The Download: political chatbot persuasion, and gene editing adverts

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

AI chatbots can sway voters better than political advertisements

The news: Chatting with a politically biased AI model is more effective than political ads at nudging both Democrats and Republicans to support presidential candidates of the opposing party, new research shows.

The catch: The chatbots swayed opinions by citing facts and evidence, but they were not always accurate—in fact, the researchers found, the most persuasive models said the most untrue things. The findings are the latest in an emerging body of research demonstrating the persuasive power of LLMs. They raise profound questions about how generative AI could reshape elections.  Read the full story.

—Michelle Kim 

The era of AI persuasion in elections is about to begin 

—Tal Feldman is a JD candidate at Yale Law School who focuses on technology and national security. Aneesh Pappu is a PhD student and Knight-Hennessy scholar at Stanford University who focuses on agentic AI and technology policy. 

The fear that elections could be overwhelmed by AI-generated realistic fake media has gone mainstream—and for good reason.

But that’s only half the story. The deeper threat isn’t that AI can just imitate people—it’s that it can actively persuade people. And new research published this week shows just how powerful that persuasion can be. AI chatbots can shift voters’ views by a substantial margin, far more than traditional political advertising tends to do.

In the coming years, we will see the rise of AI that can personalize arguments, test what works, and quietly reshape political views at scale. That shift—from imitation to active persuasion—should worry us deeply. Read the full story. 

The ads that sell the sizzle of genetic trait discrimination

—Antonio Regalado, senior editor for biomedicine

One day this fall, I watched an electronic sign outside the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in Manhattan switch seamlessly between an ad for makeup and one promoting the website Pickyourbaby.com, which promises a way for potential parents to use genetic tests to influence their baby’s traits, including eye color, hair color, and IQ.

Inside the station, every surface was wrapped with more of its ads—babies on turnstiles, on staircases, on banners overhead. “Think about it. Makeup and then genetic optimization,” exulted Kian Sadeghi, the 26-year-old founder of Nucleus Genomics, the startup running the ads. 

The day after the campaign launched, Sadeghi and I had briefly sparred online. He’d been on X showing off a phone app where parents can click through traits like eye color and hair color. I snapped back that all this sounded a lot like Uber Eats—another crappy, frictionless future invented by entrepreneurs, but this time you’d click for a baby.

That night, I agreed to meet Sadeghi in the station under a banner that read, “IQ is 50% genetic.” Read on to see how Antonio’s conversation with Sadeghi went. 

This story first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The metaverse’s future looks murkier than ever
OG believer Mark Zuckerberg is planning deep cuts to the division’s budget. (Bloomberg $)
+ However some of that money will be diverted toward smart glasses and wearables. (NYT $)
+ Meta just managed to poach one of Apple’s top design chiefs. (Bloomberg $)

2 Kids are effectively AI’s guinea pigs
And regulators are slowly starting to take note of the risks. (The Economist $)
+ You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How a group of women changed UK law on non-consensual deepfakes
It’s a big victory, and they managed to secure it with stunning speed. (The Guardian)
+ But bans on deepfakes take us only so far—here’s what else we need. (MIT Technology Review)
+ An AI image generator startup just leaked a huge trove of nude images. (Wired $) 

4 OpenAI is acquiring an AI model training startup
Its researchers have been impressed by the monitoring and de-bugging tools built by Neptune. (NBC)
+ It’s not just you: the speed of AI deal-making really is accelerating. (NYT $)

5 Russia has blocked Apple’s FaceTime video calling feature
It seems the Kremlin views any platform it doesn’t control as dangerous. (Reuters $)
+ How Russia killed its tech industry. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The trouble with AI browsers
This reviewer tested five of them and found them to be far more effort than they’re worth. (The Verge $)
+ AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it. (MIT Technology Review)

7 An anti-AI activist has disappeared 
Sam Kirchner went AWOL after failing to show up at a scheduled court hearing, and friends are worried. (The Atlantic$)

8 Taiwanese chip workers are creating a community in the Arizona desert
A TSMC project to build chip factories is rapidly transforming this corner of the US. (NYT $)

9 This hearing aid has become a status symbol 
Rich people with hearing issues swear by a product made by startup Fortell. (Wired $)
+ Apple AirPods can be a gateway hearing aid. (MIT Technology Review) 

10 A plane crashed after one of its 3D-printed parts melted 
Just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean you should. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“Some people claim we can scale up current technology and get to general intelligence…I think that’s bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French.”

—AI researcher Yann LeCun explains why he’s leaving Meta to set up a world-model startup, Sifted reports. 

One more thing

ILLUSTRATION SOURCES: NATIONAL HUMAN GENOME RESEARCH INSTITUTE

What to expect when you’re expecting an extra X or Y chromosome

Sex chromosome variations, in which people have a surplus or missing X or Y, occur in as many as one in 400 births. Yet the majority of people affected don’t even know they have them, because these conditions can fly under the radar.

As more expectant parents opt for noninvasive prenatal testing in hopes of ruling out serious conditions, many of them are surprised to discover instead that their fetus has a far less severe—but far less well-known—condition.

And because so many sex chromosome variations have historically gone undiagnosed, many ob-gyns are not familiar with these conditions, leaving families to navigate the unexpected news on their own. Read the full story.

—Bonnie Rochman

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ It’s never too early to start practicing your bûche de Noëlskills for the holidays.
+ Brandi Carlile, you will always be famous.
+ What do bartenders get up to after finishing their Thanksgiving shift? It’s time to find out.
+ Pitchfork’s controversial list of the best albums of the year is here!

