133. Robots Building Robots, Amazon’s Health Care Push, Tesla’s FSD Beta Available Now

That‘s Cool News | A weekly breakdown of positive Science & Tech news.

Researchers are building robots that can build themselves | Tech Crunch (00:52)

• MIT researchers are working on a project to develop robots that effectively self-assemble.
  • Team admits this technology is “years away”
  • Work so far has shown positive results
• At the system’s center are voxels, which carry power and data that can be shared between pieces.
• The pieces form the foundation of the robot by grabbing and attaching additional voxels before moving across the grid for further assembly.
  • Currently working on building stronger connectors to keep the voxels together.
• States in their paper:
  • “Our approach challenges the convention that larger constructions need larger machines to build them, and could be applied in areas that today either require substantial capital investments for fixed infrastructure or are altogether unfeasible.”
• The team suggests that using the robots to determine the optimal build could save on a lot of time spent prototyping.
  • “While there has been increasing interest in 3-D-printed houses, today those require printing machinery as large or larger than the house being built. Again, the potential for such structures to instead be assembled by swarms of tiny robots could provide benefits. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also interested in the work for the possibility of building structures for coastal protection against erosion and sea level rise.”

A game-changing new hybrid EV battery recharges in only 72 seconds | Interesting Engineering (06:03)

• Swiss startup Morand, has developed new battery technology that could see electric vehicle (EV) batteries charge in less time than it takes to fill an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle at a gas station.
  • Called eTechnology
• The new technology, which can charge electric cars in only 72 seconds, is a hybrid system that uses technology from traditional batteries and ultracapacitors.
  • ULTRACAPACITORS deliver quick bursts of energy during peak power demands, then quickly store energy and capture excess power that is otherwise lost.
• The startup says that, during testing, a prototype of its eTechnology solution was able to recharge at up to 900 A/360 kW:
  • 80 percent in just 72 seconds,
  • 98 percent in 120 seconds, and
  • 100 percent in 2.5 minutes.
  • The company also states that Geo Technology performed independent testing.
• Morand says it has tested its eTechnology prototype over more than 50,000 cycles and claims the technology shows potential for retaining power over far more charge/discharge cycles than a traditional lithium-ion battery.
• The company is looking to bring the technology to market, no word on the exact date.
  • It will likely be more expensive than lithium-ion battery technology, to begin with.
  • Morand aims to scale production to lower the cost of its potentially game-changing hybrid technology.

Amazon makes a new push into health care | The Economist (13:05)

• Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, highlighted a big opportunity for the company moving forwards.
  • Health care
• Many tech firms are already diving into this health market
  • Apple tracks wellbeing through the iPhone
  • Microsoft offers cloud-computing services to health firms
  • Alphabet sells wearable devices and is pumping money into biotech research
• Amazon is taking a different route with Amazon Clinic, an online service operating in 32 states that offers virtual health care for over 20 conditions from acne to allergies.
  • Described as a virtual storefront that connects users with third-party health providers.
• The launch follows the $3.9bn takeover, announced in July, of One Medical, a primary care provider that offers telehealth services online and runs bricks-and-mortar clinics
• Neil Linsday, formerly responsible for Prime, has said health care “is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention”.
• This is the latest move the complement previous moves Amazon has made into this space:
  • 2021: Amazon Web Services launched specific cloud services for health care
  • 2020: Launched Halo band, which is a wearable device that monitors the user’s health status.
  • 2018: Acquired PillPack, a digital pharmacy that is now part of Amazon Pharmacy
• Amazon Clinic will accept cash for its services, rather than relying on America’s insurance system to recoup costs.
  • The company is betting that primary care will become more digital.
• Amazon’s health push comes with several risks:
  • CVS reportedly outbid Amazon for Signify Health, a large primary-care provider
  • Walgreens increased its stake in Villagemd
  • JPMorgan recently opened primary-care centers of its own
  • Previous track record in healthcare not 100% success (Amazon Care & Haven)
  • Competition:
  • Worst of all regulators
• Amazon’s jump into this industry should have a positive effect.
  • Its experience at keeping customers happy while generating thin margins could improve primary care and force other providers to up their game.

MRI reveals never-seen-before spaces in brains of migraine sufferers | New Atlas (19:49)

• Though they are common and can have severely debilitating effects, the precise cause of migraines remains a mystery.
  • From the web MD, “Doctors aren’t totally sure what causes migraine headaches, but they think imbalances in certain brain chemicals may play a role.”
• A study by researchers at the University of Southern California has shed important new light migraines by leveraging cutting-edge imaging technology to gain a new perspective on structures in the brain.
  • Advanced imaging technology called 7T MRI
• The research centers on what are known as perivascular spaces, which are gaps around the blood vessels that help clear fluids from the brain.
  • The images of the brain revealed that those spaces were enlarged.
  • Inflammation and abnormalities in the blood-brain barrier can impact their shape and size.
• The team enlisted five healthy controls, 10 subjects with chronic migraines and 10 subjects with episodic migraines without aura.
  • Without aura means migraines without tingling and visual disturbances.
• The 7T MRI images compared tiny differences in the participants’ brains.
  • “Because 7T MRI is able to create images of the brain with much higher resolution and better quality than other MRI types, it can be used to demonstrate much smaller changes that happen in brain tissue after a migraine,” said study co-author Wilson Xu.
• Among these changes were cerebral microbleeds, along with enlarged perivascular spaces in the centrum semiovale region of the brain, in the migraine sufferers.
  • Centrum Semiovale – a mass consisting of white matter that is on top of the lateral ventricles or corpus collosum found in each of the cerebral hemispheres at the bottom of the cerebral cortex.
• According to the researchers these “significant changes” of the perivascular spaces have never been reported before.
• The team hypothesizes that the differences in the perivascular spaces may be indicative of disruption to the glymphatic system, which works with the perivascular spaces to clear waste from the brain.
  • Hope to resolve these mysteries through larger studies on more diverse cohorts, over longer time frames.
• Xu thinks this could “help us develop new, personalized ways to diagnose and treat migraines.”

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to all owners in North America | Electrek (26:09)

• Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta is now available to all owners who ordered the Full Self-Driving package in North America, according to Elon Musk’s Twitter announcement:
  • “Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option. Congrats to [the] Tesla Autopilot/AI team on achieving a major milestone!”
• This enables Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously to a destination entered in the car’s navigation system.
• Since the responsibility rests with the driver and not Tesla’s system, it is still considered a level-two driver-assist system, despite its name.
• Twitter user @WholeMarsBlog posted about his experience with FSD:
  • “Guys. I drove all around LA today and yesterday. Used FSD 100% of the time. Had zero takeovers. Recorded all today’s drives to Petersen museum, LA auto show, and then back”
• Reminder the FSD package subscription price:
  • Basic Autopilot to FSD capability - $199.00 per month
  • Enhanced Autopilot to FSD capability - $99.00 per month