Canada’s University Health Network said its Toronto Western Hospital would be the first non-US site of a trial for a device created by Neuralink Corp., Elon Musk’s brain-implant company. 

“We are incredibly proud to be at the forefront of this research advancement in neurosurgery,” UHN Chief Executive Officer Kevin Smith said in an announcement. He also said UHN would be the “first and exclusive” site for the trial in Canada, but did not say when it would begin.

On Wednesday, Neuralink said that it had received approval from regulators in Canada to launch clinical trials for its device in that country.

“Health Canada has approved the launch of our first clinical trial in Canada!” the company posted on X, the social media service also owned by Musk. “Recruitment is now open.”

Neuralink added that it was seeking patients with Quadriplegia due to ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or spinal cord injury.

Health Canada didn’t immediately provide a comment.

For months, Neuralink has been recruiting patients in the US, UK and Canada, with links to a registry on its website. Other companies in the field, such as Synchron Inc., are recruiting for their own future trials.

Neuralink’s first product aims to allow patients to control external devices, such as computers, through their thoughts. Neuralink is also working on treating other conditions such as blindness, but that project is further away. In the distant future, Musk has said Neuralink could work with healthy patients on functions such as augmenting memory.

Its first human patient, Noland Arbaugh, was implanted with Neuralink’s device earlier this year, at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

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At the Supercomputing Conference or SC2024, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Nicola Fox, detailed new computational tools intended to advance space science. NASA plans to employ a large language model across its science divisions, bolstered by foundation models tailored to Earth science, heliophysics, astrophysics, planetary science, and biological and physical sciences. This strategy was illustrated through a heliophysics foundation model, which applies extensive data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory to forecast solar wind events and track sunspot activity.

Evolution of Space Computing and the Voyager Missions

Fox recounted how NASA’s Voyager missions, launched in the 1970s, served as milestones in computing for space exploration. Operating with early semiconductor memory, these spacecraft provided unique insights, including discoveries of Jupiter’s faint ring and Saturn’s additional moons.

Although far surpassed by modern technology, the Voyager missions revealed the possibilities for future computational breakthroughs in space science. Since then, NASA’s computational requirements have expanded, with over 140 petabytes of data now stored and shared under open science policies, allowing global scientists to access and benefit from NASA’s research.

Real-Time Data and Earth Observation Advances

NASA’s Earth Information Center was presented as a prime example of federal collaboration. It integrated data on environmental changes with insights from agencies such as NOAA and the EPA.

Using data from satellite missions, Fox showcased NASA’s ability to observe natural events like wildfires in near real-time. She also noted advancements in wildfire detection from polar-orbiting satellites, allowing precise tracking of hot spots. She said that data-driven efforts like these are critical as NASA continues to enhance the monitoring of natural phenomena on Earth.

Searching for Life Beyond Earth

Towards the end, she addressed NASA’s ongoing investigations into extraterrestrial life. Recent studies of exoplanets, such as LP 791-18d, underscore this pursuit. NASA’s observatories, including the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). It has facilitated the detection of thousands of exoplanets, aiding in the search for conditions that might support life beyond Earth.

Fox concluded by highlighting the powerful role that AI and computing now play in analysing the massive datasets produced by NASA’s missions, making it possible to explore questions that were previously out of reach.

Researchers have discovered a biological adaptation in heart cockles (Corculum cardissa), a species of bivalve found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. These clams possess unique structures in their shells that act similarly to fibre optics, guiding sunlight to symbiotic algae living within them. This allows the clams to provide their algae with the necessary light for photosynthesis while simultaneously protecting them from harmful ultraviolet rays. The algae, in turn, offer the clams essential nutrients such as sugars.

Sunlight Channeling Through Shells

Heart cockles are small bivalves measuring around the size of a walnut. Their shells are covered with tiny transparent areas, which have been found to function like fibre-optic cables. This ability is attributed to the structure of aragonite, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate present in their shells. Through microscopic examinations, it was revealed that the aragonite crystals form tubes that allow light to pass through with precision while blocking damaging UV radiation.

Dakota McCoy, an evolutionary biophysicist from the University of Chicago, and her team demonstrated that the shells allow more than twice as much photosynthetically beneficial light to enter than UV light in a study published in the Nature Communications journal. This process potentially helps prevent coral bleaching and similar phenomena in clams, which can be exacerbated by climate change.

Unique Design Offers Technological Insights

The fibre-optic-like structures found in heart cockles are not only intriguing in a biological context but also present possible applications in technology. Researchers suggest that the natural light-channelling abilities of aragonite could inspire advancements in optical systems, particularly for wireless communication and precision measurement tools.

Boon Ooi, a photonics researcher at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, noted that mimicking these structures could lead to more efficient light collection systems, offering improvements over current fibre-optic technologies, as per a Science News report.