Latest news with #XPrize
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
How to Watch a Japanese Company Try to Land on the Moon's Surface
A Japanese company is hoping that the second time's the charm for putting a robotic lander on the moon. Ispace of Tokyo is among the private companies that have emerged in recent years aiming to establish a profitable business by sending experiments and other payloads to the surface of the moon. Its first spacecraft made it to lunar orbit in 2023, but crashed as it attempted to land. Its second spacecraft, named Resilience, launched in January and has been taking a roundabout path to the moon, entering orbit last month. Resilience is now ready to descend to the lunar surface, and Ispace hopes that it will arrive there intact. When is the moon landing, and how can I watch it? Resilience, also known as the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander, is scheduled to land at 3:17 p.m. Eastern time Thursday. (It will be Friday at the company's mission control in Tokyo.) Ispace will provide live coverage of the landing beginning at 2:10 p.m. Eastern time. What is Ispace, and what happened during its last moon mission? Ispace emerged from a Japanese team that had aimed to win the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered $20 million for the first privately financed venture to land on the moon. None of the X Prize teams got off the ground before the competition expired in 2018. Takeshi Hakamada, the leader of the Japanese X Prize team, raised private financing to push forward and is the chief executive of Ispace. Do You See Craters or Bumps on the Moon's Surface? A picture taken recently by a Japanese company's spacecraft shows how your interpretation of objective reality can be tested by the power of illusion. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
South China Morning Post
02-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
XPrize founder Peter Diamandis projects hope for AI, biotech amid US-China tech war
Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur behind the XPrize Foundation, has long championed a future of technological promise, building a career on innovation competitions meant to solve grand challenges. But in a recent conversation in Hong Kong, a subtle shift in tone emerged as he addressed the current complexities of global scientific collaboration, clouded by geopolitical tensions and the looming threat of technological decoupling. Advertisement 'One of the things that is important to realise is that human biology is conserved across 8 billion people, as is math and physics and chemistry,' he said. 'So a breakthrough by a brilliant entrepreneur or scientist in Beijing is fully usable and accessible by a brilliant scientist in Boston. That elevates humanity as a whole.' His cosmopolitan vision of scientific progress stands in contrast to the current political climate, in which the US, under the administration of President Donald Trump, has sought to curb international student visas and made drastic cuts to scientific funding and universities. 'There's a huge amount of concern,' Diamandis said, pointing specifically to the cuts at the National Institutes of Health. 'Unless it gets corrected and changed back, I think that the cuts being made … will have long-term implications to the speed of scientific discoveries.' Diamandis spoke with the Post on May 28 while visiting Hong Kong for the UBS Asian Investment Conference. He is perhaps best known for incentivising breakthroughs through his XPrize competitions, which served as an early catalyst for the private space flight industry that spawned companies such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Discussing the more positive aspects of technological progress is clearly where he feels most comfortable. Advertisement 'Our brains are wired for fear and scarcity, and my job through my work is to help people see the world in a different fashion,' he said.