The Download: LLM confessions, and tapping into geothermal hot spots

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

OpenAI has trained its LLM to confess to bad behavior

What’s new: OpenAI is testing a new way to expose the complicated processes at work inside large language models. Researchers at the company can make an LLM produce what they call a confession, in which the model explains how it carried out a task and (most of the time) own up to any bad behavior.

Why it matters: Figuring out why large language models do what they do—and in particular why they sometimes appear to lie, cheat, and deceive—is one of the hottest topics in AI right now. If this multitrillion-dollar technology is to be deployed as widely as its makers hope it will be, it must be made more trustworthy. OpenAI sees confessions as one step toward that goal. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

How AI is uncovering hidden geothermal energy resources

Sometimes geothermal hot spots are obvious, marked by geysers and hot springs on Earth’s surface. But in other places, they’re obscured thousands of feet underground. Now AI could help uncover these hidden pockets of potential power.

A startup company called Zanskar announced today that it’s used AI and other advanced computational methods to uncover a blind geothermal system—meaning there aren’t signs of it on the surface—in the western Nevada desert. The company says it’s the first blind system that’s been identified and confirmed to be a commercial prospect in over 30 years. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

Why the grid relies on nuclear reactors in the winter

In the US, nuclear reactors follow predictable seasonal trends. Summer and winter tend to see the highest electricity demand, so plant operators schedule maintenance and refueling for other parts of the year.

This scheduled regularity might seem mundane, but it’s quite the feat that operational reactors are as reliable and predictable as they are. Now we’re seeing a growing pool of companies aiming to bring new technologies to the nuclear industry. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Donald Trump has scrapped Biden’s fuel efficiency requirements
It’s a major blow for green automobile initiatives. (NYT $)
+ Trump maintains that getting rid of the rules will drive down the price of cars. (Politico)

2 RFK Jr’s vaccine advisers may delay hepatitis B vaccines for babies
The shots are a key part in combating acute cases of the infection. (The Guardian)
+ Former FDA commissioners are worried by its current chief’s vaccine views. (Ars Technica)
+ Meanwhile, a fentanyl vaccine is being trialed in the Netherlands. (Wired $)

3 Amazon is exploring building its own US delivery network
Which could mean axing its long-standing partnership with the US Postal Service. (WP $)

4 Republicans are defying Trump’s orders to block states from passing AI laws
They’re pushing back against plans to sneak the rule into an annual defense bill. (The Hill)+ Trump has been pressuring them to fall in line for months. (Ars Technica)
+ Congress killed an attempt to stop states regulating AI back in July. (CNN)

5 Wikipedia is exploring AI licensing deals
It’s a bid to monetize AI firms’ heavy reliance on its web pages. (Reuters)
+ How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral. (MIT Technology Review)

6 OpenAI is looking to the stars—and beyond
Sam Altman is reportedly interested in acquiring or partnering with a rocket company. (WSJ $)

7 What we can learn from wildfires
This year’s Dragon Bravo fire defied predictive modelling. But why? (New Yorker $)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

8 What’s behind America’s falling birth rates?
It’s remarkably hard to say. (Undark)

9 Researchers are studying whether brain rot is actually real
Including whether its effects could be permanent. (NBC News)

10 YouTuber Mr Beast is planning to launch a mobile phone service
Beast Mobile, anyone? (Insider $)
+ The New York Stock Exchange could be next in his sights. (TechCrunch)

Quote of the day

“I think there are some players who are YOLO-ing.”

—Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei suggests some rival AI companies are veering into risky spending territory, Bloomberg reports.

One more thing

The quest to show that biological sex matters in the immune system

For years, microbiologist Sabra Klein has painstakingly made the case that sex—defined by biological attributes such as our sex chromosomes, sex hormones, and reproductive tissues—can influence immune responses.

Klein and others have shown how and why male and female immune systems respond differently to the flu virus, HIV, and certain cancer therapies, and why most women receive greater protection from vaccines but are also more likely to get severe asthma and autoimmune disorders.

Klein has helped spearhead a shift in immunology, a field that long thought sex differences didn’t matter—and she’s set her sights on pushing the field of sex differences even further. Read the full story.

—Sandeep Ravindran

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Digital artist Beeple’s latest Art Basel show features Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg robotic dogs pooping out NFTs
+ If you’ve always dreamed of seeing the Northern Lights, here’s your best bet at doing so.
+ Check out this fun timeline of fashion’s hottest venues.
+ Why monkeys in ancient Roman times had pet piglets

The Download: AI and coding, and Waymo’s aggressive driverless cars

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Everything you need to know about AI and coding

AI has already transformed how code is written, but a new wave of autonomous systems promise to make the process even smoother and less prone to making mistakes.

Amazon Web Services has just revealed three new “frontier” AI agents, its term for a more sophisticated class of autonomous agents capable of working for days at a time without human intervention. One of them, called Kiro, is designed to work independently without the need for a human to constantly point it in the right direction. Another, AWS Security Agent, scans a project for common vulnerabilities: an interesting development given that many AI-enabled coding assistants can end up introducing errors.

To learn more about the exciting direction AI-enhanced coding is heading in, check out our team’s reporting: 

+ A string of startups are racing to build models that can produce better and better software. Read the full story.

+ We’re starting to give AI agents real autonomy. Are we ready for what could happen next? 

+ What is vibe coding, exactly?

+ Anthropic’s cofounder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan on 4 ways agents will improve. Read the full story.

