The Download: hunting an asteroid, and unlocking the human mind

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.

Inside the most dangerous asteroid hunt ever

If you were told that the odds of something were 3.1%, it might not seem like much. But for the people charged with protecting our planet, it was huge.

On February 18, astronomers determined that a 130- to 300-foot-long asteroid had a 3.1% chance of crashing into Earth in 2032. Never had an asteroid of such dangerous dimensions stood such a high chance of striking the planet. Then, just days later on February 24, experts declared that the danger had passed. Earth would be spared.

How did they do it? What was it like to track the rising danger of this asteroid, and to ultimately determine that it’d miss us?

This is the inside story of how a sprawling network of astronomers found, followed, mapped, planned for, and finally dismissed the most dangerous asteroid ever found—all under the tightest of timelines and, for just a moment, with the highest of stakes. Read the full story.

—Robin George Andrews

This article is part of the Big Story series: MIT Technology Review’s most important, ambitious reporting. The stories in the series take a deep look at the technologies that are coming next and what they will mean for us and the world we live in. Check out the rest of them here.

How scientists are trying to use AI to unlock the human mind 

Today’s AI landscape is defined by the ways in which neural networks are unlike human brains. A toddler learns how to communicate effectively with only a thousand calories a day and regular conversation; meanwhile, tech companies are reopening nuclear power plants, polluting marginalized communities, and pirating terabytes of books in order to train and run their LLMs.

Despite that, it’s a common view among neuroscientists that building brainlike neural networks is one of the most promising paths for the field, and that attitude has started to spread to psychology. 

Last week, the prestigious journal Nature published a pair of studies showcasing the use of neural networks for predicting how humans and other animals behave in psychological experiments. However, predicting a behavior and explaining how it came about are two very different things. Read the full story.

—Grace Huckins

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first every Monday, sign up here.

Why the US and Europe could lose the race for fusion energy

—Daniel F. Brunner, Edlyn V. Levine, Fiona E. Murray, & Rory Burke

Fusion energy holds the potential to shift a geopolitical landscape that is currently configured around fossil fuels. Harnessing fusion will deliver the energy resilience, security, and abundance needed for all modern industrial and service sectors.

But these benefits will be controlled by the nation that leads in both developing the complex supply chains required and building fusion power plants at scales large enough to drive down economic costs. 

Investing in supply chains and scaling up complex production processes has increasingly been a strength of China’s and a weakness of the West, resulting in the migration of many critical industries from the West to China. With fusion, we run the risk that history will repeat itself. But it does not have to go that way. 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 Donald Trump has announced a range of new tariffs  
Southeast Asia has been hit particularly hard. (Reuters)
+ Some tariffs on other countries have been delayed until next month. (Vox)
+ Investors are hoping to weather the storm. (Insider $)
+ Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Ukraine’s fiber-optic drones are giving it the edge over Russia
The drones are impervious to electronic attacks. (WSJ $)
+ Trump is resuming sending arms to Ukraine. (CNN)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)

3 OpenAI is seriously scared about spies
It’s upped its security dramatically amid fears of corporate espionage. (FT $)
+ Inside the story that enraged OpenAI. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Amazon is asking its corporate staff to volunteer in its warehouses
It’s in desperate need of extra hands to help during its Prime Day event. (The Guardian)

5 Google’s AI-created drugs are almost ready for human trials
Isomorphic Labs has been working on drugs to tackle cancer. (Fortune $)
+ An AI-driven “factory of drugs” claims to have hit a big milestone. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Apple’s AI ambitions have suffered yet another setback
Their executive in charge of AI models has been wooed by Meta. (Bloomberg $)
+ Ruoming Pang’s pay package is likely to be in the tens of millions. (WSJ $)

7 Waymo’s robotaxis are heading to NYC
But its “road trip” announcement is no guarantee it’ll launch there. (TechCrunch)

8 Brands don’t need influencers any more
They’re doing just fine producing their own in-house social media videos. (NYT $)

9 We may age in rapid bursts, rather than a steady decline
New research could shed light on how to slow the process down. (New Scientist $)
+ Aging hits us in our 40s and 60s. But well-being doesn’t have to fall off a cliff. (MIT Technology Review)

10 This open-source software fights back against AI bots
Anubis protects sites from scrapers. (404 Media)
+ Cloudflare will now, by default, block AI bots from crawling its clients’ websites. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I think we’ve all had enough of Elon’s political errors and political opinions.”

—Ross Gerber, an investor who was formerly an enthusiastic backer of Elon Musk, tells the Washington Post he wishes the billionaire would simply focus on Tesla.

One more thing

How Silicon Valley is disrupting democracy

The internet loves a good neologism, especially if it can capture a purported vibe shift or explain a new trend. In 2013, the columnist Adrian Wooldridge coined a word that eventually did both. Writing for the Economist, he warned of the coming “techlash,” a revolt against Silicon Valley’s rich and powerful, fueled by the public’s growing realization that these “sovereigns of cyberspace” weren’t the benevolent bright-future bringers they claimed to be.

While Wooldridge didn’t say precisely when this techlash would arrive, it’s clear today that a dramatic shift in public opinion toward Big Tech and its leaders did in fact ­happen—and is arguably still happening. It’s worth investigating why, and what we can do to start taking some of that power back. Read the full story.

—Bryan Gardiner

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.)

+ Struggling to solve a problem? It’s time to take a nap.
+ If any TV show has better midcentury decor than Mad Men, I’ve yet to see it.
+ Sir Antony Gormley’s arresting iron men sculptures have been a fixture on Crosby Beach in the UK for 20 years.
+ Check out this definitive Planet of the Apes timeline.

