Use #Mindcandy as a strategic sensing engine to help leadership teams identify the signals they are missing. It fuels the strategic conversation about what is next. DM “SESSION” if you want to find out more.
Model biology digitally. Engineer biology physically.
Scientists have engineered probiotic bacteria to travel into tumours and manufacture cancer drugs directly inside them. Instead of simply delivering medicine, the bacteria effectively turn the tumour into a tiny drug factory. At the same time, researchers are building AI-powered “digital cells” that model individual tumours and predict which drugs are most likely to work.
That is a profound change in how we think about medicine, but potentially also agriculture, materials, chemicals, food, and manufacturing. Biology is moving from something we observe and manipulate towards something we can increasingly model, program, and engineer. And AI dramatically accelerates that transition.
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-probiotic-bacteria-cancer-drugs-tumors.html
- https://singularityhub.com/2026/09/24/a-digital-cell-predicts-which-drugs-will-be-most-effective-in-deadly-breast-cancer/
The leadership question
What happens to your industry when biology becomes an engineering platform rather than simply a natural resource?
The future fitness move
Stop treating synthetic biology, AI, and biotechnology as separate technology trends. Watch the convergence.
The other prompts:
The sustainability pendulum won’t land where it started
Sustainability will be repositioned as a lever of competitiveness, with investment in renewable energy sources and an expanded calculation of climate risk exposure that includes physical assets as well as emissions.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/sustainability-making-comeback-with-ai/
Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy bets these 21 startups will shape energy’s future
Fusion, semiconductors, hydrogen, heat management, data centres, agriculture, minerals, sensing, robotics, and decarbonization.
Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy bets these 21 startups will shape energy’s future
Inside the emerging world of anesthesia “dream therapy”
What if you could generate a psychedelic-like experience without a psychedelic drug at all?That’s where anesthesia dreams come in.
https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/p/inside-the-emerging-world-of-anesthesia-078
How Circular Design and Regenerative Innovation Are Creating New Business Value
A March 2026 World Economic Forum analysis found that three-quarters of business leaders view circularity as important to economic value, resilience, and growth. The report argues that circularity is increasingly becoming an industrial and economic strategy with measurable business implications rather than an initiative confined to environmental goals.
https://www.burrus.com/circular-economy-business-value/
How turning electricity directly into food could help save the planet
Farming is one of the most destructive human activities. Columnist Michael Le Page is excited about developments in electro-ag, in which we can instead turn renewable electricity directly into food
AI Models Built From Rat Brains Just Got Closer to Reality
A biological computing startup that uses neural patterns from rat brain cells to build artificial intelligence just got a major boost from Amazon.
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-models-built-from-rat-brains-are-about-to-become-a-reality/
In Silicon Valley, the End of Humanity Has Always Been Part of the Plan
Idealistic tech executives believe superintelligent machines will inevitably arrive—and that when they do, homo sapiens must step out of the way.
The secret to growing food on Mars could be fungi
Scientists think beneficial fungi could help transform nutrient-poor lunar and Martian regolith into a material capable of supporting crops. By helping plants access nutrients and withstand harsh conditions, these microbes could someday make self-sustaining space farming more realistic.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020400.htm
The Hidden Bottleneck in Wearable IoT: Battery Design, Not Chip Design
Silicon chip efficiency is improving faster than battery capacity. According to the research conducted by MIT tracking lithium-ion cells from 1991 to 2018, the energy density has been rising from about 200 Wh/L to over 700 Wh/L, which is about a 5 percent yearly increase
https://www.iotforall.com/iot-battery-design
Beyond Borders: How the World’s Top Studios are Rethinking Global Growth
Prioritising behaviour over borders, avoiding the growth fallacy in user acquisition, winning the attention war against non-gaming platforms, and leveraging the AI advantage for monetisation and scaling.
https://business.google.com/uk/think/future-of-marketing/future-gaming-trends-global-growth/
3-mm implants communicate through body tissue to coordinate treatment without wires
Engineers have developed a wireless networking system that lets tiny implants communicate through body tissue, potentially allowing sensors in one part of the body to trigger treatment somewhere else.
https://interestingengineering.com/health/tiny-implants-body-tissue-wireless-network