+ How AI assistants are already changing the way code gets made. Read the full story. 

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Amazon’s new agents can reportedly code for days at a time 
They remember previous sessions and continuously learn from a company’s codebase. (VentureBeat)
+ AWS says it’s aware of the pitfalls of handing over control to AI. (The Register)
+ The company faces the challenge of building enough infrastructure to support its AI services. (WSJ $)

2 Waymo’s driverless cars are getting surprisingly aggressive
The company’s goal to make the vehicles “confidently assertive” is prompting them to bend the rules. (WSJ $)
+ That said, their cars still have a far lower crash rate than human drivers. (NYT $)

3 The FDA’s top drug regulator has stepped down
After only three weeks in the role. (Ars Technica)+ A leaked vaccine memo from the agency doesn’t inspire confidence. (Bloomberg $)

4 Maybe DOGE isn’t entirely dead after all
Many of its former workers are embedded in various federal agencies. (Wired $)

5 A Chinese startup’s reusable rocket crash-landed after launch
It suffered what it called an “abnormal burn,” scuppering hopes of a soft landing. (Bloomberg $)

6  Startups are building digital clones of major sites to train AI agents
From Amazon to Gmail, they’re creating virtual agent playgrounds. (NYT $)

7 Half of US states now require visitors to porn sites to upload their ID
Missouri has become the 25th state to enact age verification laws. (404 Media)

8 AGI truthers are trying to influence the Pope
They’re desperate for him to take their concerns seriously.(The Verge)
+ How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Marketers are leaning into ragebait ads
But does making customers annoyed really translate into sales? (WP $)

10 The surprising role plant pores could play in fighting drought
At night as well as daytime. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Everyone is begging for supply.”

—An anonymous source tells Reuters about the desperate measures Chinese AI companies take to secure scarce chips.

One more thing

The case against humans in space

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are bitter rivals in the commercial space race, but they agree on one thing: Settling space is an existential imperative. Space is the place. The final frontier. It is our human destiny to transcend our home world and expand our civilization to extraterrestrial vistas.

This belief has been mainstream for decades, but its rise has been positively meteoric in this new gilded age of astropreneurs.

But as visions of giant orbital stations and Martian cities dance in our heads, a case against human space colonization has found its footing in a number of recent books, from doubts about the practical feasibility of off-Earth communities, to realism about the harsh environment of space and the enormous tax it would exact on the human body. Read the full story.

—Becky Ferreira

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ This compilation of 21st century floor fillers is guaranteed to make you feel old.
+ A fire-loving amoeba has been found chilling out in volcanic hot springs.
+ This old-school Terminator 2 game is pixel perfection.
+ How truthful an adaptation is your favorite based-on-a-true-story movie? Let’s take a look at the data.

The Download: AI’s impact on the economy, and DeepSeek strikes again

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The State of AI: Welcome to the economic singularity

—David Rotman and Richard Waters

Any far-reaching new technology is always uneven in its adoption, but few have been more uneven than generative AI. That makes it hard to assess its likely impact on individual businesses, let alone on productivity across the economy as a whole.

At one extreme, AI coding assistants have revolutionized the work of software developers. At the other extreme, most companies are seeing little if any benefit from their initial investments. 

That has provided fuel for the skeptics who maintain that—by its very nature as a probabilistic technology prone to hallucinating—generative AI will never have a deep impact on business. To students of tech history, though, the lack of immediate impact is normal. Read the full story.

If you’re an MIT Technology Review subscriber, you can join David and Richard, alongside our editor in chief, Mat Honan, for an exclusive conversation digging into what’s happening across different markets live on Tuesday, December 9 at 1pm ET.  Register here! 

The State of AI is our subscriber-only collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review examining the ways in which AI is reshaping global power. Sign up to receive future editions every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 DeepSeek has unveiled two new experimental AI models 
DeepSeek-V3.2 is designed to match OpenAI’s GPT-5’s reasoning capabilities. (Bloomberg $)
+ Here’s how DeepSeek slashes its models’ computational burden. (VentureBeat)
+ It’s achieved these results despite its limited access to powerful chips. (SCMP $)

2 OpenAI has issued a “code red” warning to its employees
It’s a call to arms to improve ChatGPT, or risk being overtaken. (The Information $)
+ Both Google and Anthropic are snapping at OpenAI’s heels. (FT $)
+ Advertising and other initiatives will be pushed back to accommodate the new focus. (WSJ $)

3 How to know when the AI bubble has burst
These are the signs to look out for. (Economist $)
+ Things could get a whole lot worse for the economy if and when it pops. (Axios)
+ We don’t really know how the AI investment surge is being financed. (The Guardian)

4 Some US states are making it illegal for AI to discriminate against you
California is the latest to give workers more power to fight algorithms. (WP $)

5 This AI startup is working on a post-transformer future
Transformer architecture underpins the current AI boom—but Pathway is developing something new. (WSJ $)
+ What the next frontier of AI could look like. (IEEE Spectrum)

6 India is demanding smartphone makers install a government app
Which privacy advocates say is unacceptable snooping. (FT $)
+ India’s tech talent is looking for opportunities outside the US. (Rest of World)

7 College students are desperate to sign up for AI majors
AI is now the second-largest major at MIT behind computer science. (NYT $)
+ AI’s giants want to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)

8 America’s musical heritage is at serious risk
Much of it is stored on studio tapes, which are deteriorating over time. (NYT $)
+ The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Celebrities are increasingly turning on AI
That doesn’t stop fans from casting them in slop videos anyway. (The Verge)

10 Samsung has revealed its first tri-folding phone
But will people actually want to buy it? (Bloomberg $)
+ It’ll cost more than $2,000 when it goes on sale in South Korea. (Reuters)

Quote of the day

“The Chinese will not pause. They will take over.”