The Download: China’s winning at advanced manufacturing, and a potential TikTok sale

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 latest threat from the rise of Chinese manufacturing

In 2013, a trio of academics showed convincing evidence that increased trade with China beginning in the early 2000s and the resulting flood of cheap imports had been an unmitigated disaster for many US communities, destroying their manufacturing lifeblood.

The results of what they called the “China shock” were gut-wrenching: the loss of 1 million US manufacturing jobs and 2.4 million jobs in total by 2011.

If in retrospect all that seems obvious, it’s only because the research by David Autor, an MIT labor economist, and his colleagues has become an accepted, albeit often distorted, political narrative these days: China destroyed all our manufacturing jobs! Though the nuances are often ignored, the results help explain at least some of today’s political unrest. It’s reflected in rising calls for US protectionism, President Trump’s broad tariffs on imported goods, and nostalgia for the lost days of domestic manufacturing glory.

Our editor at large David Rotman recently spoke to Autor about what he considers a far more urgent problem——what some are calling China shock 2.0—and the lessons it holds for today’s manufacturing challenges. Read the full story.

Three things I’m into into right now

In each issue of our print magazine, we ask a member of staff to tell us about three things they’re loving at the moment. For our latest edition, which was all about power, I was in the hotseat! Check out my (frankly amazing) recommendations here, and subscribe to catch future editions here.

The must-reads

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

1 A new TikTok is coming 
It’s reportedly launching a new version in the US in September ahead of a planned sale. (The Information $)
+ It’ll still require the Chinese government’s say-so. (The Verge)

2 Texas Hill Country was caught off guard by the flash floods
But now people are asking: why? (WP $)
+ America’s National Weather Service has been on the receiving end of heavy cuts. (CNN)
+ Bad weather has interrupted ongoing searches for survivors. (WSJ $)

3 Elon Musk is forging ahead with his own political party
To the chagrin of investors in his companies. (The Guardian)
+ Former friend Donald Trump has some thoughts. (Insider $)
+ The America Party is facing an uphill struggle. (WP $)

4 The Trump administration has axed a group focused on birth control safety
They were tasked with advising women which contraceptives to use. (Undark)

5 On-the-job learning is under threat
From a combination of generative AI tools and remote working culture. (FT $)

6 xAI’s ‘improved’ Grok is perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes
It made worrying comments about Jewish executives in Hollywood. (TechCrunch)
+ LLMs become more covertly racist with human intervention. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Taiwan wants to lessen its commercial reliance on China
But it won’t be easy. (NYT $)
+ How underwater drones could shape a potential Taiwan-China conflict. (MIT Technology Review)

8 LLMs have improved rapidly in the past few years
Benchmarking them is notoriously tricky, though. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ A Chinese firm has just launched a constantly changing set of AI benchmarks. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Big Tech’s salary divide is getting worse
Those whopping AI pay packets are at least partly to blame. (Insider $)

10 More than 30 tech unicorns have been minted during 2025
And we could see a far few more before the year is out. (TechCrunch)

Quote of the day

“If you go in with the expectation that the AI is as smart or smarter than humans, you’re quickly disappointed by the reality.”

—Eric Schwartz, chief marketing officer of Clorox, tells the Wall Street Journal that AI can’t be relied upon to come up with truly original or engaging ideas.

One more thing

Alina Chan tweeted life into the idea that the virus came from a lab

Alina Chan started asking questions in March 2020. She was chatting with friends on Facebook about the virus then spreading out of China. She thought it was strange that no one had found any infected animal. She wondered why no one was admitting another possibility, which to her seemed very obvious: the outbreak might have been due to a lab accident.

Chan is a postdoc in a gene therapy lab at the Broad Institute, a prestigious research institute affiliated with both Harvard and MIT. Throughout 2020, Chan relentlessly stoked scientific argument, and wasn’t afraid to pit her brain against the best virologists in the world. Her persistence even helped change some researchers’ minds. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

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.)

+ Why 2025 might just be the year of animal escapes.
+ Very cool—an iron age settlement has been uncovered in England thanks to a lucky metal detectorist.
+ This little armadillo is having the time of their life in a paddling pool.
+ Peace and love to Mr Ringo Starr, 85 years young today!

The Download: India’s AI independence, and predicting future epidemics

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.

Inside India’s scramble for AI independence

Despite its status as a global tech hub, India lags far behind the likes of the US and China when it comes to homegrown AI.

That gap has opened largely because India has chronically underinvested in R&D, institutions, and invention. Meanwhile, since no one native language is spoken by the majority of the population, training language models is far more complicated than it is elsewhere.

So when the open-source foundation model DeepSeek-R1 suddenly outperformed many global peers, it struck a nerve. This launch by a Chinese startup prompted Indian policymakers to confront just how far behind the country was in AI infrastructure—and how urgently it needed to respond. Read the full story.

—Shadma Shaikh

Job titles of the future: Pandemic oracle

Officially, Conor Browne is a biorisk consultant. Based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has advanced degrees in security studies and medical and business ethics, along with United Nations certifications in counterterrorism and conflict resolution.

Early in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, international energy conglomerates seeking expert guidance on navigating the potential turmoil in markets and transportation became his main clients. 

Having studied the 2002 SARS outbreak, he predicted the exponential spread of the new airborne virus. In fact, he forecast the epidemic’s broadscale impact and its implications for business so accurately that he has come to be seen as a pandemic oracle. Read the full story.

—Britta Shoot

This story is from the most recent print edition of MIT Technology Review, which explores power—who has it, and who wants it. Subscribe here to receive future copies once they drop.

