February 27th 2025

Author

Max Gray
February 27, 2025

The Daily Innovation Newsletter

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February 27th 2025

🦾 Robotics

Sanctuary AI has integrated cutting-edge tactile sensors into its Phoenix humanoid robots, enabling them to perform complex, touch-driven tasks with high precision. Unlike vision-only systems, these sensors allow robots to detect touch, prevent slippage, and manipulate objects reliably, even when visibility is blocked. This breakthrough enhances embodied AI models and could help address global labor shortages by enabling robots to take on more human-like roles across industries.

Scientists at Lehigh University are developing Smart Artificial Microswimmers (SAMs), tiny AI-driven robots modeled after sperm and bacteria, to navigate biological fluids for medical applications. These centimeter-scale robots adapt their movement in response to fluid conditions, optimizing efficiency through AI. Potential uses include targeted drug delivery, clot removal, and assisting sperm with low motility in fertility treatments. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to revolutionize minimally invasive medicine.

🌎 Environment

Researchers at the University of Leicester have created a sustainable method to recycle lithium-ion batteries using a nanoemulsion of water and cooking oil. The process efficiently separates graphite from valuable metals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt at room temperature, avoiding harsh chemicals or high heat. This innovation, part of the Faraday Institution’s ReLiB project, could make battery recycling cheaper and greener, supporting the growing demand for electric vehicles. The research was published in RSC Sustainability.

Researchers from Swansea University, King’s College London, and the University of Bío-Bío have developed a self-healing asphalt that uses spores from the stag’s horn clubmoss plant. These hollow spores are loaded with sunflower oil and incorporated into bitumen. When micro-cracks form, the spores rupture, releasing the oil to rejuvenate the asphalt and prevent pothole formation. This innovation, published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, could significantly extend road lifespans and reduce maintenance costs.

💊 Healthcare

In a groundbreaking trial, doctors used gene therapy to restore vision in children born nearly blind due to Leber Congenital Amaurosis type 4 (LCA4). A single injection of a healthy AIPL1 gene into the retina significantly improved vision, allowing children to recognize objects and even read. Over several years, their sight improved from near-total blindness to 20/200 vision. Published in The Lancet, this breakthrough paves the way for future gene therapies targeting blindness and other genetic disorders.

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine have engineered tuberculosis vaccine strains with "kill switches" that self-destruct after triggering an immune response. Using lysin enzymes controlled by antibiotics, the technique allows for high-dose intravenous vaccination while ensuring safety. In macaque trials, the self-destructing bacteria enhanced immune protection against lung infections. A separate study developed a triple kill-switch strain of M. tuberculosis for safer human trials. These innovations could accelerate vaccine development for a disease that still kills over a million people annually. The research findings were published in Nature Microbiology.

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