—Michael Lohscheller, chief executive of Swedish electric car maker Polestar, tells the Guardian why Europe should stick to its plan to ban the production of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. 

One more thing

Inside Amsterdam’s high-stakes experiment to create fair welfare AI

Amsterdam thought it was on the right track. City officials in the welfare department believed they could build technology that would prevent fraud while protecting citizens’ rights. They followed these emerging best practices and invested a vast amount of time and money in a project that eventually processed live welfare applications. But in their pilot, they found that the system they’d developed was still not fair and effective. Why?

Lighthouse Reports, MIT Technology Review, and the Dutch newspaper Trouw have gained unprecedented access to the system to try to find out. Read about what we discovered.

—Eileen Guo, Gabriel Geiger & Justin-Casimir Braun

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Hear me out: a truly great festive film doesn’t need to be about Christmas at all.
+ Maybe we should judge a book by its cover after all.
+ Happy birthday to Ms Britney Spears, still the princess of pop at 44!
+ The fascinating psychology behind why we love travelling so much.

The Download: spotting crimes in prisoners’ phone calls, and nominate an Innovator Under 35

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

An AI model trained on prison phone calls now looks for planned crimes in those calls

A US telecom company trained an AI model on years of inmates’ phone and video calls and is now piloting that model to scan their calls, texts, and emails in the hope of predicting and preventing crimes.

Securus Technologies president Kevin Elder told MIT Technology Review that the company began building its AI tools in 2023, using its massive database of recorded calls to train AI models to detect criminal activity. It created one model, for example, using seven years of calls made by inmates in the Texas prison system, but it has been working on models for other states and counties.

However, prisoner rights advocates say that the new AI system enables a system of invasive surveillance, and courts have specified few limits to this power.  Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

Nominations are now open for our global 2026 Innovators Under 35 competition

We have some exciting news: Nominations are now open for MIT Technology Review’s 2026 Innovators Under 35 competition. This annual list recognizes 35 of the world’s best young scientists and inventors, and our newsroom has produced it for more than two decades. 

It’s free to nominate yourself or someone you know, and it only takes a few moments. Here’s how to submit your nomination.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 New York is cracking down on personalized pricing algorithms
A new law forces retailers to declare if their pricing is informed by users’ data. (NYT $)
+ The US National Retail Federation tried to block it from passing. (TechCrunch)

2 The White House has launched a media bias tracker
Complete with a “media offender of the week” section and a Hall of Shame. (WP $)
+ The Washington Post is currently listed as the site’s top offender. (The Guardian)
+ Donald Trump has lashed out at several reporters in the past few weeks. (The Hill)

3 American startups are hooked on open-source Chinese AI models
They’re cheap and customizable—what’s not to like? (NBC News)
+ Americans also love China’s cheap goods, regardless of tariffs. (WP $)
+ The State of AI: Is China about to win the race? (MIT Technology Review)

4 How police body cam footage became viral YouTube content
Recent arrestees live in fear of ending up on popular channels. (Vox)
+ AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened? (MIT Technology Review)

5 Construction workers are cashing in on the data center boom
Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. (WSJ $)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

6 China isn’t convinced by crypto
Even though bitcoin mining is quietly making a (banned) comeback. (Reuters)
+ The country’s central bank is no fan of stablecoins. (CoinDesk)

7 A startup is treating its AI companions like characters in a novel
Could that approach make for better AI companions? (Fast Company $)
+ Gemini is the most empathetic model, apparently. (Semafor)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Ozempic is so yesterday
New weight-loss drugs are tailored to individual patients. (The Atlantic $)
+ What we still don’t know about weight-loss drugs. (MIT Technology Review)

9 AI is upending how consultants work
For the third year in a row, big firms are freezing junior workers’ salaries. (FT $)

10 Behind the scenes of Disney’s AI animation accelerator
What took five months to create has been whittled down to under five weeks. (CNET)
+ Director supremo James Cameron appears to have changed his mind about AI. (TechCrunch)
+ Why are people scrolling through weirdly-formatted TV clips? (WP $)

Quote of the day

“[I hope AI] comes to a point where it becomes sort of mental junk food and we feel sick and we don’t know why.”

—Actor Jenna Ortega outlines her hopes for AI’s future role in filmmaking, Variety reports.

One more thing

The weeds are winning

Since the 1980s, more and more plants have evolved to become immune to the biochemical mechanisms that herbicides leverage to kill them. This herbicidal resistance threatens to decrease yields—out-of-control weeds can reduce them by 50% or more, and extreme cases can wipe out whole fields.

At worst, it can even drive farmers out of business. It’s the agricultural equivalent of antibiotic resistance, and it keeps getting worse. Weeds have evolved resistance to 168 different herbicides and 21 of the 31 known “modes of action,” which means the specific biochemical target or pathway a chemical is designed to disrupt.

Agriculture needs to embrace a diversity of weed control practices. But that’s much easier said than done. Read the full story.

—Douglas Main

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Now we’re finally in December, don’t let Iceland’s gigantic child-eating Yule Cat give you nightmares
+ These breathtaking sculpture parks are serious must-sees ($)
+ 1985 sure was a vintage year for films.
+ Is nothing sacred?! Now Ozempic has come for our Christmas trees!

