This is right this moment’s version of The Download, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what’s occurring on this planet of know-how.
Flock is tightening its guidelines in response to a rising surveillance backlash
The police-tech large Flock is altering officers’ entry to its nationwide community of license plate readers. The transfer comes amid a backlash over mass surveillance and reviews of officers utilizing the know-how to stalk and harass present or former romantic companions.
To fight that, the corporate would require them to enter a legal case quantity earlier than looking its database and develop automated auditing of suspicious searches. But as a result of Flock gained’t confirm these case numbers, officers might nonetheless discover methods across the safeguards.
Here’s what Flock is altering—and the place loopholes stay.
—James O’Donnell
Cloning might be used to avoid wasting species—or make human “organ sacks”
—Jessica Hamzelou
This week I spoke to scientists who’ve discovered a strategy to flip male mouse embryos feminine. They’ve developed a CRISPR-based method to primarily minimize out the Y chromosome. It allowed them to create feminine clones of male mice.
They hope their method might be useful in conservation efforts, particularly in circumstances the place we would have just a few people of a species left. But cloning has a number of makes use of, starting from genetically modifying livestock to recreating beloved pets and probably even creating “brainless” replicas of people.
Find out what cloning can do now, and the place it may lead subsequent.
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech e-newsletter. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.
This scientist helps construct a lacking map of childhood
In 2017, Deanne Taylor attended a presentation in regards to the Human Cell Atlas, an bold try to map each cell within the human physique. Taylor was floored, after which involved. The mission’s researchers had solely made plans to check adults. “That’s when my little alarm went off,” she says. “Not once more.”
Children’s cells are totally different from grownups’ cells in the way in which they specific genes, which might trigger drastically totally different and even lethal responses to medicine that adults tolerate properly. Taylor has since pushed the Human Cell Atlas to incorporate kids and is engaged on a serious database of wholesome pediatric tissue.
The objective is to present researchers a baseline for a way kids develop—and probably reveal how ailments that emerge in maturity start a lot earlier.
Meet the scientist constructing a mobile map of childhood.
—Colleen de Bellefonds
This story is from the subsequent concern of our print journal, which is all about children. Subscribe now to learn it when it lands.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you right this moment’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Ukrainian drones defeated US forces in a navy train
They worn out an American tank brigade within the battle recreation. (WSJ $)
+ The drill uncovered US vulnerabilities to drone assaults. (Ars Technica)
+ Trump simply declared 100% tariffs on many drones. (Verge)
+ Europe has a drone-filled imaginative and prescient for future wars. (MIT Technology Review)
2 OpenAI and Anthropic are slicing costs to compete with Chinese AI
Rising AI payments are pushing corporations towards cheaper fashions. (FT $)
+ China’s Z.ai goals to rival Anthropic and OpenAI in coding. (Bloomberg $)
+ While DeepSeek is quickly pushing up API costs. (Quartz)
3 Apple has skilled its personal AI mannequin for China with help from Alibaba
A China-tailored mannequin of its personal might give Apple larger management. (Reuters $)
+ And make it the primary overseas agency with a Beijing-approved AI mannequin. (Verge)
+ Chinese AI has divided the White House. (MIT Technology Review)
4 US efforts to construct humanoid robots face a Chinese provide chain
To construct an inexpensive machine, you want Chinese components. (NYT $)
+ Chinese humanoids have enterprise considerations of their very own. (CNBC)
+ Gig employees are coaching humanoids at house. (MIT Technology Review)
5 People are “marrying” chatbots. Lawmakers wish to cease it.
Their interventions are a response to the rise of AI companion apps. (Wired $)
+ Chatbots are pushing us towards a post-human web. (NYT $)
6 Researchers have solid doubts over Anthropic’s new AI watermarks
The marks can disappear when textual content is rewritten. (Nature)
7 AI is scrambling the political map
Data facilities and surveillance are creating unlikely political alliances. (Axios)
8 Oxygen has been discovered almost two miles underground
Earth’s deep biosphere might help extra life than thought. (New Yorker $)
9 A brand new research challenges our understanding of how reminiscences are saved
Mice retained reminiscences after shedding half of their synapses. (New Scientist $)
10 An Indian startup is testing cancer-sniffing canine for early detection
AI interprets the canine’ responses to sufferers’ breath samples. (Bloomberg $)
Quote of the day
“They had been extremely sloppy. If you’re critical about this, your AI shouldn’t be capable to get away onto the web after which do it once more proper afterward.”
—A former OpenAI worker tells Wired that the corporate’s rogue agent hack was a watershed second for AI security and cybersecurity.
One More Thing
AI supplies discovery now wants to maneuver into the true world
Startups flush with money are constructing AI-assisted laboratories to search out supplies far sooner and extra cheaply. But they’re nonetheless ready for his or her ChatGPT second.
By far essentially the most time-consuming and costly step in supplies discovery is just not imagining new constructions however making them in the true world. Before synthesizing a cloth, you don’t know if it could possibly really be made or whether or not it should have the properties you need.
Now startups like Lila Sciences and Periodic Labs are constructing labs the place AI brokers can design experiments, management robots, and analyze outcomes, probably shortening the invention course of from a long time to a couple years or much less.
Discover what it should take to show AI’s predictions into actual supplies.
—David Rotman
We can nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any concepts? Drop me a line.)
+ Astronomers have created the largest-ever 2D map of the universe.
+ Lose your self in essentially the most breathtaking photographs of the overall photo voltaic eclipse.
+ Musician Andy Brewer has virtuosically composed a whole track with nothing however equalization.
+ Step contained in the National Gallery’s Imaginarium, a digital artwork world the place masterpieces develop into digital adventures. (Big due to reader Peter Ryan for the discover!)