Startup Everbloom has developed a cashmere-like fiber called renoa made from waste protein, including cashmere and wool scraps and down/feather lint from the bedding industry, blended with a biodegradable biopolymer. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has approved renoa as a new fiber classification, the first such approval in 25 years, and Everbloom says the material is washable and intended to be more affordable than natural cashmere. The company, founded three years ago and based in New York, has produced sample items like gloves and scarves and is now working to scale up production.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-11-01
Candy prices have risen 44% since 2021 amid a worsening shortage of cocoa beans, driven by crop disease, poor harvests and climate pressures in West Africa. In response, separate groups of food innovators are developing chocolate substitutes that reduce or eliminate reliance on traditional cocoa beans.
wsj.com
· 2026-10-30
The co-founder of the UK Metascience Unit, a joint initiative of the UK's science department and UK Research and Innovation launched in 2024, describes experiments run on live funding processes. Tests included appeals to social obligation in reviewer recruitment e-mails (no effect), distributed peer review among applicants (which sped up assessment by expanding the reviewer pool), and ongoing trials of staff desk rejection to screen out non-competitive applications before peer review.
nature.com
· 2026-10-30
OKXICE, the joint venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, has added Intel, Oracle, IBM and IonQ to its public notice of companies declining to have their shares tokenized, bringing total objections to 26. That means roughly 37% of companies on OKXICE's original list have opted out, following earlier objectors like Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Cisco and Wells Fargo.
news.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-27
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a five-year exemption letting self-driving truck operators Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI use cab-mounted warning beacons instead of physically placed reflective triangles when a truck breaks down. The change addresses a rule that assumed a human driver would exit the vehicle to set out warning devices within 10 minutes of a breakdown, something autonomous trucks without drivers cannot do. Aurora had previously sued over the requirement and appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals after an earlier denial.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-11
The trucking industry faces mounting safety concerns, including over 5,000 annual fatalities and a $604 million liability verdict against broker C.H. Robinson following a Supreme Court ruling allowing brokers to be sued for carrier accidents. Simultaneously, a crackdown on non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses and new English proficiency rules has tightened the labor market, raising wages and spot rates. Against this backdrop, autonomous trucking firms Aurora, Kodiak, and Waabi say their technology is ready for commercial scaling.
phenomenalworld.org
· 2026-10-09
METR tested frontier AI models on a research task requiring them to invent a new post-training method that would outperform a strong GRPO baseline across question-answering and coding benchmarks. The human algorithmic innovation in the comparison outperformed the solutions generated by the AI models tested, according to METR's report.
epoch.ai
· 2026-10-09
Alongside the main TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 conference running October 13-15 in San Francisco, a range of independently organized side events are scheduled from October 10 through 16. These include national and regional tech meetups hosted by groups like Poland's PAIH, Innovation Norway, and Pakistan's Software Export Board, plus startup workshops and networking sessions.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-09
The UAE announced the completion of its first domestically designed space probe on October 1, which will be integrated with the MBR Explorer spacecraft at the University of Colorado Boulder. Scheduled for launch in March 2028, the mission aims to study six asteroids, Venus, and Mars, with a focus on the asteroid Justicia, believed to contain ancient materials from the outer Solar System. This marks the UAE's second interplanetary project after the Hope Mars orbiter.
nature.com
· 2026-10-08
The University of Washington has moved its Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) institute, which offers a Master's in Technology Innovation, into a 48,500-square-foot space inside Microsoft's Building 92 under a rent-free lease. Microsoft contributed a $42 million in-kind donation to build out the space, marking the first time a UW program has established full-time operations on Microsoft's campus. GIX previously operated in Bellevue's Steve Ballmer Building after launching in 2015 with Tsinghua University and roughly $70 million in Microsoft backing.
news.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-02
A new analysis from Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates U.S. households will pay an average of $6,500 more for energy cumulatively through 2040 due to federal policy shifts under the Trump administration. Five states — Oregon, Mississippi, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming — are projected to see costs rise by about $9,000 per household.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-02
A Pentagon budget document requests $30 million to develop 'Polygraph+,' an AI-enhanced deception-detection program to be run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. The system would be used for vetting job applicants and detecting insider threats, though the specific technologies involved have not been disclosed. The request follows a period of increased polygraph use under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including tests given to roughly 50 Joint Staff officers after leaks about weapons stockpiles.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-25
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