Cut AI Support Costs Without Cutting Quality
Customer expectations are rising. Your support budget doesn’t have to.
What if AI could resolve 76% of customer conversations while your team focuses only on the issues that truly need a human?
Join Fin and AWS live to see how leading companies scale AI-powered support, simplify infrastructure, and turn existing AWS spend into lower support costs.
Science Sunday
1 Scientists built a synthetic cell called SpudCell that completes a full life cycle from lifeless chemicals.
A team at the University of Minnesota assembled SpudCell from inert laboratory ingredients. It feeds, copies its genome, divides, and hands genetic material to the next generation. It is not alive in the conventional sense, more like a stripped-down blueprint for how life works, but it completes every step of the biological cycle that matters. Researchers say future versions may be fully self-sufficient, which would mark the first time humans have built something that qualifies as life from scratch.
2 Neuralink threaded brain electrodes through an intact skull membrane for the first time, removing one of the riskiest steps in the procedure.
The dura mater is the tough membrane separating the brain from the skull. Until now, surgeons had to cut through it to reach the brain and implant Neuralink's electrode threads, which carries real risk of infection and bleeding. In a world first, the company threaded its hair-thin electrodes directly through the dura in a human patient without making a single incision. Neuralink calls it "deleting the durectomy." If it holds up at scale, it could be the unlock that finally makes the technology viable for widespread clinical use.
3 A biotech startup claims to have grown the first early human egg cells ever produced from stem cells.
Conception started with a blood sample, grew miniature ovaries in the lab, and produced early-stage human eggs entirely from scratch. The eggs are not yet mature enough for fertilization. The next step is getting there. If it works, the implications reach far beyond fertility treatment: anyone who can provide a blood sample could theoretically have biological children regardless of age, health status, or reproductive history.
Bonus read: Researchers at ETH Zurich built a new kind of pixel that emits and captures light at the same time. They call it a Fourier pixel, and it could lead to screens that double as cameras, holographic displays, and quantum communication hardware.
From The Frontier
On your finger. Oasis is a smart ring that functions like a tiny trackpad you wear on your hand. Tap or swipe to control your phone, Mac, Vision Pro, music, and AI tools without reaching for a keyboard, mouse, or remote. The premise is that the most natural place to put a control surface is on the body part already doing the pointing.
On your ankle. Dephy Sidekick is bionic footwear that gives your ankle a powered mechanical boost with each step. It is designed for everyday life, not the clinic, helping people walk farther, faster, and with less muscular effort. The distinction from a medical device matters: this is built to be worn like a shoe, not prescribed like a brace.
On your clothes. Aironox GO is a travel device that dries and irons your clothes automatically. Put something in, close it, and the device uses heat and pressure to remove wrinkles in minutes. No hotel iron, no ironing board, no steamer. For anyone who has ever repacked a suitcase four times trying to minimize wrinkles, the value proposition is immediate.
On your neck. Sony Reon Pocket Pro is a wearable cooler and heater that fits under your collar and uses a thermoelectric plate against the back of your neck to regulate your body temperature. No fan, no air, no noise. The insight here is thermophysiological: the neck is one of the most effective places to apply temperature change to the whole body.
What people are actually watching and sharing
Cosmic birthday. NASA updated its Hubble birthday tool, which shows you what the telescope was observing on the exact day you were born. Try it here. It consistently surprises people who assume their birthday was just another Tuesday.
Voices in the head. A 1997 clinical case study documents one of the most unexpected recorded cases of auditory hallucinations, and it has resurfaced on Reddit with significant engagement. The case is genuinely strange in a way that makes the neuroscience of perception feel less settled than you thought it was.
Oldest animals alive. Most people guess whales or tortoises. The correct answer is glass sponges, deep-sea creatures that can live up to 15,000 years. A viral Reddit post shows what they look like and the disconnect between their appearance and their age is the whole reason it keeps spreading.
Rooftop rain. As heatwaves intensify globally, one neighborhood in China installed a rooftop mist system that drops ambient temperature by as much as 8 degrees Celsius. The engineering is straightforward. The question of why more places haven't done it is the one the comment sections are now asking.
Sky calendar. NASA published a roundup of the best celestial events visible this month without a telescope. The full list is here, and several of them are worth planning around if you are anywhere with a clear horizon.
Join the Fin and AWS team on July 9 to see how you can scale customer support with AI. Save your spot.