The must-reads

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

1 Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ has passed 

Which is terrible news for the clean energy industry. (Vox)
+ An energy-affordability crisis is looming in the US. (The Atlantic $)
+ The President struck deals with House Republican holdouts to get it over the line. (WSJ $)
+ The Trump administration has shut down more than 100 climate studies. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Daniel Gross is joining Meta’s superintelligence lab 
He’s jumping ship from the startup he co-founded with Ilya Sutskever. (Bloomberg $)
+ Sutskever is stepping into the CEO role in his absence. (TechCrunch)
+ Here’s what we can infer from Meta’s recent hires. (Semafor)

3 AI’s energy demands could destabilize the global supply
That’s according to the head of the world’s largest transformer maker. (FT $)
+ We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Elon Musk is threatening to start his own political party
Would anyone vote for him, though? (WP $)
+ You’d think his bruising experience in the White House would have put him off. (NY Mag $)

5 The US has lifted exports on chip design software to China
It suggests that frosty relations between the nations may be thawing. (Reuters)

6 Trump officials are going after this ICE warning app
But lawyers say there’s nothing illegal about it. (Wired $)
+ Downloads of ICEBlock are rising. (NBC News)

7 Wildfires are making it harder to monitor air pollutants
Current tracking technology isn’t built to accommodate shifting smoke. (Undark)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Apple’s iOS 26 software can detect nudity on FaceTime calls
The feature will pause the call and ask if you want to continue. (Gizmodo)

9 Threads has finally launched DMs
But users are arguing there should be a way to opt out of them entirely. (TechCrunch)

10 You can hire a robot to write a handwritten note
Or, y’know, pick up a pen and write it yourself. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“It’s almost like we never even spoke.”

Richard Wilson, an online dater who is convinced his most recent love interest used a chatbot to converse with him online before they awkwardly met in person, tells the Washington Post about his disappointment.

One more thing

Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business

Once a week, Sun Kai has a video call with his mother, and they discuss his day-to-day life. But Sun’s mother died five years ago, and the person he’s talking to isn’t actually a person, but a digital replica he made of her.

There are plenty of people like Sun who want to use AI to preserve, animate, and interact with lost loved ones as they mourn and try to heal. The market is particularly strong in China, where at least half a dozen companies are now offering such technologies and thousands of people have already paid for them.

But some question whether interacting with AI replicas of the dead is truly a healthy way to process grief, and it’s not entirely clear what the legal and ethical implications of this technology may be. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

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.)+ There’s nothing cooler than wooden interiors right now.
+ Talented artist Ian Robinson creates beautiful paintings of people’s vinyl collections.
+ You’ll find me in every one of Europe’s top wine destinations this summer.
+ Here’s everything you need to remember before Stranger Things returns this fall.

The Download: how AI could improve construction site safety, and our Roundtables conversation with Karen Hao

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 generative AI could help make construction sites safer

More than 1,000 construction workers die on the job each year in the US, making it the most dangerous industry for fatal slips, trips, and falls.

A new AI tool called Safety AI could help to change that. It analyzes the progress made on a construction site each day, and flags conditions that violate Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules, with what its creator Philip Lorenzo claims is 95% accuracy.

Lorenzo says Safety AI is the first one of multiple emerging AI construction safety tools to use generative AI to flag safety violations. But as the 95% success rate suggests, Safety AI is not a flawless and all-knowing intelligence. Read the full story.

—Andrew Rosenblum

Roundtables: Inside OpenAI’s Empire with Karen Hao

Earlier this week, we held a subscriber-only Roundtable discussion with author and former MIT Technology Review senior editor Karen Hao about her new book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.

You can watch her conversation with our executive editor Niall Firth here—and if you aren’t already, you can subscribe to us here. 

MIT Technology Review Narrated: The tech industry can’t agree on what open-source AI means. That’s a problem.

What counts as ‘open-source AI’? The answer could determine who gets to shape the future of the technology.

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 China’s digital IDs are coming
And they’re unlikely to stay voluntary for long. (Economist $)
+ The country’s AI models are becoming increasingly popular worldwide. (WSJ $)

2 Donald Trump has mused about using DOGE to deport Elon Musk
Musk’s comments about the President’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ have touched a nerve. (Axios)
+ Turns out AI models are quite good at fact checking Trump. (WP $)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Google must pay California’s Android users $314.6m
After a jury ruled it had misused their data. (Reuters) 

4 Many AI detectors overpromise and underdeliver
But that hasn’t stopped Californian colleges from investing millions in them. (Undark)
+ What’s next for college writing? Nothing good. (New Yorker $)
+ Educators are working out how to integrate AI into computer science. (NYT $)
+ AI-text detection tools are really easy to fool. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Google is making its first foray into fusion
The world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant is due to come online in the 2030s. (NBC News)
+ Google will buy half its output. (TechCrunch)
+ Inside a fusion energy facility. (MIT Technology Review)

6 China is banning certain portable batteries from flights
In the wake of two major manufacturers recalling millions of power banks. (NYT $)
+ The ban is catching travellers out. (SCMP)

7 The deepfake economy is spiralling out of control
Small business owners are drowning in online scams. (Insider $)

8 Chipmaking companies are attractive prospects for investors
And they’re likely to be better bets. (WSJ $)
+ OpenAI has denied that it plans to use Google’s in-house chip. (Reuters)

9 How cancer studies in dogs could help develop treatments for humans
The disease presents very similarly across both species. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Cancer vaccines are having a renaissance. (MIT Technology Review)

10 X is planning to task AI agents with writing Community Notes
Thankfully, humans will still review them. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Missionaries will beat mercenaries.”

—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman takes aim at Meta’s recent spree of attempting to hire his staff, Wired reports.

