TarsaaRight here’s this day’s edition of The Procure, our weekday e-newsletter that offers a on a standard basis dose of what’s going on in the world of abilities.
There is a brand contemporary most expensive drug in the world. Brand designate: $4.25 million
The recordsdata: There is a brand contemporary most expensive drug ever—a gene therapy that prices as grand as a Brooklyn brownstone or a Miami mansion, and extra than the average particular person will fabricate in a lifetime. Lenmeldy is a gene therapy for metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and was as soon as permitted in the US on Monday. Its maker, Orchard Therapeutics, says the $4.25 million wholesale designate shows the designate the therapy has for sufferers and households.
Why it matters: MLD is a nerve dysfunction that strikes kids, rapidly robbing them of their ability to be in contact and lumber. Spherical half of die, the others continue to exist in a vegetative declare. Nevertheless it’s incredibly uncommon, affecting supreme around 40 kids a year in the US. The extreme rarity of such diseases is what’s at the encourage of the soaring designate-tags of most up-to-date gene therapies, and why selling the most recent DNA therapy might perchance moreover be a shaky industry. Be taught the fat memoir.
—Antonio Regalado
Fresh York City’s plan to quit e-bike battery fires
Stroll appropriate about a blocks in Fresh York City and you’ll likely location an electric bike zipping by. They occupy change into extra and extra long-established in most up-to-date years, particularly among birth drivers. Nevertheless the e-bike influx has prompted a wave of fires sparked by their batteries, about a of them lethal.
Now, the city needs to wrestle those fires with battery swapping. A pilot program will present a shrimp quantity of birth drivers with replace alternate choices to energy up their e-bikes, together with swapping stations that present completely charged batteries on demand.
Proponents whisper the program might perchance lay the groundwork for a brand contemporary mode of powering shrimp electric autos in the city, one who’s handy and might perchance decrease the possibility of fires. Nevertheless the street to fireplace security will likely be long and winding given the sheer quantity of batteries we’re integrating into our on a standard basis lives, in e-bikes and past. Be taught the fat memoir.
—Casey Crownhart
To learn extra about Fresh York City’s battery swapping ambitions, review out the most up-to-date edition of The Spark, MIT Abilities Overview’s weekly local weather and vitality e-newsletter. Sign in to procure it to your inbox every Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you this day’s most fun/vital/upsetting/charming reviews about abilities.
1 Reddit is determined to switch public this day
Its vocal users occupy wreaked havoc on Wall Motorway in the past. Will they again? (Bloomberg $)
+ Redditors are understandably cautious of what the future might perchance serve. (WP $)
+ That future is extra and extra taking a look fancy it’ll involve quite lots of AI. (The Data $)
+ It’s one among the few on-line spaces that silent fosters neighborhood. (NYT $)
2 Neuralink shared a video of its first patient taking part in games together with his brain implant
Noland Arbaugh, who is quadriplegic, known as the surgical route of “substantial easy.” (The Verge)
+ Nevertheless he also acknowledged that the chip wasn’t ideal. (Insider $)
+ Elon Musk needs extra bandwidth between folks and machines. Will we need it? (MIT Abilities Overview)
3 Russian disinformation campaigns are rippling across Europe
Its deepfake movies are designed to erode public trust earlier than the European parliament elections in June. (FT $)
+ Eric Schmidt has a 6-level plan for combating election misinformation. (MIT Abilities Overview)
4 The ‘room-temperature superconductor’ physicist engaged in analysis misconduct
At the very least four papers co-written by Ranga Dias occupy now been retracted by the journals that printed them. (WSJ $)
5 The US executive has awarded its biggest chip grant to this level
Intel is the lucky recipient of $8.5 billion to assemble and expand its US facilities. (NYT $)
+ Intel’s planning to use an conception watering $100 billion in entire. (Reuters)
6 A file quantity of other folks died seeking to enter to US in 2022
Surveillance has a body count. (The Verge)
+ The contemporary US border wall is an app. (MIT Abilities Overview)
7 Wherever you stride, you’re being tracked across the web
Nevertheless you might perchance no longer label appropriate how in depth that monitoring undoubtedly is. (Wired $)
8 Poverty porn is YouTube’s most up-to-date fixation
It treats deprivation as depressing shock-bid. (Vox)
9 China is having a wager on these spacecraft to gain moon samples
While one has already launched, another four are living to educate. (IEEE Spectrum)
10 Fitbit’s future is taking a look extra and extra unsure
Die-onerous fans are losing persistence with its owner Google’s most up-to-date changes. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day
“I will’t wait to short the s*** outta this!”
—A Reddit client reacts to the recordsdata of the company’s IPO on the unsuitable r/wallstreetbets Subreddit, Vox experiences.
The grand memoir
Working Tide is facing scientist departures and rising concerns over seaweed sinking for carbon putting off
June 2022
Working Tide, an aquaculture company based totally in Portland, Maine, hopes to living tens of thousands of exiguous floating kelp farms adrift in the North Atlantic. The notion is that the snappily-rising macroalgae will in the end sink to the ocean floor, storing away thousands of tons of carbon dioxide in the route of.
The company has raised thousands and thousands in project funding and won long-established media attention. Nevertheless it struggled to grow kelp alongside rope traces in the originate ocean at some level of preliminary attempts ideal year and has misplaced a string of scientists in most up-to-date months, sources with recordsdata of the matter expose MIT Abilities Overview. What happens subsequent? Be taught the fat memoir.
—James Temple
We can silent occupy good things
A spot aside for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Obtained any recommendations? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Aww, this duck is that if reality be told dazzling 🦆
+ Mountain climbing in India appears to be like a stunning beneficial strategy to use your time.
+ Kim Gordon and Chloe Sevigny: two folks that know a thing or two about being cool.
+ These at the encourage of the scenes shots of A Streetcar Named Need are very cool.
Tarsaa