The Download: the mysteries surrounding weight-loss drugs, and the economic effects of AI

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

What we still don’t know about weight-loss drugs

Weight-loss drugs have been back in the news this week. First, we heard that Eli Lilly, the company behind Mounjaro and Zepbound, became the first healthcare company in the world to achieve a trillion-dollar valuation.

But we also learned that, disappointingly, GLP-1 drugs don’t seem to help people with Alzheimer’s disease. And that people who stop taking the drugs when they become pregnant can experience potentially dangerous levels of weight gain. On top of that, some researchers worry that people are using the drugs postpartum to lose pregnancy weight without understanding potential risks.

All of this news should serve as a reminder that there’s a lot we still don’t know about these drugs. So let’s look at the enduring questions surrounding GLP-1 agonist drugs.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

If you’re interested in weight loss drugs and how they affect us, take a look at:

+ GLP-1 agonists like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro might benefit heart and brain health—but research suggests they might also cause pregnancy complications and harm some users. Read the full story.

+ We’ve never understood how hunger works. That might be about to change. Read the full story.

+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL?

+ This vibrating weight-loss pill seems to work—in pigs. Read the full story.

What we know about how AI is affecting the economy

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to understanding how AI is changing the economy right now. Should we be pessimistic? Optimistic? Or is the situation too nuanced for that?

Hopefully, we can point you towards some answers. Mat Honan, our editor in chief, will hold a special subscriber-only Roundtables conversation with our editor at large David Rotman, and Richard Waters, Financial Times columnist, exploring what’s happening across different markets. Register here to join us at 1pm ET on Tuesday December 9.

The event is part of the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review “The State of AI” partnership, exploring the global impact of artificial intelligence. Over the past month, we’ve been running discussions between our journalists—sign up here to receive future editions every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Tech billionaires are gearing up to fight AI regulation 
By amassing multi-million dollar war chests ahead of the 2026 US midterm elections. (WSJ $)
+ Donald Trump’s “Manhattan Project” for AI is certainly ambitious. (The Information $)

2 The EU wants to hold social media platforms liable for financial scams
New rules will force tech firms to compensate banks if they fail to remove reported scams. (Politico)

3 China is worried about a humanoid robot bubble
Because more than 150 companies there are building very similar machines. (Bloomberg $)
+ It could learn some lessons from the current AI bubble. (CNN)+ Why the humanoid workforce is running late. (MIT Technology Review)

4 A Myanmar scam compound was blown up
But its residents will simply find new bases for their operations. (NYT $)
+ Experts suspect the destruction may have been for show. (Wired $)
+ Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Navies across the world are investing in submarine drones 
They cost a fraction of what it takes to run a traditional manned sub. (The Guardian)
+ How underwater drones could shape a potential Taiwan-China conflict. (MIT Technology Review)

6 What to expect from China’s seemingly unstoppable innovation drive
Its extremely permissive regulators play a big role. (Economist $)
+ Is China about to win the AI race? (MIT Technology Review)

7 The UK is waging a war on VPNs
Good luck trying to persuade people to stop using them. (The Verge)

8 We’re learning more about Jeff Bezos’ mysterious clock project
He’s backed the Clock of the Long Now for years—and construction is amping up. (FT $)
+ How aging clocks can help us understand why we age—and if we can reverse it. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Have we finally seen the first hints of dark matter?
These researchers seem to think so. (New Scientist $)

10 A helpful robot is helping archaeologists reconstruct Pompeii
Reassembling ancient frescos is fiddly and time-consuming, but less so if you’re a dextrous machine. (Reuters)

Quote of the day

“We do fail… a lot.”

—Defense company Anduril explains its move-fast-and-break-things ethos to the Wall Street Journal in response to reports its systems have been marred by issues in Ukraine.

One more thing

How to build a better AI benchmark

It’s not easy being one of Silicon Valley’s favorite benchmarks.

SWE-Bench (pronounced “swee bench”) launched in November 2024 as a way to evaluate an AI model’s coding skill. It has since quickly become one of the most popular tests in AI. A SWE-Bench score has become a mainstay of major model releases from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google—and outside of foundation models, the fine-tuners at AI firms are in constant competition to see who can rise above the pack.

Despite all the fervor, this isn’t exactly a truthful assessment of which model is “better.” Entrants have begun to game the system—which is pushing many others to wonder whether there’s a better way to actually measure AI achievement. Read the full story.

—Russell Brandom

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Aww, these sharks appear to be playing with pool toys.
+ Strange things are happening over on Easter Island (even weirder than you can imagine)
+ Very cool—archaeologists have uncovered a Roman tomb that’s been sealed shut for 1,700 years.
+ This Japanese mass media collage is making my eyes swim, in a good way.

The Download: the fossil fuel elephant in the room, and better tests for endometriosis

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

This year’s UN climate talks avoided fossil fuels, again

Over the past few weeks in Belem, Brazil, attendees of this year’s UN climate talks dealt with oppressive heat and flooding, and at one point a literal fire broke out, delaying negotiations. The symbolism was almost too much to bear.

While many, including the president of Brazil, framed this year’s conference as one of action, the talks ended with a watered-down agreement. The final draft doesn’t even include the phrase “fossil fuels.”

As emissions and global temperatures reach record highs again this year, I’m left wondering: Why is it so hard to formally acknowledge what’s causing the problem?

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

New noninvasive endometriosis tests are on the rise

Endometriosis inflicts debilitating pain and heavy bleeding on more than 11% of reproductive-­age women in the United States. Diagnosis takes nearly 10 years on average, partly because half the cases don’t show up on scans, and surgery is required to obtain tissue samples.