One more thing

The world’s next big environmental problem could come from space

In September, a unique chase took place in the skies above Easter Island. From a rented jet, a team of researchers captured a satellite’s last moments as it fell out of space and blazed into ash across the sky, using cameras and scientific equipment. Their hope was to gather priceless insights into the physical and chemical processes that occur when satellites burn up as they fall to Earth at the end of their missions.

This kind of study is growing more urgent. The number of satellites in the sky is rapidly rising—with a tenfold increase forecast by the end of the decade. Letting these satellites burn up in the atmosphere at the end of their lives helps keep the quantity of space junk to a minimum. But doing so deposits satellite ash in the Earth’s atmosphere. This metallic ash could potentially alter the climate, and we don’t yet know how serious the problem is likely to be. Read the full story. 

—Tereza Pultarova

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 new Running Man film looks pretty good, even if it is without Arnold.
+ Maybe it’s just not worth trying to understand our dogs after all.
+ Cynthia Erivo, who knows a thing or two about belting out a tune, really loves The Thong Song, and who can blame her?
+ Show your face, colossal squid!

The Download: tripping with AI, and blocking crawler bots

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.

People are using AI to ‘sit’ with them while they trip on psychedelics

A growing number of people are using AI chatbots as “trip sitters”—a phrase that traditionally refers to a sober person tasked with monitoring someone who’s under the influence of a psychedelic—and sharing their experiences online.

It’s a potent blend of two cultural trends: using AI for therapy and using psychedelics to alleviate mental-health problems. But this is a potentially dangerous psychological cocktail, according to experts. While it’s far cheaper than in-person psychedelic therapy, it can go badly awry. Read the full story.

—Webb Wright

Cloudflare will now, by default, block AI bots from crawling its clients’ websites

The news: The internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has announced that it will start blocking AI bots from visiting websites it hosts by default.

What bots? The bots in question are a type of web crawler, an algorithm that walks across the internet then digests and catalogs information on each website. In the past, web crawlers were most commonly associated with gathering data for search engines, but developers now use them to gather data they need to build and use AI systems.

So, are all bots banned? Not quite. Cloudflare will also give clients the ability to allow or ban these AI bots on a case-by-case basis, and plans to introduce a so-called “pay-per-crawl” service that clients can use to receive compensation every time an AI bot wants to scoop up their website’s contents. Read the full story.

—Peter Hall

What comes next for AI copyright lawsuits?

Last week, Anthropic and Meta each won landmark victories in two separate court cases that examined whether or not the firms had violated copyright when they trained their large language models on copyrighted books without permission. The rulings are the first we’ve seen to come out of copyright cases of this kind. This is a big deal!

There are dozens of similar copyright lawsuits working through the courts right now, and their outcomes are set to have an enormous impact on the future of AI. In effect, they will decide whether or not model makers can continue ordering up a free lunch. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox 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 US Senate has killed an effort to prevent states regulating AI 
But AI giants are likely to keep lobbying for similar sorts of legislation. (Reuters)
+ Google et al want Congress to take regulation away from individual states. (Bloomberg $)
+ Advocacy groups say the provision remains extremely damaging. (Wired $)
+ OpenAI has upped its lobbying efforts nearly sevenfold. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Apple is considering using rival AI tech to bolster Siri
In a massive U-turn, it’s reported to have held talks with Anthropic and OpenAI. (Bloomberg $)
+ Apple seems to have accepted that its in-house efforts simply can’t compete. (The Verge)

3 DOGE has access to data that may boost Elon Musk’s businesses
His rivals are worried their proprietary information could be exposed. (WP $)
+ Donald Trump has floated tasking DOGE with reviewing Musk’s subsidies. (FT $)
+ Relations between Musk and Trump are still pretty strained. (NY Mag $)

4 Amazon’s robot workforce is approaching a major milestone
It’s on the verge of equalling the number of humans working in its warehouses. (WSJ $)
+ Why the humanoid workforce is running late. (MIT Technology Review)

5 China’s clean energy boom is going global
Just as the US doubles down on fossil fuels. (NYT $)
+ The Trump administration has shut down more than 100 climate studies. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The AI talent wars are massively inflating pay packages
Wages for a small pool of workers have risen sharply in the past three years. (FT $)
+ Meta, in particular, isn’t afraid to splash its cash. (Wired $)
+ The vast majority of consumers aren’t paying for AI, though. (Semafor)

7 Microsoft claims its AI outperforms doctors’ diagnoses
Its system “solved” eight out of 10 cases, compared to physicians’ two out of 10. (The Guardian)
+ Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 

8 What the future of satellite internet could look like
Very crowded, for one. (Rest of World)
+ How Antarctica’s history of isolation is ending—thanks to Starlink. (MIT Technology Review)

9 What is an attosecond?
A load of laser-wielding scientists are measuring the units. (Knowable Magazine)

10 AI is Hollywood’s favorite villain
Where 2001, The Terminator, and The Matrix led, others follow. (Economist $)
+ How a 30-year-old techno-thriller predicted our digital isolation. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Right now, AI companies are less regulated than sandwich shops.”

—Ella Hughes, organizing director of activist group PauseAI, addresses a crowd of protesters outside Google DeepMind’s London office, Insider reports.

One more thing

Inside NASA’s bid to make spacecraft as small as possible

Since the 1970s, we’ve sent a lot of big things to Mars. But when NASA successfully sent twin Mars Cube One spacecraft, the size of cereal boxes, in November 2018, it was the first time we’d ever sent something so small.

Just making it this far heralded a new age in space exploration. NASA and the community of planetary science researchers caught a glimpse of a future long sought: a pathway to much more affordable space exploration using smaller, cheaper spacecraft. Read the full story.

