This Week's Sign the Apocalypse Isn't Upon Us

I remember growing up reading Sports Illustrated. There was a small column called “This Week’s Sign the Apocalypse Is Upon Us.”

With all the dire predictions about AI, it’s important to also spend time recognizing the tremendous pace of innovation & the impact AI is having broadly. Here’s what it fixed, taught, and discovered in the last two weeks.

In medicine

Mayo Clinic validated an AI that detects pancreatic cancer up to 3 years before diagnosis on routine CT scans.¹

J&J reported AI is halving the time to generate new drug development leads and cut clinical trial report preparation from 700 hours to about 15 minutes.²

In classrooms

A 2025 Harvard physics study found students using AI tutors learned more than twice as much in less time compared with traditional active learning classrooms.³

Thailand upskilled 160,000 teachers in AI, impacting 3.3 million students.⁴

On land

Texas A&M demonstrated AI predicting outbreaks of destructive crop pests with ~88% accuracy in open fields.⁵

In the stars

Princeton researchers used AI to scan 83 million stars from NASA’s TESS telescope data and identified 10,091 new exoplanet candidates (11,554 total), sorting in seconds what would take astronomers years by hand.⁶

In disaster response

Hong Kong launched an AI flood forecasting system with 3D simulations, enabling faster preemptive emergency responses.⁷

Reversing the SaaSpocalypse

Atlassian reported Q3 FY26 revenue of $1.79 billion (up 32% year over year), with cloud revenue surging 29% to $1.13 billion. The company raised its full year growth outlook to ~24% from 22%, and shares soared more than 25%.⁸

Twilio posted Q1 2026 revenue of $1.41 billion (up 20%), its highest revenue and gross profit growth rates in more than three years. The company raised its full year forecast.⁹

Clearly, there are many risks associated with AI, & it’s important to counterbalance them with some of the tremendous advances that are happening every week.

29 Apr 2026 - Mayo Clinic News Network. Published in Gut. ↩︎

27 Apr 2026 - Reuters. Quote from CIO Jim Swanson at Reuters Momentum AI. ↩︎

Kestin et al., Scientific Reports 15, 17458 (2025). Harvard University RCT (N=194). Median learning gains in AI-tutor group were “over double” those in active-learning classroom; ~70% of AI-tutor students finished in under 60 minutes. ↩︎

24 Apr 2026 - Microsoft Source Asia. 160,507 educators completed training; 3,326,065 students impacted. ↩︎

30 Apr 2026 - AgriLife Today. Study in Ecological Informatics. Specific pest: western flower thrips in peppers and tomatoes. ↩︎

Roth et al., The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 284, 14 (2026). T16 project: 83,717,159 light curves; 11,554 planet candidates total, of which 10,091 are new. Machine-learning-assisted transit search. ↩︎

20 Apr 2026 - South China Morning Post. Collaboration with South China University of Technology. ↩︎

30 Apr 2026 - Atlassian shareholder letter & Business Wire. Q3 FY26: revenue $1.79B (+32% y/y), cloud revenue $1.13B (+29% y/y). ↩︎

30 Apr 2026 - Twilio & SiliconANGLE. Q1 2026: revenue $1.41B (+20% y/y), operating income +366% y/y. ↩︎