But a new generation of noninvasive tests are emerging that could help accelerate diagnosis and improve management of this poorly understood condition. Read the full story.

—Colleen de Bellefonds

This story is from the last print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine, which is full of fascinating stories about the body. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI claims a teenager circumvented its safety features before ending his life
It says ChatGPT directed Adam Raine to seek help more than 100 times. (TechCrunch)
+ OpenAI is strongly refuting the idea it’s liable for the 16-year old’s death. (NBC News)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The CDC’s new deputy director prefers natural immunity to vaccines
And he wasn’t even the worst choice among those considered for the role. (Ars Technica)
+ Meet Jim O’Neill, the longevity enthusiast who is now RFK Jr.’s right-hand man. (MIT Technology Review)

3 An MIT study says AI could already replace 12% of the US workforce
Researchers drew that conclusion after simulating a digital twin of the US labor market. (CNBC)
+ Separate research suggests it could replace 3 million jobs in the UK, too. (The Guardian)
+ AI usage looks unlikely to keep climbing. (Economist $)

4 An Italian defense group has created an AI-powered air shield system
It claims the system allows defenders to generate dome-style missile shields. (FT $)
+ Why Trump’s “golden dome” missile defense idea is another ripped straight from the movies. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The EU is considering a ban on social media for under-16s
Following in Australia’s footsteps, whose own ban comes into power next month. (Politico)
+ The European Parliament wants parents to decide on access. (The Guardian)

6 Why do so many astronauts keep getting stuck in space?
America, Russia and now China have had to contend with this situation. (WP $)
+ A rescue craft for three stranded Chinese astronauts has successfully reached them. (The Register)

7 Uploading pictures of your hotel room could help trafficking victims
A new app uses computer vision to determine where pictures of generic-looking rooms were taken. (IEEE Spectrum)

8 This browser tool turns back the clock to a pre-AI slop web
Back to the golden age of pre-November 30 2022. (404 Media)
+ The White House’s slop posts are shockingly bad. (NY Mag $)
+ Animated neo-Nazi propaganda is freely available on X. (The Atlantic $)

9 Grok’s “epic roasts” are as tragic as you’d expect
Test it out at parties at your own peril. (Wired $)

10 Startup founders dread explaining their jobs at Thanksgiving
Yes Grandma, I work with computers. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“AI cannot ever replace the unique gift that you are to the world.”

—Pope Leo XIV warns students about the dangers of over-relying on AI, New York Magazine reports.

One more thing

Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs

People looking for precursors to artificial intelligence often point to science fiction or thought experiments like the Turing test. But an equally important, if surprising and less appreciated, forerunner is American psychologist B.F. Skinner’s research with pigeons in the middle of the 20th century.

Skinner believed that association—learning, through trial and error, to link an action with a punishment or reward—was the building block of every behavior, not just in pigeons but in all living organisms, including human beings.

His “behaviorist” theories fell out of favor in the 1960s but were taken up by computer scientists who eventually provided the foundation for many of the leading AI tools. Read the full story.

—Ben Crair

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ I hope you had a happy, err, Green Wednesday if you partook this year.
+ Here how to help an endangered species from the comfort of your own home.
+ Polly wants to FaceTime—now! (thanks Alice!)
+ I need Macaulay Culkin’s idea for another Home Alone sequel to get greenlit, stat.

The Download: AI and the economy, and slop for the masses

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How AI is changing the economy

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to understanding how AI is changing the economy right now. Should we be pessimistic? Optimistic? Or is the situation too nuanced for that?

Hopefully, we can point you towards some answers. Mat Honan, our editor in chief, will hold a special subscriber-only Roundtables conversation with our editor at large David Rotman, and Richard Waters, Financial Times columnist, exploring what’s happening across different markets. Register here to join us at 1pm ET on Tuesday December 9.

The event is part of the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review “The State of AI” partnership, exploring the global impact of artificial intelligence. Over the past month, we’ve been running discussions between our journalists—sign up here to receive future editions every Monday.

If you’re interested in how AI is affecting the economy, take a look at: 

+ People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before.

+  What will AI mean for economic inequality? If we’re not careful, we could see widening gaps within countries and between them. Read the full story.

+ Artificial intelligence could put us on the path to a booming economic future, but getting there will take some serious course corrections. Here’s how to fine-tune AI for prosperity.

The AI Hype Index: The people can’t get enough of AI slop

Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. Take a look at this month’s edition of the index here, featuring everything from replacing animal testing with AI to our story on why AGI should be viewed as a conspiracy theory. 

MIT Technology Review Narrated: How to fix the internet

We all know the internet (well, social media) is broken. But it has also provided a haven for marginalized groups and a place for support. It offers information at times of crisis. It can connect you with long-lost friends. It can make you laugh.

That makes it worth fighting for. And yet, fixing online discourse is the definition of a hard problem.

