Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Sperm Injection via Robot Successfully Produces First Baby

Out there, there are several startup companies working to automate the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF). One of them is Overture Life, which has developed a sperm injection robot which it claims is the first step towards automation of IVF. This has the potential to make the IVF procedure even cheaper and much more common than it is today.

One of the engineers used a Sony PlayStation 5 controller to position the robotic needle, which guides a human egg through the camera and then moves forward on its own, piercing the egg and releasing a single sperm. The robot was used to fertilize more than a dozen eggs, resulting in healthy embryos and two baby girls, who the researchers said were the first to be born after "robot" fertilization.

Other startups, such as AutoIVF, IVF 2.0, Conceivable Life Sciences, and Fertilis, have a similar goal of automating IVF and making it more accessible to patients who can't afford the high costs of IVF treatments. Overture alone has raised around $37 million from investors, including Khosla Ventures and Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube.
The goal of IVF automation is to produce more babies — around 500,000 children are born via IVF globally each year. But, most people who need help having children either don't have access to fertility drugs or can't afford them. Still, fully automating IVF won't be easy, as the process involves a dozen procedures - and this Overture robot does only a fraction. Other doctors are still skeptical that robots can, or should, replace embryologists in the near future, because humans are so much better than machines at delicately handling sperm and eggs.

Further reading
MIT Technology Review

Tesla's Cybertruck Will Roll Out To Consumers Q3 2023

After a long wait, those of you who have ordered and made pre-orders for Cybertruck Tesla will soon receive their units in the summer, June 2023. Elon Musk said that production is likely to start over the next few months, with target deliveries scheduled for the third quarter of 2023. It is recorded that more than one million people have pre-ordered trucks starting at 40,000 thousand dollars.

This Tesla Cybertruck faced many delays since its initial launch in 2019. Unfortunately, Cybertruck's heavy reliance on computer chips and Tesla's ambitious plans to include 4680 battery cells, made the manufacturer delay production until 2022. Consumers who had already placed orders were also disappointed when in January 2023 Then. Tesla announced that mass production would not begin until 2024.

Luckily, things eventually got better. Musk told investors last week that Tesla has built an Alpha test version of the Cybertruck on its pilot line. If all goes well, the event company makes its first shipment "probably in Q3," Musk said.
The CEO said that production of the Cybertruck will follow an S curve, starting slowly and eventually increasing. He assured investors that there is a big demand for electric trucks. The Cybertruck itself is very different from the average pickup in that it takes longer to manufacture at full capacity. Additionally, there is also a unique cost for the stainless steel body and custom windshield wipers.