—David W. Brown

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 South of France is jam-packed with stunning beaches.
+ These fountain pen drawings really capture the beauty of nature.
+ Yogurt soup?! Why not?
+ Happy birthday to the timeless Debbie Harry—80 years young today.

The Download: meet RFK Jr’s right-hand man, and inside OpenAI

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 Jim O’Neill, the longevity enthusiast who is now RFK Jr.’s right-hand man

When Jim O’Neill was nominated to be the second in command at the US Department of Health and Human Services, longevity enthusiasts were excited.

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new right-hand man, O’Neill is expected to wield authority at health agencies that fund biomedical research and oversee the regulation of new drugs. And while O’Neill doesn’t subscribe to Kennedy’s most contentious beliefs—and supports existing vaccine schedules—he may still steer the agencies in controversial new directions.

O’Neill is well-known in the increasingly well-funded and tight-knit longevity community. In speaking with more than 20 people who work in the longevity field and are familiar with O’Neill, it’s clear that they share a genuine optimism about his leadership. Read our story all about him and what he believes.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Inside OpenAI’s empire with Karen Hao

AI journalist Karen Hao’s newly released book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, tells the story of OpenAI’s rise to power and its far-reaching impact all over the world.

Hao, a former MIT Technology Review senior editor, will join our executive editor Niall Firth in an intimate subscriber-exclusive Roundtable conversation exploring the AI arms race, what it means for all of us, and where it’s headed. Register here to join us at 9am ET today!

Special giveaway: Attendees will have the chance to receive a free copy of Hao’s book. See the registration form for details.

The must-reads

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

1 Donald Trump claims to have found buyers for TikTok
But will China agree to sell to them? That’s the real hurdle. (FT $)
+ They have between now and the September 17 deadline to thrash it all out. (CNBC)

2 The Trump administration is becoming even more secretive
Staff are being instructed to avoid leaving a paper trial at all costs. (WP $)

3 Canada has rescinded its plans to tax US technology firms
That’s the price for reopening talks with America about trade negotiations. (Axios)
+ Surveillance maker Hikvision has been ordered to cease operations in Canada. (Bloomberg $)
+ The tax had been due to come into effect today. (NPR)

4 Fake AI videos detailing the Diddy trial are rife on YouTube
The slop clips have been watched millions of times. (The Guardian)

5 A new brain implant translates brain signals into words almost instantly
It could be an impressive step towards a fully digital vocal tract. (Ars Technica)
+ This patient’s Neuralink brain implant gets a boost from generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Meta wants to train its AI on photos you haven’t even uploaded yet 
And while it’s not doing so yet, it could in the future. (The Verge)
+ It’s started asking users for access permission. (TechCrunch)

7 The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is narrowing its remit
It’s focusing purely on science, rather than politics, education and housing. (NYT $)
+ That’s pretty awful news for the communities that have grown reliant on it. (WP $)

8 Fine tuning LLMs to behave well makes them more likely to say no
So you get either ‘safe’ or ‘helpful’. Both simultaneously seems to be too much to ask. (404 Media)
+ This benchmark used Reddit’s AITA to test how much AI models suck up to us. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Your next home could be made from superwood
The engineered material is stronger than steel—and bulletproof. (WSJ $)
+ Inside the quest to engineer climate-saving “super trees.” (MIT Technology Review)

10 Have emoji made our communication better? Or worse?
Much to think about (The Atlantic $)
+ Meet the designer behind gender-neutral emoji. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something.”

—Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief research officer, reacts to Meta poaching some of the startup’s top talent to join its AI lab, Wired reports.

One more thing

Inside the strange limbo facing millions of IVF embryos

Millions of embryos created through IVF sit frozen in time, stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world. The number is only growing thanks to advances in technology, the rising popularity of IVF, and improvements in its success rates.

At a basic level, an embryo is simply a tiny ball of a hundred or so cells. But unlike other types of body tissue, it holds the potential for life. Many argue that this endows embryos with a special moral status, one that requires special protections.

The problem is that no one can really agree on what that status is. So while these embryos persist in suspended animation, patients, clinicians, embryologists, and legislators must grapple with the essential question of what we should do with them. What do these embryos mean to us? Who should be responsible for them? Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

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.)

+ Have we settled on a song of the summer yet?
+ Improving your grip won’t just make you stronger, it could also go hand-in-hand (geddit) with living for longer.
+ What’s in Bruce Springsteen’s vault? Let’s peer inside.
+ How to find the good in the bad, even when it feels impossible.

The Download: how to clean up AI data centers, and weight-loss drugs’ side effects

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 battery recycling company is now cleaning up AI data centers

In a sandy industrial lot outside Reno, Nevada, rows of battery packs that once propelled electric vehicles are now powering a small AI data center.

Redwood Materials, one of the US’s largest battery recycling companies, showed off this array of energy storage modules, sitting on cinder blocks and wrapped in waterproof plastic, during a press tour at its headquarters on June 26.

The event marked the launch of the company’s new business line, Redwood Energy, which will initially repurpose (rather than recycle) batteries with years of remaining life to create renewable-powered microgrids. Such small-scale energy systems can operate on or off the larger electricity grid, providing electricity for businesses or communities. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We’re learning more about what weight-loss drugs do to the body

Weight-loss drugs are this decade’s blockbuster medicines. Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro help people with diabetes get their blood sugar under control and help overweight and obese people reach a healthier weight. And they’re fast becoming a trendy must-have for celebrities and other figure-conscious individuals looking to trim down.

