Episode Details

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Today's topics:

AI unreads ancient Roman scrolls - AI-powered “virtual unwrapping” and particle-accelerator imaging are unlocking the carbonized Herculaneum scrolls, revealing new ancient texts and reshaping classical scholarship.

IBM teases sub-1nm chips - IBM’s NanoStack prototype points to sub-1nm-era scaling via 3D transistor stacking, promising big gains for data centers and generative AI—if heat and leakage can be solved.

Drones reshape modern militaries - South Korea is making drone operation a core soldier skill, while Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes highlight how cheap unmanned systems are changing strategy and deterrence.

Governments move to ban teen social media - Australia’s under-16 social media ban is triggering copycat policies in Asia and Europe, escalating legal pressure over addictive design, child safety, and platform accountability.

CAR T cells for bladder cancer - New preclinical research suggests MUC16-targeting CAR T therapy delivered directly into the bladder could expand CAR T beyond blood cancers with improved safety and access.

Robotaxis may lose brake pedals - The U.S. DOT is proposing safety-rule changes that could allow autonomous-only vehicles without brake pedals, accelerating robotaxi deployment while raising new safety concerns.

Connected-car rules squeeze EV brands - Polestar says U.S. ‘connected vehicle’ restrictions tied to China-linked tech will block its 2027 models, underscoring how data security rules are reshaping EV market access.

AI supply chains become geopolitics - A U.S.-led ‘trusted AI supply chain’ push gained more international backing at Pax Silica, spotlighting compute, energy, chips, and talent as the new levers of AI leadership.

Episode Transcript

AI unreads ancient Roman scrolls
Let’s start with that remarkable archaeology-meets-AI story. Researchers at the University of Kentucky say they’ve made a major leap in reading the carbonized Herculaneum scrolls, buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. Instead of physically unrolling the fragile papyrus, the team combined advanced imaging—captured with the kind of gear you’d expect at a particle accelerator—with AI-driven “virtual unwrapping.” They report one scroll has been fully unwrapped digitally, another has yielded a substantial stretch of readable text, and they’ve even identified two previously unknown ancient books. The big significance here is scale: scholars can move from isolated phrases to reconstructing complete arguments, potentially changing what we think we know about ancient philosophy and literature.

IBM teases sub-1nm chips
Staying with big leaps—IBM has revealed a prototype chip architecture it says could push computing into the sub‑1‑nanometer era, at least in public terms. The headline claim is enormous transistor density on a tiny piece of silicon, along with ea