👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 17 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.

Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.

Time to Read: 5 minutes.

Let’s dive in!

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#1: Radiant

Description: Radiant is a developer of nuclear microreactors.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Radiant recently raised $165M in venture capital funding. Radiant is one of the frontrunners in the nuclear community developing micro nuclear reactors. Their goal is to bring the world’s first factory-constructed microreactors to market, the first portable, zero-emissions power source that works anywhere.

#2: Ankar

Description: Ankar is an AI platform helping manage intellectual property.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Ankar recently raised $4.1M in venture capital funding. Ankar’s AI agent helps intellectual property professionals throughout the entire lifecycle, from innovation to filing to protection to licensing.

#3: Atomic Canyon

Description: Atomic Canyon is an AI platform for nuclear energy.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Atomic Canyon recently raised $7M in venture capital funding. Their platform transforms nuclear data, helping navigate billions of pages of technical documentation, NRC data, and expanding working efficiency. Through enhanced intelligence collaboration, all nuclear players can achieve better results faster.

#4: Endurosat

Description: EnduroSat is a reprogrammable satellite platform.

Why Is This Company Interesting? EnduroSat recently raised $49M in venture capital funding. Endurosat offers a space service differentiated from other offerings on the market, with universal integration compatibility, software flexibility, cloud-based ground services, and simple space data access when in orbit.

#5: Volare

Description: Volare is a developer of sustainable insect protein products.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Volare recently raised $26M in venture capital funding. They use protein from the black soldier fly to help solve the impending protein crisis. Protein demand is expected to double by 2050, however, supply isn’t going to keep up with demand, leaving a large market opportunity for potential players.

The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Nuclear Reactor 2026

Valar Atomics partnered with the State of Utah to have a new nuclear test reactor operating in the state in 2026. A test reactor can be used for research, training, and development purposes, but has no role in producing electrical power. The goal is to establish nuclear power in Utah before the 2034 Olympics.

LiveScience: Chinese Nuclear Breakthrough Using Abandoned US Research

Scientists in China have refueled a nuclear reactor without shutting it down, a first globally. This breakthrough came using a molten-salt reactor, which ran on Thorium. The United States left the research publicly available, and the Chinese found it and utilized its potential.

The Guardian: Trump Nuclear Executive Orders

President Trump signed a series of executive orders intended to spur a “nuclear energy renaissance” through the construction of new reactors. The purposes of his orders were to speed up the approval of nuclear reactors for defense and AI purposes, reform the NRC, revamping the regulatory process to have experimental reactors operating by 2026, and boosting investment in nuclear’s industrial base.

ESG Today: Google Signs 600MW Solar Agreement to Power AI Datacenters

Google announced a new agreement with energyRe, enabling Google to purchase renewable energy credits from a portfolio of 600MW of new solar projects being developed. This agreement will contribute to Google’s commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

The New York Times: Oil Companies Sued Over Wrongful Death

Unusually hot temperatures led to the death of a woman. Her daughter sued 7 oil and gas companies, claiming wrongful death, alleging that they failed to warn the public of the dangers of the planet-warming emissions produced by their products, and they funded decades-long campaigns to obscure the scientific consensus on global warming. “This case represents a major escalation in the growing efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change.”

Space: Is The Space Economy Possible?

Developing the new near-Earth and Moon space economy will take many developments. We’ll need plug-and-play lunar equipment, allowing day-and-night operations on the moon. We’ll need lots of power in order to get the water on the moon and other types of minerals. We’ll need to design things to fit in hot and cold environments. Our ability to make money in this type of economy is up to many countries—it may be a winner-takes-all or it may be a global cooperation.

The New York Times: SpaceX Loses Control of Starship

The latest SpaceX Starship got all the way up into space, but halfway through its uncrewed journey, the spacecraft sprang a propellant leak, causing it to spin out of control. The vehicle broke up as it fell back into the atmosphere. These issues suggest that SpaceX still has more work to do with its Starship program.

Pitchbook: European VC Market Recovery

In the first quarter of 2025, only 12.2% of VC deals closed were at a valuation cut. Comparatively, in 2024, down rounds were around 17% of total VC deals. This may be signalling the start of the VC market opening again in 2025, hope for foreign investments and IPOs.

NPR: Nihilism

Nihilism is a movement started around the early 19th century, based around the idea of “nothing.” Nietzsche wrote much about nihilism, believing that the “death of god” (his view that people’s belief in traditional religious institutions and values was waning) led to a state of nihilism.

Fast Company: Empathy

Social scientists have found that empathy can make people weaker, dubbed “empathy fatigue”, a major source of burnout for people. Philosophers believe that empathy is a form of mental strength that enables us to better understand the impact of our actions on others—helping us make more informed choices.

Nature: Employee Happiness & Performance

A new UK study found that happier firms outperform the market, with the highest sector output being in the tech sector. Employee-related factors, such as workplace conditions, rewards, happiness, and demographics, significantly influence firm performance.

Philosophy Break: Making Difficult Life Decisions

Philosopher Ruth Chang suggests that if we’re stuck in a hard life choice, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking there must be a “best” path. Often, there are simply many different paths, which will change us in different ways.

This can be effective for key life choices: Who should I marry? Should I go to college? Should I make a large career change?

Chang posits that what makes these choices hard is not necessarily their content, but their structure: they don’t fit into our standard models of decision-making. Hard choices involve cases where choices are no better or worse than each other—but at the same time they aren’t equal to each other.

Through this understanding, we can potentially approach our hard choices differently.

See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.