They became so hugely popular so quickly that not long after their approval for weight loss, we saw global shortages of the drugs. Prescriptions have soared over the last five years, but even people who don’t have prescriptions are seeking these drugs out online.

We know they can suppress appetite, lower blood sugar, and lead to dramatic weight loss. We also know that they come with side effects, which can include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. But we are still learning about some of their other effects. Read the full story.

—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.

The must-reads

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

1 The Supreme Court has paved the way to defund Planned Parenthood 
By allowing South Carolina to block the organization from its Medicaid program. (WP $)
+ Other red states are likely to follow suit. (CNN)
+ Planned Parenthood may be able to challenge the ban under state law. (Politico)

2 Iran is back online
The country appeared to cut connectivity in a bid to thwart foreign attacks. (Economist $)

3 ICE is using a new facial recognition app
It’s capable of recognizing someone from their fingerprints, too. (404 Media)
+ How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Denmark has a potential solution for malicious deepfakes
By giving its residents copyright to their own body, facial features, and voice. (The Guardian)
+ An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Impossible Foods wants to bring its plant-based burgers to Europe
After sales started falling in America. (Bloomberg $)
+ Sales of regular old meat are booming in the States. (Vox)

6 The Three Mile Island nuclear plant’s restart is being fast tracked
It’s currently scheduled to start operating a year earlier than anticipated. (Reuters)
+ But bringing the reactor back online is no easy task. (The Register)
+ Why Microsoft made a deal to help restart Three Mile Island. (MIT Technology Review)

7 AI may be making research too easy
New research suggests that using LLMs results in weaker grasps of topics. (WSJ $)
+ It could also be making our thoughts less original. (New Yorker $)

8 Climate tech companies are struggling to weather Trump’s cuts
A lot of startups are expected to fold as a result. (Insider $)
+ The Trump administration has shut down more than 100 climate studies. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Billions of Facebook and Google passwords have been leaked
And people in developing nations are most at risk. (Rest of World)

10 Inside a couples retreat with humans and their AI companions
Chaos ensured. (Wired $)
+ The AI relationship revolution is already here. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“[The internet blackout] makes us invisible. And still, we’re here. Still trying to connect with the free world.”

—’Amir,’ a student in Iran, tells the Guardian why young Iranians are working to overcome the country’s internet shutdowns.

One more thing

Maybe you will be able to live past 122

How long can humans live? This is a good time to ask the question. The longevity scene is having a moment, thanks to a combination of scientific advances, public interest, and an unprecedented level of investment. A few key areas of research suggest that we might be able to push human life spans further, and potentially reverse at least some signs of aging.

Researchers can’t even agree on what the exact mechanisms of aging are and which they should be targeting. Debates continue to rage over how long it’s possible for humans to live—and whether there is a limit at all.

But it looks likely that something will be developed in the coming decades that will help us live longer, in better health. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

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 ancient amphibian skull is pretty remarkable.
+ A new Phantom of the Opera spin-off is coming—but no one really knows what it is.
+ Stop panicking, it turns out Marge Simpson isn’t dead after all.
+ I love these owls in towels

The Download: Google DeepMind’s DNA AI, and heatwaves’ impact on the grid

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.

Google’s new AI will help researchers understand how our genes work

When scientists first sequenced the human genome in 2003, they revealed the full set of DNA instructions that make a person. But we still didn’t know what all those 3 billion genetic letters actually do.

Now Google’s DeepMind division says it’s made a leap in trying to understand the code with AlphaGenome, an AI model that predicts what effects small changes in DNA will have on an array of molecular processes, such as whether a gene’s activity will go up or down.

It’s just the sort of question biologists regularly assess in lab experiments, and is an attempt to further smooth biologists’ work by answering basic questions about how changing DNA letters alters gene activity and, eventually, how genetic mutations affect our health. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

It’s officially summer, and the grid is stressed

It’s crunch time for the grid this week. Large swaths of the US have reached or exceeded record-breaking temperatures. Spain recently went through a dramatic heat wave too, as did the UK, which is bracing for another one soon.

We rely on electricity to keep ourselves comfortable, and more to the point, safe. These are the moments we design the grid for: when need is at its very highest. The key to keeping everything running smoothly during these times might be just a little bit of flexibility. But demand for electricity from major grids is already peaking, and that’s a good reason to be a little nervous. 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.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: How did China come to dominate the world of electric cars?

From generous government subsidies to support for lithium batteries, here are the keys to understanding how China managed to build a world-leading industry in electric vehicles.

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.

Inside OpenAI’s empire with Karen Hao

Journalist Karen Hao’s newly released book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, tells the story of OpenAI’s rise to power and its far-reaching impact all over the world.

Hao, a former MIT Technology Review senior editor, will join our executive editor Niall Firth in an intimate subscriber-exclusive Roundtable conversation exploring the AI arms race, what it means for all of us, and where it’s headed. Register here to join us at 9am ET on Monday June 30th June.

Special giveaway: Attendees will have the chance to receive a free copy of Hao’s book. See registration form for details.

