The Download: Six Big Technology Promises, Biotech Blind Spots and Today’s Top Tech News
This is today’s edition of The Download, a weekday newsletter bringing you a daily dose of what’s happening in technology.
Have we arrived yet? A reality check on six big technology promises
Some seemingly impossible feats are too good to give up on. Want to decipher your pet’s yawns and yips? Absolutely. Clean the world of chemicals forever? Yes, please. Launch a rocket to Mars in a fraction of the time? It sounds great—but how close are we, really?
In the new issue of Impossible, MIT Technology Review has published a progress report on six potentially transformative technologies and ideas that have been “just around the corner” for years or even decades. From exercise in a pill to nuclear spacecraft, we asked experts what is holding these ideas back and how far they have come.
Read the story to see how each technology stacks up.
Over the next few days, we’ll explore each of The Download’s six technologies. Stay tuned.
In biotech, you can’t see everything
—Jessica Hamzelou
I went to a screening earlier this week of Everything Is Visible, a buzzy new documentary about disgraced former biotech CEO Elizabeth Holmes.
Like many others, I returned home feeling anxious. But it wasn’t only Holmes’s deception or her disturbing interactions with her subjects. The movie reignited concerns I’ve had about covering science for most of my career. Despite our best efforts, we can never truly see everything.
The film is a stark reminder of how easy it is to be fooled by a seductive narrative. That’s why I found myself wondering how we cover science.
This story is from “The Checkup,” a weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox every Thursday.
Help us choose the topic for our next roundtable
Subscriber-only roundtables offer conversations with MIT Technology Review editors and reporters. Now, help us choose the next topic: how to keep thinking for a long time or what it would take to build a city on the moon. Which conversation would you most like to hear?
Vote for your favorite topic by Monday at 12 p.m. ET.
Must-read technology news
We scoured the internet for the most entertaining, important, alarming and fascinating technology stories of the day.
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Palmer Luckey’s new startup plans to genetically enhance military working dogs
Warhound says the dogs will protect soldiers by detecting explosives. (Wired $)
+ The company raised $200 million from investors including Sequoia. (TechCrunch)
+ Colossal Biosciences is helping with dog cloning and gene editing. (Bloomberg $)
+ The Department of Defense wants AI-powered lie detectors. (MIT Technology Review) -
Donald Trump says Elon Musk has restored access to Ukraine’s Starlink
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Starlink’s speed remains limited. (Reuters $)
+ Trump reportedly asked Musk to lift the speed limits. (WSJ $) -
Newly revealed PHP flaws have yet to be successfully exploited
Experts say the vulnerability is harder to exploit than expected. (NBC News)
+ Officials urge organizations to patch the flaw after it took websites offline around the world. (BBC)
+ However, published fixes can also help hackers. (The Economist $) -
Moderna and Merck announce that their mRNA cancer vaccine reduces deaths by 42%
The vaccine reduced the risk of recurrence in melanoma patients. (Ars Technica)
+ Federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA. (MIT Technology Review) -
Powerful new gene editor reaches its first human patient
The main editing technique rewrites the DNA of liver cells. (Nature)
+ Companies are planning gene-edited babies. (MIT Technology Review) -
Google pays customers to free up data center power
Its virtual power plant rewards people who regulate their energy use. (The New York Times $)
+ In Finland, 250,000 trees were illegally cut down to build data centers. (The Guardian) -
Seven Dutch spies reportedly hacked Jared Kushner’s iPhone
The report alleges financial ties to foreign officials. (Vanity Fair $) -
Fossil fuels may have stopped the next ice age
Modern warming has reversed 2,000 years of ice growth. (Wired) -
Scientists recreated solar flares to explain the mystery of the corona
They want to understand why the solar corona is so hot. (New Scientist $) -
A road trip in America’s cheapest EV shows how much charging has improved
Fast chargers made the trip manageable despite sparse coverage. (WSJ $)
+ Bigger EVs aren’t necessarily better. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“If something happens to this guy, that’s it. We’re all screwed.”
—Software developer Ian Landsman said on X. Volunteer Ondřej Surý’s work patching vulnerabilities in PHP has made him an unsung hero across the internet.
One more thing
How sound can lead us to the wonders of the universe
For decades, astronomy has relied on visual information such as images, charts and graphs to understand the universe. Now, some researchers are trying something different: listening to the universe.
Sonification—the process of converting information into sound—is helping visually impaired researchers explore the universe and discover patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. The approach is also spreading to fields such as climate science, navigation and education.
Discover how sound brings science closer and reveals more.
—Corey S. Powell
We still have good things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten your day. Have an idea? Please contact me.
- Team of domino experts broke the Guinness World Record with a 29,193-piece 3D pyramid.
- Scientists suspect that pigeons sense Earth’s magnetic field using special immune cells in the liver. (Read more)
- These clear microscopic images reveal the inside of cells like never before. They are from the Nikon Small World contest.
- A cute capybara and a cheerful penguin joined 10,000 other animals for the annual weigh-in at London Zoo.
Source: www.technologyreview.com