Four For Friday | Dec 12, 2025
LF200 Weak signals of what's to come up in 2026, Superpower's roadmap, Living Laps going mainstream, the power of the Pomegranate + The Hunger to be Everything
Welcome to this week’s Four For Friday - our 200th edition! Nuggets of interesting things I’ve picked up this week, plus a cultural amuse bouche.
1. 250 Weak Signals for the year ahead
A compilation of 250 ‘weak signals’ across nine domains—from “silver influencers” becoming the fastest-growing content creators, to cities issuing “loneliness audits,” to AI whisperers translating corporate culture into model tuning.
Intriguing ideas emerge: neurodivergent-led innovation teams, four-hour hyper-productivity work blocks, pollinator credits for farmers, climate relocation visas, personal memory vaults as digital assets, and divorce insurance going mainstream.
So What? These aren’t predictions - they’re breadcrumbs from the future being dropped.
2. Superpower’s roadmap for a new system for health
Superpower is one of the most impressive human longevity apps and their founder Max has just posted a roadmap for how they plan to usher in a new systems for health.
Good to see the prominent mention of a coming digital twin which will allow you to diagnose, predict, prevent and optimize your health, bringing together genes, exposomem, behaviors, lifestyle and medical care.
For USD $199, Superpower offers comprehensive testing detecting thousands of conditions, personalized protocols adapting to biomarker changes, and 24/7 clinician access. They have a 93% member satisfaction rating and plans for 2026 expansion includes GLP-1s, hormones, and longevity peptides.
For other healthtech innovators, this is a pretty robust manifesto, which includes their plan for a new health system that will:
Be the front door – before doctors or Google
Prevent disease & enhance human capability
Deliver care via AI
Feel more like Apple or Tesla than a hospital
Put power into the hands of people
Lower costs, in line with physics not incentives
Bring frontier therapeutics to everyone, far faster
3. Living Labs - their time has come
A good survey of Living Labs and where they’re headed. Living Labs are real-world innovation environments where citizens, researchers, businesses, and public sector co-create solutions to complex challenges. Founded in 2006, the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) now coordinates 60+ projects across domains like climate, health, circular economy, and smart cities.
The approach combines Open Innovation (multi-stakeholder collaboration), User Innovation (citizens at the center), and Responsible Innovation (ethics and societal impact). Research publications mentioning “Living Lab” surged from ~100 (2005) to over 5,000 (2023). Under Horizon 2020, over 750 projects incorporated Living Labs; nearly 150 already reference them in Horizon Europe (2023-2024). They’re linked to UN SDGs and address grand challenges through participatory experimentation.
So What? Living Labs are just what we need to test our innovations in the messy, complex outside world. They’re holistic, but observable and allow experimentation and iteration, showing what happens when reality and innovation meet.
4. Longevity Hack: Pomegranate
Urolithin A, a metabolite from pomegranates, has been found to improve immune resilience and aerobic performance, promotes brain mitochondrial repair, and improves cardiovascular function. Four months of daily supplementation reduced plasma ceramides, an emerging biomarker for cardiovascular risk.
So what? This isn’t a far-off fantasy; it’s an accessible, evidence-based intervention showing measurable improvements in healthspan, available today.
And finally… Something 4 The Weekend
This deep and thoughtful piece of prose - The Hunger to be Everything - from a 23 year old, nails the dangers of living other people’s lives - powered by instant, ubiquitous global connectivity. It’s a good one to reflect on as the year draws to a close - who and what matters to you, and why?
I carry cities I’ll never walk and careers that died before a resume held their name. I mourn strangers I nearly loved; left behind in unread messages. Because what if, there’s someone else; gentler, funnier, easier, more aligned with me just one scroll further?
And I am so exhausted by this constant orbit around potential. This slow bleeding of meaning. A daily flirtation with who I am not, what I don’t have, and what I haven’t done. Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking what I wanted and started asking what would look impressive.
And that’s 200! That’s all for now - happy weekend everyone.
- Stephen