Beyond gene-edited babies: the possible paths for tinkering with human evolution
At the Innovative Genomics Institute, a center established by Doudna in Berkeley, California, researchers anticipate that as delivery improves, they...
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A new system lets robots sense human touch without artificial skin
But if you press harder, you may notice a second way of sensing the touch: through your knuckles and other...
How we could turn plastic waste into food
In one reactor, shown here at a recent MTU demonstration, some deconstructed plastics are subject to high heat and the...
The Download: future materials shortages, and Google on trial
1 Google will face a trial claiming that it misled Chrome users The lawsuit alleges that the browser collected user data...
This rare earth metal shows us the future of our planet’s resources
Demand for neodymium-based magnets could outstrip supply in the coming decade. The longer-term prospects for the metal’s supply aren’t as...
The Download: boosting prosperity with AI, and fighting for a better future
Predictions abound on how the growing list of generative AI models will transform the way we work and organize our...
Fighting for a future beyond the climate crisis
Less making and unmaking are also the solution—less making of what we do not need and more unmaking of harmful...
Why you’re about to see a lot more drones in the sky
Lately, that’s been changing. The agency recently granted Amazon’s Prime Air program approval to fly drones beyond the visual line...
How to fine-tune AI for prosperity
Google's James Manyika says AI’s impact on the economy is potentially huge but will depend on how quickly business users...
The rise of the data platform for hybrid cloud
Finding a way to unify this disparate data is essential. In doing so, organizations must balance the explosive growth of...
The Download: preserving our digital lives, and X exits Brazil
There is a photo of my daughter that I love. She is sitting, smiling, in our old back garden, chubby...
The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age
Scott now works as “free-range archivist and software curator” with the Internet Archive, an online library started in 1996 by...
The Download: what tomorrow holds for today’s babies, and replacing the brain
Drones have been a mainstay technology among militaries, hobbyists, and first responders alike for more than a decade. No longer...
How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm
“Spotify’s music database has a very rich set of various parameters, markup, and categories to classify music in a very...
What’s next for drones
These developments raise a number of questions: Are drones safe enough to be flown in dense neighborhoods and cities? Is...
This researcher wants to replace your brain, little by little
Hébert declined to describe the session, which he said was not recorded “out of respect for those who preferred discretion.”...
Aging hits us in our 40s and 60s. But well-being doesn’t have to fall off a cliff.
For the study, Michael Snyder at Stanford University and his colleagues collected a vast amount of biological data from 108...
The Download: facial recognition for migrant children, and Japan’s megaquake
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to collect and analyze photos of the faces of migrant children at...
What Japan’s “megaquake” warning really tells us
Crucially, this advisory is not a warning that a megaquake is imminent. It means: “be ready for when the big...
The US government is still spending big on climate
For example, in December 2023 we learned how restrictions in the EV tax credits will affect vehicles with components made...