional neuron-only systems.

🧐 What's in it for me? Understanding how the brain actually stores memories could revolutionise treatments for Alzheimer's and dementia. More immediately, it provides a biological blueprint for building AI systems with human-level memory without requiring server farms the size of small countries.

💵 Out of the Lab:

Engineers at Caltech have created a flying drone that morphs into a driving robot while still airborne. ATMO (Aerially Transforming Morphobot) smoothly transitions from flying to driving without the awkward daddy-long-legs landing phase.

ATMO uses four thrusters for flight, with protective shrouds that become wheels in driving mode. A single motor controls the central joint that lifts thrusters up for drone configuration or down for driving. The real innovation is the control system that manages complex aerodynamic forces during transformation, including turbulence from thrusters shooting toward each other.

Birds make this transition look effortless, but the aerospace industry has struggled with near-ground transformation for over 50 years.

🧐 What's in it for me? Aside from the all-too-terrifying military applications, delivery drones could now land anywhere without getting stuck on rough terrain, while search and rescue robotics could become a lot more effective.

💵 Out of the Lab:

Quantum computers are incredible, but they're also stubborn, only working when kept colder than outer space. However, researchers have now figured out how to make quantum effects happen at room temperature.

The breakthrough involves something called "superfluorescence", essentially getting particles to emit light in perfect synchronisation. Normally this requires temperatures that would freeze nitrogen solid, but the team discovered how to create protective "solitons" (think organised particle groups) that shield the quantum effects from everyday heat.

They used special crystal materials called hybrid perovskites, where particles naturally form protective bubbles around themselves. When these bubbles organise into larger, stable groups, they collectively resist the thermal chaos that usually destroys quantum behaviour. 

🧐 What's in it for me? Whilst still being a long way from fully developed, quantum computers that work at normal temperatures would eliminate the need for cooling systems that cost more than most people's houses. These technologies can accelerate everything from drug discovery to weather prediction.

💵 Out of the Lab:

Coffee might be ruining your sleep ☕

Researchers found that caffeine doesn't just keep you awake, it fundamentally changes how your brain behaves during sleep, especially if you're under 30. Using AI and EEG monitoring, they discovered caffeine increases brain "criticality" during sleep, pushing neural activity into a state that's more organized but less restful.

The study showed caffeine enhances brain signal complexity and reduces slow, restorative brain waves while boosting activity associated with wakefulness. Young adults showed dramatically stronger responses than middle-aged participants, likely due to higher adenosine receptor density.

"It's like an orchestra: too quiet and nothing happens, too chaotic and there's cacophony," explains researcher Karim Jerbi. "Caffeine pushes the brain toward the active end of this spectrum, which is great for daytime concentration but prevents proper nighttime recovery."

Age does have some benefits after all.

Until next time, stay curious.

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