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 How much AI investment is too much AI investment?
Tech companies hope to learn from beleaguered Intel. (WSJ $)
+ HP is pivoting to AI in the hopes of saving $1 billion a year. (The Guardian)
+ The European Central bank has accused tech investors of FOMO. (FT $)

2 ICE is outsourcing immigrant surveillance to private firms
It’s incentivizing contractors with multi-million dollar rewards. (Wired $)
+ Californian residents have been traumatized by recent raids. (The Guardian)
+ Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Poland plans to use drones to defend its rail network from attack
It’s blaming Russia for a recent line explosion. (FT $)
+ This giant microwave may change the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)

4 ChatGPT could eventually have as many subscribers as Spotify
According to erm, OpenAI. (The Information $)

5 Here’s how your phone-checking habits could shape your daily life
You’re probably underestimating just how often you pick it up. (WP $)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Chinese drugs are coming
Its drugmakers are on the verge of making more money overseas than at home. (Economist $)

7 Uber is deploying fully driverless robotaxis in an Abu Dhabi island
Roaming 12 square miles of the popular tourist destination. (The Verge)
+ Tesla is hoping to double its robotaxi fleet in Austin next month. (Reuters)

8 Apple is set to become the world’s largest smartphone maker
After more than a decade in Samsung’s shadow. (Bloomberg $)

9 An AI teddy bear that discussed sexual topics is back on sale
But the Teddy Kumma toy is now powered by a different chatbot. (Bloomberg $)
+ AI toys are all the rage in China—and now they’re appearing on shelves in the US too. (MIT Technology Review)

10 How Stranger Things became the ultimate algorithmic TV show
Its creators mashed a load of pop culture references together and created a streaming phenomenon. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“AI is a very powerful tool—it’s a hammer and that doesn’t mean everything is a nail.”

—Marketing consultant Ryan Bearden explains to the Wall Street Journal why it pays to be discerning when using AI.

One more thing

Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys?

In recent months, a new class of agents has arrived on the scene: ones built using large language models. Any action that can be captured by text—from playing a video game using written commands to running a social media account—is potentially within the purview of this type of system.

LLM agents don’t have much of a track record yet, but to hear CEOs tell it, they will transform the economy—and soon. Despite that, like chatbot LLMs, agents can be chaotic and unpredictable. Here’s what could happen as we try to integrate them into everything.

—Grace Huckins

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ The entries for this year’s Nature inFocus Photography Awards are fantastic.
+ There’s nothing like a good karaoke sesh.
+ Happy heavenly birthday Tina Turner, who would have turned 86 years old today.
+ Stop the presses—the hotly-contested list of the world’s top 50 vineyards has officially been announced

The Download: the future of AlphaFold, and chatbot privacy concerns

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

What’s next for AlphaFold: A conversation with a Google DeepMind Nobel laureate

In 2017, fresh off a PhD on theoretical chemistry, John Jumper heard rumors that Google DeepMind had moved on from game-playing AI to a secret project to predict the structures of proteins. He applied for a job.

Just three years later, Jumper and CEO Demis Hassabis had led the development of an AI system called AlphaFold 2 that was able to predict the structures of proteins to within the width of an atom, matching lab-level accuracy, and doing it many times faster—returning results in hours instead of months.

Last year, Jumper and Hassabis shared a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Now that the hype has died down, what impact has AlphaFold really had? How are scientists using it? And what’s next? I talked to Jumper (as well as a few other scientists) to find out. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

The State of AI: Chatbot companions and the future of our privacy

—Eileen Guo & Melissa Heikkilä

Even if you don’t have an AI friend yourself, you probably know someone who does. A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship: On platforms like Character.AI, Replika, or Meta AI, people can create personalized chatbots to pose as the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist, or any other persona they can dream up.

Some state governments are taking notice and starting to regulate companion AI. But tellingly, one area the laws fail to address is user privacy. Read the full story.

This is the fourth edition of The State of AI, our subscriber-only collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Sign up here to receive future editions every Monday.

While subscribers to The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter, get access to an extended excerpt, subscribers to the MIT Technology Review are able to read the whole thing on our site.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Donald Trump has signed an executive order to boost AI innovation 
The “Genesis Mission” will try to speed up the rate of scientific breakthroughs. (Politico)
+ The order directs government science agencies to aggressively embrace AI. (Axios)
+ It’s also being touted as a way to lower energy prices. (CNN)

2 Anthropic’s new AI model is designed to be better at coding
We’ll discover just how much better once Claude Opus 4.5 has been properly put through its paces. (Bloomberg $)
+ It reportedly outscored human candidates in an internal engineering test. (VentureBeat)
+ What is vibe coding, exactly? (MIT Technology Review)

3 The AI boom is keeping India hooked on coal
Leaving little chance of cleaning up Mumbai’s famously deadly pollution. (The Guardian)
+ It’s lethal smog season in New Delhi right now. (CNN)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Teenagers are losing access to their AI companions
Character.AI is limiting the amount of time underage users can spend interacting with its chatbots. (WSJ $)
+ The majority of the company’s users are young and female. (CNBC)
+ One of OpenAI’s key safety leaders is leaving the company. (Wired $)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Weight-loss drugs may be riskier during pregnancy 
Recipients are more likely to deliver babies prematurely. (WP $)
+ The pill version of Ozempic failed to halt Alzheimer’s progression in a trial. (The Guardian)
+ We’re learning more about what weight-loss drugs do to the body. (MIT Technology Review)

6 OpenAI is launching a new “shopping research” tool
All the better to track your consumer spending with. (CNBC)
+ It’s designed for price comparisons and compiling buyer’s guides. (The Information $)
+ The company is clearly aiming for a share of Amazon’s e-commerce pie. (Semafor)

7 LA residents displaced by wildfires are moving into prefab housing
Their new homes are cheap to build and simple to install. (Fast Company $)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Why former Uber drivers are undertaking the world’s toughest driving test
They’re taking the Knowledge—London’s gruelling street test that bypasses GPS. (NYT $)

9 How to spot a fake battery
Great, one more thing to worry about. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 Where is the Trump Mobile?
Almost six months after it was announced, there’s no sign of it. (CNBC)

Quote of the day

“AI is a tsunami that is gonna wipe out everyone. So I’m handing out surfboards.”