The must-reads

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

1 Meta has won an AI copyright case against authors
The judge said the authors hadn’t presented enough evidence to back up their case. (TechCrunch)
+ It’s not an entirely decisive victory for Meta, though. (Wired $)
+ It’s the second lawsuit in favor of AI giants this week. (Insider $)

2 The US will stop contributing towards a global vaccine alliance
RFK Jr made unsubstantiated claims about Gavi’s safety record. (WP $)
+ Kennedy’s newly-assembled vaccine panel is reviewing its guidelines for children. (Vox)
+ Experts are worried the once-influential panel will cause irreparable harm. (Ars Technica)
+ How measuring vaccine hesitancy could help health professionals tackle it. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Jeff Bezos is cozying up to Donald Trump
If the Trump administration happens to need a new space company, he’s ready and willing to supply it. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, a private astronaut mission is on its way to the ISS. (CNN)

4 Taiwan is working on suicide drones to defend itself from China
The country is taking a leaf out of Ukraine’s defense book. (FT $)
+ This giant microwave may change the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Biohackers are feeling emboldened by the Trump administration
They welcome lower barriers to entry for their unorthodox treatments. (Wired $)
+ The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming. (MIT Technology Review)

6 A UK cyberattack on a health firm contributed to a patient’s death
The ransomware attack disrupted blood services at London hospitals. (BBC)
+ A Russian hacking gang is to blame for the incident. (Bloomberg $)

7 Take a look inside Amazon’s colossal new data center
Four construction teams are working around the clock to finish it. (NYT $)
+ Generating video is the most energy-intensive AI prompt. (WSJ $)
+ We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The debate around dark energy is intensifying
New research suggests it evolves over time. But not everyone agrees. (Undark)

9 Trump Mobile is no longer claiming to be ‘made in the USA’
It’s now “designed with American values in mind” instead. (Ars Technica)

10 It’s official: The Social Network is getting a sequel
Zuck goes MAGA? (Deadline $)

Quote of the day

“By training generative AI models with copyrighted works, companies are creating something that often will dramatically undermine the market for those works, and thus dramatically undermine the incentive for human beings to create things the old-fashioned way.”

—US district judge Vince Chhabria, who presided over a copyright lawsuit brought against Meta by a group of authors, warns of the implications of the company’s actions, the Guardian reports.

One more thing

Beyond gene-edited babies: the possible paths for tinkering with human evolution

Editing human embryos is restricted in much of the world—and making an edited baby is fully illegal in most countries surveyed by legal scholars. But advancing technology could render the embryo issue moot.

New ways of adding CRISPR, the revolutionary gene editing tool, to the bodies of people already born could let them easily receive changes as well. It’s possible that in 125 years, many people will be the beneficiaries of multiple rare, but useful, gene mutations currently found in only small segments of the population. 

These could protect us against common diseases and infections, but eventually they could also yield improvements in other traits, such as height, metabolism, or even cognition. But humanity won’t necessarily do things the right way. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

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.)

+ Amazing things are happening in New York’s Central Park.
+ A newly-discovered species of dinosaur has gone on display in London, and it’s small but perfectly formed.
+ Cool—Bob Dylan is releasing a new art book, this time of his drawings.
+ Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris has a secret second career—as a footballer

The Download: Introducing the Power issue

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.

Introducing: the Power issue

Energy is power. Those who can produce it, especially lots of it, get to exert authority in all sorts of ways. 

The world is increasingly powered by both tangible electricity and intangible intelligence. Plus billionaires. The latest issue of MIT Technology Review explores those intersections, in all their forms. 

Here’s just a taster of what you can expect from our latest issue:

+ Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys? We’re starting to give AI agents real autonomy, and we’re not prepared for what could happen next. Read the full story.

+ In Nebraska, a publicly owned electricity distribution system is an effective lens through which to examine the grid of the near future.

+ Cases of cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses are on the rise in the area surrounding Puerto Rico’s only coal-fired power station. So why has it just been given permission to stay open for at least another seven years? Read the full story.

+ How AI is shaking up urban planning and helping make cities better.

+ Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future. They say they want to save humanity by creating superintelligent AI—but a new book argues that they’re steering humanity in a dangerous direction.

The Bank Secrecy Act is failing everyone. It’s time to rethink financial surveillance.

—Katie Haun is the CEO and founder of Haun Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on frontier technologies.

The US is on the brink of enacting rules for digital assets, with growing bipartisan momentum to modernize its financial system. But amid all the talk about innovation and global competitiveness, one issue has been glaringly absent: financial privacy.

As we build the digital infrastructure of the 21st century, we need to talk about not just what’s possible but what’s acceptable. That means confronting the expanding surveillance powers quietly embedded in our financial system, which today can track nearly every transaction without a warrant. 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 Copyrighted books are fair use for AI training
According to a federal court in the US. (WP $)
+ The court compared the way AI learns to how humans consume books. (WSJ $)
+ But pirating is still illegal, apparently. (404 Media)

2 Recruiters are drowning in AI-generated résumés
Fake identities, agent-led applications, and identical résumés abound. (NYT $)

3 Extreme heat in the US is a growing threat
Alaska recently issued its first-ever heat advisory. (Vox)
+ And the heatwave is only going to intensify. (The Guardian)
+ Here’s how much heat your body can take. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Big Balls no longer works for DOGE
One of the department’s most prominent hires has resigned. (Wired $)
+ What will he do next? (NYT $)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

5 One of America’s best hackers is a bot
It’s the first time an AI has topped a hacking leaderboard by reputation. (Bloomberg $)
+ Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Way fewer people are dying of heart attacks in the US
But deaths from chronic heart conditions are on the up. (New Scientist $)

7 TikTok’s moderators have had enough
Groups are unionizing across the world to push for better treatment. (Rest of World)
+ How an undercover content moderator polices the metaverse. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Donald Trump’s social media use is even more erratic than usual
He keeps signing off “thank you for your attention to this matter!” (The Atlantic $)
+ He’s also misspelling his name as ‘Donakd.’ (Fast Company $)

9 Finally, a use for your old smartphone
It could have a second life as a teeny tiny data center. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 AI models don’t understand Gen Alpha slang
Let him cook! (404 Media)
+ That’s not stopping youngsters from using models as advisors, though. (Fast Company $)

Quote of the day

“Humans are wired to bond, and when we feel seen and soothed—even by a machine—we connect.”

