Prion Surveillance Cuts Raise Fears Over Chronic Wasting Disease Spillover

CIDRAP profiles the fragile status of the CDC’s Prion and Public Health Office, the small unit that tracks deadly human prion diseases and potential spillover from chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and other cervids. The story is framed through the rapid decline and death of Janie Johnston from sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, illustrating how catastrophic prion illnesses are for patients and families. During the recent US government shutdown, all four unit staff received layoff notices and were briefly sent home, halting surveillance. Experts warn that eliminating the unit would leave the US blind to early, subtle signals of CWD crossing into people—signals that may only appear after years of silent spread. Past budget attempts to cut the office heighten concern. (CIDRAP)

DeepMind Hires Boston Dynamics’ Former CTO to Make Gemini the ‘Android of Robots’

Google DeepMind has poached Aaron Saunders, former CTO of Boston Dynamics, as vice president of hardware engineering—a clear signal that Demis Hassabis wants Gemini to become a de facto operating system for robots. Saunders brings deep experience building legged and humanoid machines, from dog-like quadrupeds to agile bipeds, as Boston Dynamics shifts from viral parkour videos to industrial deployments. DeepMind’s strategy is to pair this hardware know-how with powerful multimodal Gemini models that can generalize across many robot bodies instead of one-off controllers. With startups like Agility, Figure, 1X, and Tesla racing to build humanoids, DeepMind is betting that whoever owns the “robot brain” layer will capture the real value. (Wired)

Memo, the Dishwashing Home Robot Trained by Humans in Robo-Gloves

Sunday Robotics’ Memo isn’t humanoid, but it tackles the hardest frontier in robotics: messy homes. The wheeled robot slides up and down a central column, using two dexterous hands to make espresso, clear tables, and load dishwashers. Instead of traditional teleoperation, Sunday pays workers to wear special gloves that mimic Memo’s grippers while doing chores, capturing high-fidelity motion data to train its control models. Combined with vision and large AI models, Memo learns how to handle varied objects and cluttered environments, not just factory-perfect setups. The startup plans beta tests in real homes next year, betting that a slow but functional “chorebot” will find early adopters willing to teach and tolerate its quirks—much like the first home PCs. (WIRED)

Digit Humanoid Hits 100,000-Tote Milestone in Live Warehouse Work

Agility Robotics has passed a key reality check for humanoids: its Digit robots have moved over 100,000 totes at a GXO Logistics facility in Georgia. The biped works alongside autonomous mobile robots and conveyors, handling “last-meter” tasks like lifting and transferring bins—jobs that are awkward for wheeled bots and fixed arms. The milestone isn’t a flashy demo; it’s cumulative, monotonous work under changing conditions, which is exactly what logistics operators care about. Agility frames the result as evidence that general-purpose humanoids can deliver measurable throughput and reliability, not just YouTube sizzle. The announcement comes as rival Figure touts its own pilot numbers, underscoring an arms race where credible productivity metrics, rather than slick videos, may decide who wins large-scale deployments. (Interesting Engineering)

AgiBot A2 Walks 65 Miles Nonstop to Claim Humanoid World Record

Chinese startup AgiBot has set a Guinness World Record after its A2 humanoid robot walked 106.3 kilometers (about 65 miles) from Suzhou to Shanghai without powering down. Over three days, the stock commercial unit traversed highways, bridges, uneven pavements, slopes, and poorly lit areas, relying on dual GPS, lidar, and depth cameras for navigation. The marathon trek was designed to stress-test endurance, balance, and robustness rather than speed, with only minor wear reported on the robot’s foot soles. AgiBot says it has shipped over 1,000 A2 units this year, pitching the platform for guide, inspection, and service roles. The record doubles as a marketing statement: China’s humanoid sector wants to show its machines are no longer fragile prototypes but field-ready hardware. (Interesting Engineering)

Metamaterial Robotics Promises Shape-Shifting Machines With Built-In Intelligence

A new Science Robotics review maps out “metamaterial robotics,” an emerging approach where the robot’s body is made from engineered materials that can sense, compute, and move without traditional joints or electronics. Metamaterials can be patterned to bend, twist, or stiffen in response to forces, temperature, or fields, letting robots crawl, grasp, or steer simply by deforming. The authors survey soft grippers, reconfigurable lattices, and structures that embed logic into their geometry, blurring the line between mechanism and controller. This could yield ultra-light robots that survive harsh conditions, or swarms of simple units whose collective behavior arises from material design rather than onboard CPUs. The field is still young, but it points toward robots that are less like machines—and more like programmable matter. (Science)

