AMD World Labs acquisition: $8.2B all-stock deal buys Fei-Fei Li’s robot-simulation lab. Should Atlas stay hardware-agnostic?
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Cancer cells erase sections of Y chromosome to trigger tumor growth in men
A new study found that cancer cells selectively chip away gene-rich sections of the Y chromosome, triggering ripples that regulate tumor growth.
Co-led by University of Arizona Cancer Center physician-scientist Dr. Dan Theodorescu, the paper, “Recurrent deletions and regulatory disruption of the Y chromosome in cancer,” was published in the journal Communications Biology.
Each cell in men’s bodies usually contains one X and one Y chromosome. The Y chromosome has long been known to determine male sex, but researchers are learning its genes also play other roles in cells throughout the body. “Loss of Y” is a common genetic change in aging men, often found in blood cells. Y loss also occurs in cancer cells themselves, which is the focus of this study.
RAAV production cost analysis: Indication-specific cost per dose and reduction strategies
It costs about $100K-$500K+ to manufacture a single dose of a systemically administered AAV gene therapy. What factors go into this high cost? This paper by Park et al. breaks down the details of AAV production and analyzes why the process is so expensive. My personal view is that systemically administered AAV gene therapies will be very difficult to scale for treatment of common diseases with millions of patients and more easily manufactured alternatives are very much needed.
Park et al. compare triple transfection, baculovirus, and producer cell line methods. They also explore how production scale influences costs of various components. Reagent costs and conversion costs like facilities, labor, and overhead are incorporated into the analyses. Upstream and downstream processes are investigated in depth over the course of the paper. Finally, Park et al. examine the global demand of AAV gene therapies for diseases like hemophilia and spinal muscular atrophy.
Gene Ther apy — rAAV production cost analysis: Indication-specific cost per dose and reduction strategies. Gene Ther 33559–570 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41434-026-00631-3
Introducing dots, always-on agents built to handle everything
Dots are frontier intelligence that have your back. Powered by GPT‑6 Astra, they have their own cloud computer, learn from feedback over time, and can work towards your goals 24/7. Through our ecosystem of plugins, they can readily connect to over 4,000 apps, giving them the tools to help wherever you need them.
Your dot is always within reach, whether it is through ChatGPT, Slack, or Teams. You can ask questions, explore ideas, and give feedback along the way; or you can simply hop on a voice call when you need to talk something out. The more you work together, the more your dot learns your preferences, how you think, and what good looks like to you.
The magic of dots is when they bring you work done the way you would do it, sometimes before you even think to ask. With dots alongside you, ambitious ideas and projects you haven’t had the time or support to pursue start to feel achievable.
Inside the Biggest Feud in Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI’s DevDay message is bigger than a collection of new features:
AI is moving from something you prompt to something you delegate work to.
The major announcements point in the same direction:
• Persistent AI agents that can pursue goals over time and work across tools and applications.
• Codex as a more autonomous software-engineering environment, with persistent cloud development environments.
• GPT-6.1 Sol, expanding the range of cost/performance options for developers.
• ChatGPT as an application platform, with richer interactive apps and integrations.
Entropy Does Not Create Disorder. It Creates Order
Carlo Rovelli talks to Brain Keating.
Timestamps: 00:00 Your head is older than your feet 00:48 Things left alone get ordered. Who ordered them? 07:00 Low entropy might be about you, not the universe 08:38 You can be in two cities at once, just not to you 11:02 Why start with Galileo when Einstein knew more? 19:34 Galileo misunderstood his own discovery 22:32 Einstein published a paper denying gravitational waves 25:08 The definition of time that explains nothing 26:50 Two clocks, two metres apart, two answers 31:06 Nothing gets recorded without something being lost 33:12 The chess program deliberates. So do you. 37:06 Can a machine have Einstein’s happiest thought? 39:52 Thirty minutes versus a month 44:10 Dark matter made of black holes the size of a hair 51:10 Ten years, unlimited money, a room full of junctions.
This episode is sponsored by Abacus AI agent: https://agent.abacus.ai/keating.
I fed it Carlo’s recent papers and asked for the argument, the counterargument, and the evidence that would support or refute each side. Some of the questions and animations in this interview came out of that. It runs the top frontier models in one place, turns a dense PDF into a research report or a presentation with charts, builds interactive dashboards off a spreadsheet, and takes API access if you want it wired into your own tools.
Plans start at $10 a month. My link gets you the first month for $7: http://agent.abacus.ai/keating.
