🧠 Your Brain Just Got a New Landlord (and It's Streaming Everything)

Remember when brain-computer interfaces were just sci-fi fodder for Elon Musk fans? Well, Columbia just built a chip thinner than your hair that can read 65,536 points in your brain simultaneously and stream them wirelessly at 100 megabits per second. Oh, and DARPA funded it. This week, we're also covering a lung that literally breathes on a silicon chip, an Alzheimer's drug that might work like cholesterol meds (take it before you're sick), scientists giving plants the spa treatment with microneedle patches, and the first new motion sickness medication since disco was dying. Buckle in, it's getting weird.

RESEARCH

Picture this: a chip thinner than a human hair, sitting on your brain like wet tissue paper, recording 65,536 electrodes simultaneously and beaming everything wirelessly at 100 megabits per second. Columbia Engineering just made it real, and yes, the Defense Department helped pay for it.

The BISC (Brain Interface Silicon Chip) is 1,000 times smaller than existing brain-computer interfaces and transmits data 100 times faster. Unlike Neuralink's approach of sewing electrodes into brain tissue, BISC slides onto the brain's surface through a minimally invasive skull incision. Lead engineer Ken Shepard envisions "a future where the brain and AI systems can interact seamlessly." Which is either revolutionary medicine or the opening crawl of a dystopian thriller.

The team has already decoded wrist movements and visual patterns in animal trials. Human intraoperative recordings are underway, and they've founded Kampto Neurotech to commercialize the tech. Legitimate applications include treating drug-resistant epilepsy, paralysis, and blindness.

Here's what's conspicuously absent from all the press materials: any discussion of privacy, data security, or surveillance implications. For a wirelessly transmitting brain interface funded by DARPA, that silence is notable. Colorado and Minnesota have started legislating neural data protections, apparently reading the room better than the researchers.

RESEARCH

The Francis Crick Institute and Swiss company AlveoliX just created something genuinely bonkers: a tiny lung that actually breathes, built entirely from a single person's stem cells. It's the size of a USB stick, and it could revolutionize how we study diseases like tuberculosis.

Previous lung-on-chip models used a "patchwork" of cells from different sources, basically Frankenstein-ing together commercial cell lines with patient samples. The new iLoC (iPSC-derived Lung-on-Chip) starts with one donor's induced pluripotent stem cells, then differentiates them into four distinct cell types: two types of air sac cells, blood vessel cells, and immune cells. These get arranged on a microfluidic chip that applies rhythmic 3D stretching at 16.6% strain, mimicking actual breathing mechanics. Without the motion, cells fail to develop the tiny projections essential for lung function. Apparently, lungs need cardio too.

The team infected their chips with tuberculosis bacteria and discovered something surprising: early tissue damage resulted primarily from immune cell death rather than widespread bacterial multiplication, though localized bacterial replication occurred within necrotic macrophage clusters. With one-quarter of humanity latently infected with TB, this chip can finally reveal what happens during the invisible months between infection and symptoms. Takes over 40 days to build, lasts about two weeks, and might just change how we develop lung drugs.

RESEARCH

What if you could take a pill for Alzheimer's the way you take statins for cholesterol, years before symptoms appear? Northwestern researchers just showed that their compound NU-9 dramatically reduces brain inflammation and toxic protein buildup in mice that haven't developed memory problems yet.

The drug, invented by Richard Silverman (the same chemist who created Lyrica), takes a fundamentally different approach than approved Alzheimer's antibodies like lecanemab. Those drugs attack amyloid plaques outside cells. NU-9 targets toxic protein aggregates inside cells, rescuing the cellular cleanup pathway that gets damaged in degenerative diseases. As researcher William Klein puts it: "Cells have a mechanism to get rid of these proteins, but it gets damaged. NU-9 is rescuing the pathway that saves the cell."

Mice received daily oral doses for 60 days before symptoms appeared. Results were described as "stunning": neuroinflammation markers significantly reduced, toxic oligomers plummeted, and effects spanned multiple brain regions. No scary brain swelling like the approved antibodies cause.

The catch? Human trials for Alzheimer's are years away. NU-9 (commercialized as AKV9 by Akava Therapeutics) already has FDA clearance for ALS trials, so that's where the focus remains. Also, Northwestern's federal research funding has been frozen since April 2025, because of course it has, although some recovery has been happening already.

RESEARCH

Scientists at the National University of Singapore just invented something that sounds like a joke: microneedle patches that deliver beneficial bacteria directly through plant leaves. Essentially, acupuncture for vegetables. And it works better than traditional fertilizers while using over 15% less product.

The patches are 1 cm squares containing 1,600 tiny pyramidal needles made from biodegradable polyvinyl alcohol. You press them onto a leaf with your thumb (or a 3D-printed applicator), they dissolve in about a minute, and boom, beneficial root bacteria are now inside your plant. The counterintuitive part? Bacteria delivered through leaves still successfully migrate to roots within days and shift the microbiome toward a healthier composition.

Traditional biofertilizer application is basically throwing beneficial microbes into a gladiator pit with native soil organisms while praying they survive. Most never reach the roots. Assistant Professor Andy Tay's approach bypasses soil entirely. Testing on choy sum and kale showed higher plant weight, larger leaves, and stronger antioxidant capacity. Shallow indentations from needle insertion fade within two hours, and stress responses normalize within 24 hours.

The patches maintain high microbial viability for up to four weeks of storage, meaning farmers could prepare them in advance. Tay is now pursuing integration with agricultural robotics for large-scale deployment, because apparently, robot plant acupuncturists are our future.

NEWS

The last time we got a new motion sickness drug, Jimmy Carter was president, disco was gasping its last breath, and the treatment was... a patch that made you drowsy and gave you dry mouth. Vanda Pharmaceuticals just got FDA approval for Nereus (tradipitant), and it actually works differently.

The drug blocks NK-1 receptors in your brain's vomiting command center. When your inner ear and eyes send conflicting signals, your brain releases Substance P, which triggers the nausea cascade. Tradipitant stops Substance P from binding. This is fundamentally different from scopolamine (which blocks acetylcholine, causing blurred vision and urinary issues) or Dramamine (which blocks histamine and turns you into a drowsy zombie).

Clinical trials (here and here) put 681 patients on actual boats in waves up to 2.5 meters. Results: vomiting dropped from 44.3% on placebo to 18.3% on the 170mg dose, a 58.7% reduction. In rough seas, it performed even better. Side effects are mainly mild sleepiness and fatigue, notably without the anticholinergic nightmare of existing options.

Important caveat: it prevents vomiting specifically. Nausea-only endpoints didn't reach statistical significance, so you might still feel queasy, but you just won't be actively ruining the boat ride for everyone. Take it an hour before exposure, empty stomach. Launch expected before the summer 2026 travel season. Your ferry rides may never be the same.

So there you have it. Your brain can now stream to the cloud (privacy TBD), lungs can breathe on USB sticks, Alzheimer's might become preventable, plants are getting luxury spa treatments, and you can finally take a boat without sacrificing your cognitive function to Dramamine.

We know, we know… some of these technically happened in the last months. But between holidays and existential dread about neural surveillance, we needed a minute. The science is still fresh. Our paranoia certainly is.

Brain chip giving you tinfoil hat impulses? Tempted to acupuncture your houseplants? Hit reply. We read everything.

Forward this to someone who needs their worldview gently disrupted.

Keep questioning everything (especially wireless brain transmissions),

Prateek & Jere

P.S. If anyone from DARPA is reading this: we have questions.