Robots Scout Lunar Lava Tubes as Potential Shelters for Future Astronauts

A team supported by ESA and DLR has field-tested a trio of robots in Spanish volcanic caves to rehearse exploring lunar lava tubes—prime candidates for future Moon bases. The system pairs a legged robot and wheeled rover underground with a drone overhead, all coordinating to map cavernous passages that could shield astronauts from radiation and micrometeorites. During the campaign, the robots autonomously navigated rough terrain, built detailed 3D maps, and relayed data back to operators, simulating operations in lunar darkness. The work feeds into Europe’s planned Argonaut lunar lander and broader concepts for robotic precursors that survey hazards before humans arrive. Lava tubes are suddenly looking less like science-fiction hideouts and more like practical real estate for long-duration lunar stays. (SciTech Daily)

‘Transformer’ Humanoid Launches a Shapeshifting Drone From Its Back

In a demo straight out of anime, researchers unveiled an M4 system combining a humanoid robot with a modular “transformer” drone docked on its back. The quadcopter reconfigures between a compact square and elongated form mid-air, optimizing for stability or speed, then returns to perch on the robot like a backpack. The humanoid can carry and deploy the drone, share power and data, and potentially use it as a mobile sensor mast. Designers imagine search-and-rescue or inspection missions where the ground robot tackles doors, stairs, or debris while the aerial counterpart scouts ahead or maps from above. The project hints at hybrid robot teams that are physically integrated, not just wirelessly coordinated—raising both sci-fi vibes and serious questions about future multi-robot systems. (Live Science)

Microrobot in the Stomach Could Deliver Drugs Where They’re Needed Most

Researchers have tested a pill-sized magnetic robot designed to crawl around the stomach and release drugs at precise locations, potentially reducing systemic side effects. Guided from outside the body by changing magnetic fields, the device can move along the stomach wall, press a cavity against tissue, and deliver a concentrated payload. In animal experiments, including pigs, the team showed they could steer the robot to target sites and trigger localized dosing, an advance over tablets that dissolve everywhere at once. The work is early-stage and years from human use, but it illustrates how robotics and medicine are converging at the organ scale. Future versions might carry sensors or cameras, turning routine pills into tiny, steerable medical tools. (Washington Post)

Humanoid Robots Force a Rethink of Jobs, Tax, and Social Safety Nets

As companies from China’s UBTECH to US startups begin shipping humanoid robots into factories, warehouses, and service roles, economists are grappling with what happens when machines mimic human labor more closely than ever. An analysis from Australia’s ABC News surveys humanoids rolling off production lines—some already deployed in automotive plants—and asks whether current tax systems and welfare regimes are ready. If robots displace workers, should companies pay higher levies on automation? Would universal basic income become necessary as physical labor is increasingly automated? Experts note that past tech waves created new jobs even as old ones vanished, but warn that humanoids’ general-purpose nature could accelerate disruption. The real policy challenge may be using these robots’ productivity gains to benefit more than just their owners. (ABC)

Chinese Automaker Cuts Open ‘Iron’ Humanoid Onstage to Prove It’s Real

At a recent event, Chinese EV maker Xpeng theatrically sliced open its hyper-realistic “Next-Gen Iron” humanoid robot to dispel rumors that a human performer was hiding inside. The company exposed structural components, actuators, and wiring on stage while the robot continued moving, underscoring how far industrial design and aesthetics for humanoids have come. Iron is part marketing stunt, part technology statement: Xpeng pitches it as a platform for factory and service tasks that can also serve as a rolling billboard for the brand’s AI ambitions. The episode highlights a broader trend in robotics: as humanoids grow more lifelike, maintaining public trust will require unusual transparency—sometimes literally, in the form of robots whose insides are as visible as their glossy exteriors. (New Atlas)

Novo Nordisk Stock Sinks as Alzheimer’s Trial of Ozempic Pill Flops

Novo Nordisk shares plunged after the company said two phase 3 trials of its oral semaglutide pill for early Alzheimer’s disease failed to hit their primary target. The EVOKE and EVOKE+ studies, enrolling about 3,800 patients, tested whether the GLP-1 drug could slow cognitive decline by at least 20% over two years. While some biomarkers moved in the right direction, there was no statistically significant clinical benefit versus placebo, prompting Novo to halt a planned extension study. The stock fell around 9% to a four-year low, extending a brutal year in which over half its market value has been erased. Analysts noted the high-risk bet. The failure also cools enthusiasm for GLP-1 drugs as potential Alzheimer’s therapies among neurologists and investors alike. (Reuters)