Plus Ultra 2045

It's All in the Hips Can we learn anything from the evolution of hip kinematics in humanoid bots? Is there a growing consensus of the optimal design? Yes. And there is data to prove it. First, a primer on Hip Kinematics 🧵

Things that fascinate me: there must have been a point right around the time the oceans of Earth were first harboring simple life, that there were oceans covering Venus and Mars as well. Three watery sisters circling a younger sun. One of them would become an almost airless, freeze-dried desert. The other would become a cooked hellscape of sulfur-tinged carbon dioxide, pressurized to a terrestrial water depth of 200 feet. What circumstances spared the middle world? Was it the orbit? The fact Earth has a large moon? Was it that our planet has just enough volcanic activity for plate tectonics, but never enough to outgas lethal quantities of CO2? There might be a time in the future when Mars has oceans again. It will probably take thousands of years of harvesting and dropping Kuiper and Oort objects into the atmosphere. But it's a near certainty Venus will stay like it is until billions of years from now the sun swells up and swallows both it and the Earth. Because there's no obvious way to put all that CO2 back into Venus' crust. Still, that finite period when the three worlds were truly clement . . . I wonder about it. And try to imagine what it would be like if those two ancient companions to Earth could somehow become now as they were then. What would it change about our space colonization effort? How much more urgent might we be?

China's technology export boom is accelerating: China’s integrated circuit (IC) exports surged +43% YoY, to a record $234 billion over the last 12 months. Chip exports have more than DOUBLED over the last 5 years. In Q1 2026 alone, IC exports surged +77% YoY. At the same time, high-tech exports rose +30% YoY, while mechanical and electrical products soared +20% YoY. The global AI investment boom continues to drive demand for Chinese-made chips and electronic components. China's technology export engine is running at full speed.

Bacteria move around using a molecular machine called the flagellar motor that rotates faster than the flywheel of a race car engine and switches directions in an instant. After 50 yrs, scientists have finally figured out how it works. “My lifelong quest is now fulfilled.” Link⤵️