The Guardian
11-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
$101m longevity research prize aims to ‘shatter the limits' on ageing
Admitting its goal is 'audacious', the largest longevity-focused prize in history – offering $101m in prize money – will announce its shortlist of candidates on Monday. The aim of the seven-year XPrize Healthspan is to develop a way for humans to dramatically rejuvenate muscles, cognition and immune functions, the three systems crucial to healthy ageing. 'This competition isn't just accelerating progress, it's shattering the limits of what's possible when it comes to ageing,' said Jamie Justice, the executive director of XPrize, run by the XPrize Foundation and backed by funders including the Hevolution Foundation. The winning team should be able to restore these three systems by a minimum of 10 – but ideally 20 – years in humans aged 50 to 80. A key condition of the final prize is that the innovation is accessible to as many people as cheaply and easily as possible. Another condition is that there will be no delay in rolling out the solution: the winning idea must be scalable in 12 months or less of the final award being made in 2030, after a final $81m one-year clinical trial in older adults. 'Success will profoundly change our approach to ageing and positively affect quality of life and healthcare costs,' Justice said. XPrize is not the only multimillion-dollar prize on offer to those striving to come up with an answer to ageing: the Saudi-backed Hevolution Foundation has pledged $1bn to fund longevity research, clinical trials and global collaborations over a decade. The Methuselah Mouse prize (Mprize) has committed more than $4.5m to extend the lifespan of mice as a proxy for delaying human ageing. The Rejuvenation Startup Challenge awards $2-3m to support startups with promising rejuvenation technologies. The Palo Alto longevity prize offers $1m to extend lifespan in mammals. All these prizes are devised to address the fact that while global life expectancy has more than doubled in the last 100 years, the quality of our health as we age has stalled. There are enormous gaps around the world between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy: in the UK, women can expect to live up to 22 years in poor health. Men live on average 17 years with chronic illness, disability or reduced quality of life. The aim of XPrize is not to develop cutting-edge therapeutics. 'The standout aim is to redefine our approach to extending the healthy, quality years of human life,' Justice said. 'The winning intervention will not be disease-specific and reactive, like modern medicine. Instead, it will target the mechanisms of biological ageing itself. 'That will propel our ability to address physical and cognitive functional decline, enhance resilience in the face of illness or disease, and ultimately delay the onset of disability and death.' On Monday, the biggest prize in the longevity field comes closer as 40 semi-finalist teams are pulled from the XPrize longlist, which comprised more than 1,000 scientists, clinicians, biomedical engineers, longevity technology leaders, pharmaceutical companies, students, biohacker groups and newcomers to the field. These teams – 14 of which come from the UK – have suggested a wide range of innovations including pharmacological approaches, biological therapies and lifestyle-based interventions, and often combinations of all three. A common focus of solutions is to regenerate or maintain cellular and tissue function over time through biologics such as stem cell therapy. Immunotherapies and seeking to reverse age-related gene change at the molecular level are another approach. New or repurposed drugs are frequently posited as solutions by the competing teams, including metformin and rapamycin, for both of which funding has long been sought to clinically prove what many hope will be a breakthrough in anti-ageing. Of the devices proposed, most focus on electrical stimulation of neural pathways, neuromuscular activation or muscle maintenance. No matter how technologically advanced the oncoming solutions, Justice says nothing will replace diet and exercise – albeit highly personalised and specific techniques – as the central element in healthy ageing. 'We're not talking about your five a day here,' she said. 'While wholefoods and supplements are the most commonly proposed nutritional solutions from our teams, they're often suggested in combination with substances like nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), a naturally occurring molecule that is gaining attention as a potential anti-ageing agent.' Nutraceuticals – foods that offer health benefits beyond their nutritional value – also feature, with a focus on wheatgrass, seaweed, berries, proteins, amino acids, herbal products and metabolism-supporting compounds. Lifestyle and behavioural approaches are also prominent, often combined with cognitive training, sleep optimisation and community engagement. The most frequent combinations include aerobic and resistance exercise with dietary changes, as well as sleep health paired with meditation, prayer or breathing exercises.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's $100M Climate Gamble: Houston's Mati Carbon Wins $50M With Rock Dust Hack To Save 100M Farmers Across 3 Continents