—Psychiatrist Nina Vasan explains why humans may end up falling in love with AI systems to the Wall Street Journal.

One more thing

How Wi-Fi sensing became usable tech

Wi-Fi sensing is a tantalizing concept: that the same routers bringing you the internet could also detect your movements. But, as a way to monitor health, it’s mostly been eclipsed by other technologies, like ultra-wideband radar. 

Despite that, Wi-Fi sensing hasn’t gone away. Instead, it has quietly become available in millions of homes, supported by leading internet service providers, smart-home companies, and chip manufacturers. 

Soon it could be invisibly monitoring our day-to-day movements for all sorts of surprising—and sometimes alarming—purposes. Read the full story. 

—Meg Duff

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.)

+  How to keep your cool in a heatwave.
+ Roblox fans can’t get enough of, err, gardening.
+ Kate Moss, you are the reigning queen of festival fashion.
+ A couple of intrepid brown bears managed to escape from a wildlife park in the UK—to consume a week’s worth of honey

The Download: the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s first pictures, and reframing privacy

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.

See the stunning first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The first spectacular images taken by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have been released for the world to peruse: a panoply of iridescent galaxies and shimmering nebulas.

Much has been written about the observatory’s grand promise: to revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos by revealing a once-hidden population of far-flung galaxies, erupting stars, interstellar objects, and elusive planets. And thanks to its unparalleled technical prowess, few doubted its ability to make good on that. But over the past decade, during its lengthy construction period, everything’s been in the abstract.

Today, that promise has become a staggeringly beautiful reality. Read the full story.

—Robin George Andrews

Back in January, we selected the Vera C. Rubin Observatory as one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025. Read more about why it’s such a promising tool for enhancing our understanding of the universe.

Why we need to think differently about privacy 

Privacy only matters to those with something to hide. So goes one of the more inane and disingenuous justifications for mass government and corporate surveillance. It remains a popular way to rationalize or excuse what’s become standard practice in our digital age: the widespread and invasive collection of vast amounts of personal data.

One common response to this line of reasoning is that everyone, in fact, has something to hide, whether they realize it or not. If you’re unsure of whether this holds true for you, three new books examine the rise of the surveillance state, its infiltration of higher education, and why we need a new framework for thinking about privacy. Read the full story.

—Bryan Gardiner

This story is from the next print edition of MIT Technology Review, which explores power—who has it, and who wants it. It’s set to go live this Wednesday, so subscribe & save 25% to read it and get a copy of the issue when it lands!

The must-reads

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

1 Satellite images reveal the damage America’s bombs caused in Iran
The attack focused on three nuclear sites in the country. (Wired $) 
+ Iran has insisted its nuclear program will not be stopped. (The Guardian)
+ Here’s how the US bunker-busting bombs work. (Economist $)
+ The risks of a nuclear accident appear low, for now. (New Scientist $)

2 Tesla has launched its Texas robotaxi service
But for now, at least, it’s pretty restricted. (NYT $)
+ Elon Musk says the firm is “super paranoid about safety.” (WP $)
+ But there’s still plenty of unanswered questions around how it’ll work. (TechCrunch)

3 OpenAI and Jony Ive’s startup are facing a trademark dispute
It appears to be over their use of the IO name. (Bloomberg $)
+ OpenAI has scrubbed all mention of the partnership online. (Insider $) 

4 Meta is throwing tens of millions of dollars at top AI talent
Mark Zuckerberg is on a personal mission to recruit for its Superintelligence lab. (WSJ $)
+ Alexandr Wang of Scale will lead the charge. (Fortune $)

5 Elon Musk wants to retrain xAI’s Grok
Foundation AI models contain too much garbage, apparently. (Insider $)
+ Investors aren’t keen to sink money into xAI. (Reuters)
+ Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)

6 Donald Trump’s phone network is based in Florida
Seven-year old Liberty Mobile Wireless buys network capacity from bigger players. (FT $)

7 Reddit is reportedly considering using World ID to verify users
The controversial firm claims to preserve users’ anonymity while also confirming they are human. (Semafor)
+ How the startup recruited its first half a million test users. (MIT Technology Review)

8 What happens inside the phones of 25 teenagers
Life isn’t always easy for the first generation of social media natives. (The Guardian)
+ What it’s like to have never owned a smartphone. (The Atlantic $)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

9 A dead NASA satellite let off a powerful radio pulse
So powerful, it briefly outshone everything else in the sky. (New Scientist $)

10 What does AI mean for the future of fonts?
They could eventually swim into focus, or shift during the day. (The Verge)

Quote of the day

“We’re not playing a kid’s game here. We’re not naming Care Bears.”

—Ira Winkler, chief information security officer at cybersecurity firm CYE Security, decries cybersecurity’s obsession with cutesy names to the Wall Street Journal.

One more thing

What is death?

Just as birth certificates note the time we enter the world, death certificates mark the moment we exit it. This practice reflects traditional notions about life and death as binaries. We are here until, suddenly, like a light switched off, we are gone.

But while this idea of death is pervasive, evidence is building that it is an outdated social construct, not really grounded in biology. Dying is in fact a process—one with no clear point demarcating the threshold across which someone cannot come back.

Scientists and many doctors have already embraced this more nuanced understanding of death. And as society catches up, the implications for the living could be profound. Read the full story. 

—Rachel Nuwer

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.)+ Have you booked your tickets to 28 Years Later yet?
+ If you happen to be planning a flying visit to Rome, here’s a guide to cramming in as much of its breathtaking art as possible.
+ What community gardens can give us.
+ Who really runs New York? The bodega cats ($)