Doomslayer: Progress Roundup

Jun 07, 2026

Energy & Environment

Antares Nuclear’s Mark-0 microreactor has become the first reactor to reach criticality in the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program, which aims to accelerate the development of new reactor designs.
Much of the world’s lithium is extracted from brine, but abundant deposits—such as those in the Appalachians—also exist in hard-rock ore. The problem is that extracting lithium from hard rock is expensive and energy-intensive; it typically requires baking the ore above 1,000 degrees Celsius and prolonged chemical leaching. In an attempt to make hard-rock lithium more economical, a group of researchers has developed a lower-temperature process for extracting lithium from spodumene, the main source of hard-rock lithium. The researchers estimate their process could cut hard-rock lithium extraction costs in half, and they are now working on commercializing the technology.

Microfibers are one of the most common forms of microplastic pollution, and washing machines send large quantities of textile fibers into wastewater. A number of companies have now developed filters designed to catch microfibers, and The Guardian reports that some appliance manufacturers are beginning to integrate them into their washing machines.

Sixty years ago, the Dartford Warbler, a plump-looking, long-tailed songbird, had nearly vanished from the UK. Today, thanks to extensive habitat restoration, the population has risen to an estimated 4,100 breeding pairs.
The rough popcornflower, a wetland plant found only in the Umpqua River Basin of Oregon, is no longer considered endangered after its population increased to more than 2 million plants.
Crested ibis are being reintroduced to the Japanese mainland, where they were extirpated in the 1970s.

Self-reported freedom reached a record high in 2025. According to a recently published Gallup poll, 82 percent of people surveyed across 138 countries reported being satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives, up from 71 percent in 2006, when the survey began. Some of the largest gains came from countries in the former Eastern Bloc. Gallup notes that this result is more closely associated with other metrics of subjective wellbeing than with formal measures of political and personal freedom.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual conference has wrapped up, leaving behind a long list of hopeful cancer headlines. The star of the show was daraxonrasib, which received a standing ovation for its unusually strong results against metastatic pancreatic cancer. Some other promising results include:
- A radioactive wafer implanted at the site of surgically removed brain tumors that nearly doubled two-year survival rates in a randomized trial.
- A genomic test that helped many breast cancer patients safely skip chemotherapy.
- A multiple-myeloma immunotherapy that kept nearly 70 percent of patients progression-free for 18 months, compared with about 27 percent of those on standard treatments.
- A targeted cancer drug that, when combined with standard immunotherapy, cut the risk of cancer progression or death by nearly two-thirds in patients with the most common form of lung cancer.

Merlin Labs, an aerospace and defense tech firm, is developing an autonomous piloting system intended to handle all stages of flight across a wide range of aircraft, from single-engine planes to commercial cargo jets. After completing a series of reviews by the US Special Operations Command, the system will now be tested on C-130J transport aircraft and may eventually make its way to commercial cargo carriers and other civil aircraft.
In a recent live-streamed demo, humanoid robots developed by Figure AI autonomously handled packages for 200 hours without any serious reported errors.