Mati Carbon, a climate-tech startup based in Houston, just walked away with $50 million in prize money from the Elon Musk-backed XPrize Carbon Removal competition. The company announced the win, highlighting it as a major step toward scaling its carbon removal efforts globally. The funding positions Mati at the forefront of a massive shift in how carbon is removed from the atmosphere by spreading pulverized rock on farmland. Don't Miss: 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Founded in 2022, Mati Carbon's rock weathering method caught the attention of investors, scientists, and climate advocates alike. The startup's goal is to remove carbon dioxide from the air while boosting crop yields for smallholder farmers across India, Tanzania, and Zambia. Mati's process is simple. It grinds basalt rock into a fine dust and then applies it to agricultural land. As rainwater and natural weather conditions interact with the basalt, the rock binds with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and turns it into a stable form of carbon stored in the soil. As the basalt breaks down, it releases vital minerals that re-mineralize depleted soil. Farmers see yield increases and stronger crops without paying anything upfront. Mati provides the service at no cost. The startup is already on track to work with 30,000 farmers by the end of this year, and founder and CEO Shantanu Agarwal said in an interview with Time last week, the goal is to reach 100 million globally by 2040. In many cases, this method increases yields by 25% to 70%, depending on the condition of the soil, Agarwal told TechCrunch. Trending: Donald Trump just announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure deal — . The XPrize Foundation, funded by Musk's Musk Foundation, awarded Mati Carbon the $50 million prize as part of a broader $100 million initiative to accelerate carbon removal technologies. While the backing from Musk gives the award high-profile visibility, it also brings some scrutiny. Climate policy expert Wil Burns, who helped design the XPrize guidelines, expressed concern in an interview with Politico, saying Musk's funding of this prize while pushing for research cuts in other areas taints the credibility of the initiative. Still, the prize remains one of the largest ever awarded for climate innovation. Agarwal sees this win as validation. "Being named the grand prize winner of XPrize Carbon Removal is not just a validation of our approach to [carbon dioxide removal], it also represents a major catalyst to building out the science and infrastructure needed to deliver on our mission – generating climate resilience and economic empowerment for the more than 100 million smallholder farmers in developing economies worldwide," Agarwal said in a company's method is also being recognized for meeting all the core criteria of the XPrize competition: operational feasibility, long-term sustainability, and low cost per ton of carbon removed. Mati is already scaling its operations. With $50 million in hand, they plan to build out logistics, expand partnerships with farmers, and continue refining their carbon tracking software. The team uses a tech-forward system to monitor and verify carbon drawdown and soil improvement. This precision allows them to scale across vastly different geographies while maintaining impact integrity. Mati Carbon's win comes at a moment when many climate startups are struggling to prove effectiveness. By focusing on simplicity, scale, and farmer empowerment, the startup has done what few others have: created a system that benefits people and the planet. Read Next: Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary called Missing Ring his biggest mistake — Don't repeat history—Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Elon Musk's $100M Climate Gamble: Houston's Mati Carbon Wins $50M With Rock Dust Hack To Save 100M Farmers Across 3 Continents originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Carbon capture company wins $5m to scale up
A carbon capture company has won a $5m international prize to scale up its work. UNDO, founded by Jim Mann, won an Xprize competition offering cash prizes for projects that could combat climate change. It followed a Newcastle University study at Nafferton Farm in Northumberland which demonstrated that spreading volcanic dust on farmland, a material that captures carbon from the air, could also increase crop yields by more than 20%. Mr Mann, who is a former Durham University ecology student, said the collaboration with Newcastle University was "instrumental" in advancing the technology. Basalt rock found in soil in the north-east of England was crushed into dust and given to farmers, in field tests published last year. What is carbon capture and how does it fight climate change? Newcastle professor David Manning, who led the study, said: "Research at Nafferton Farm has shown that, in a bad year for crop growth, use of basaltic rock dust gives increased yields, suggesting that it is particularly helpful when plants are under stress." Following the prize win, Manufacturer UNDO said it would "remain focused on building the foundations for a world where enhanced rock weathering becomes a common farming practice". The main winner of the XPrize competition was India's Mati Carbon, which was awarded $50m. UNDO was one of three runners-up, with Canada's Planetary receiving $1m for ocean work and the UAE's Project Hajar awarded $1m for direct air capture. Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Carbon capture volcanic rock 'boosts farm yields' What is carbon capture and can it fight climate change? Could 'magic dust' help cool the planet? UNDO XPrize Newcastle University