—Filmmaker PJ Accetturo, tells Ars Technica why he’s writing a newsletter advising fellow creatives how to pivot to AI tools.

One more thing

The second wave of AI coding is here

Ask people building generative AI what generative AI is good for right now—what they’re really fired up about—and many will tell you: coding.

Everyone from established AI giants to buzzy startups is promising to take coding assistants to the next level. This next generation can prototype, test, and debug code for you. The upshot is that developers could essentially turn into managers, who may spend more time reviewing and correcting code written by a model than writing it.

But there’s more. Many of the people building generative coding assistants think that they could be a fast track to artificial general intelligence, the hypothetical superhuman technology that a number of top firms claim to have in their sights. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ If you’re planning a visit to Istanbul here’s hoping you like cats—the city can’t get enough of them.
+ Rest in power reggae icon Jimmy Cliff.
+ Did you know the ancient Egyptians had a pretty accurate way of testing for pregnancy?
+ As our readers in the US start prepping for Thanksgiving, spare a thought for Astoria the lovelorn turkey

The Download: how to fix a tractor, and living among conspiracy theorists

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Meet the man building a starter kit for civilization

You live in a house you designed and built yourself. You rely on the sun for power, heat your home with a woodstove, and farm your own fish and vegetables. The year is 2025.

This is the life of Marcin Jakubowski, the 53-year-old founder of Open Source Ecology, an open collaborative of engineers, producers, and builders developing what they call the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS).

It’s a set of 50 machines—everything from a tractor to an oven to a circuit maker—that are capable of building civilization from scratch and can be reconfigured however you see fit. It’s all part of his ethos that life-changing technology should be available to all, not controlled by a select few. Read the full story.

—Tiffany Ng

This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine, which is full of fascinating stories. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

What it’s like to find yourself in the middle of a conspiracy theory

Last week, we held a subscribers-only Roundtables discussion exploring how to cope in this new age of conspiracy theories. Our features editor Amanda Silverman and executive editor Niall Firth were joined by conspiracy expert Mike Rothschild, who explained exactly what it’s like to find yourself at the center of a conspiracy you can’t control. Watch the conversation back here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 DOGE has been disbanded
Even though it’s got eight months left before its official scheduled end. (Reuters)
+ It leaves a legacy of chaos and few measurable savings. (Politico)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

2 How OpenAI’s tweaks to ChatGPT sent some users into delusional spirals
It essentially turned a dial that increased both usage of the chatbot and the risks it poses to a subset of people. (NYT $)
+ AI workers are warning loved ones to stay away from the technology. (The Guardian)
+ It’s surprisingly easy to stumble into a relationship with an AI chatbot. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A three-year old has received the world’s first gene therapy for Hunter syndrome
Oliver Chu appears to be developing normally one year after starting therapy. (BBC)

4 Why we may—or may not—be in an AI bubble
It’s time to follow the data. (WP $)
+ Even tech leaders don’t appear to be entirely sure. (Insider $)
+ How far can the ‘fake it til you make it’ strategy take us? (WSJ $)
+ Nvidia is still riding the wave with abandon. (NY Mag $)

5 Many MAGA influencers are based in Russia, India and Nigeria
X’s new account provenance feature is revealing some interesting truths. (The Daily Beast)

6 The FBI wants to equip drones with facial recognition tech
Civil libertarians claim the plans equate to airborne surveillance. (The Intercept)
+ This giant microwave may change the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)

7  Snapchat is alerting users ahead of Australia’s under-16s social media ban  
The platform will analyze an account’s “behavioral signals” to estimate a user’s age. (The Guardian)
+ An AI nudification site has been fined for skipping age checks. (The Register)
+ Millennial parents are fetishizing the notion of an offline childhood. (The Observer)

8 Activists are roleplaying ICE raids in Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto
It’s in a bid to prepare players to exercise their rights in the real world. (Wired $)
+ Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline. (MIT Technology Review)

9 The JWST may have uncovered colossal stars
In fact, they’re so big their masses are 10,000 times bigger than the sun. (New Scientist $)
+ Inside the hunt for the most dangerous asteroid ever. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Social media users are lying about brands ghosting them
Completely normal behavior. (WSJ $)
+ This would never have happened on Vine, I’ll tell you now. (The Verge)

Quote of the day

“I can’t believe we have to say this, but this account has only ever been run and operated from the United States.” 

—The US Department of Homeland Security’s X account attempts to end speculation surrounding its social media origins, the New York Times reports.

One more thing

This company is planning a lithium empire from the shores of the Great Salt Lake

On a bright afternoon in August, the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake looks like something out of a science fiction film set in a scorching alien world.

This otherworldly scene is the test site for a company called Lilac Solutions, which is developing a technology it says will shake up the United States’ efforts to pry control over the global supply of lithium, the so-called “white gold” needed for electric vehicles and batteries, away from China.

The startup is in a race to commercialize a new, less environmentally-damaging way to extract lithium from rocks. If everything pans out, it could significantly increase domestic supply at a crucial moment for the nation’s lithium extraction industry. Read the full story.

—Alexander C. Kaufman

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ I love the thought of clever crows putting their smarts to use picking up cigarette butts (thanks Alice!)
+ Talking of brains, sea urchins have a whole lot more than we originally suspected.
+ Wow—a Ukrainian refugee has won an elite-level sumo competition in Japan.
+ How to make any day feel a little bit brighter.