The Download: legitimizing longevity science, and Harvard’s geoengineering U-turn

Plus: a row about social media freedom of speech is brewing in the US

Here is this day’s model of The Download, our weekday newsletter that supplies a daily dose of what’s going on in the enviornment of expertise

The quest to legitimize longevity treatment

On a fascinating cold day final December, a crowd of doctors and scientists gathered at a study institute atop a hill in Novato, California. Their aim is to encourage other folks add years to their lifespans, and to stay these additional years in correct health. However the assembly’s participants had one other aim as nicely: to be identified as a qualified medical field.

For too long, contemporary treatment has exasperated about treating illness in preference to preventing it, they deliver. They deem that it’s time to hasten from reactive healthcare to proactive healthcare. And to pause so in a qualified manner—by setting “gold standards” and medical pointers for the sphere. These scientists and clinicians look themselves spearheading a revolution in treatment.

But proponents acknowledge the challenges ahead. Clinicians disagree on how they ought to assess and treat aging. And without standards and pointers, there’s a valid threat that some clinics might perchance presumably perchance perchance prove no longer easiest failing to wait on their purchasers, but potentially harming them. Read the corpulent story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Harvard halts its long-deliberate atmospheric geoengineering experiment

Harvard researchers have ceased a protracted-running effort to conduct a tiny geoengineering experiment in the stratosphere, following repeated delays and public criticism.

The primary blueprint on the encourage of photo voltaic geoengineering is that the enviornment might perchance presumably perchance very nicely have the choice to counteract global warming by spraying dinky particles in the atmosphere that would scatter daytime. Proponents of photo voltaic geoengineering study argue we ought to analysis the blueprint because it could perchance presumably perchance perchance considerably gash the risks of climate exchange.

But critics argue that even studying the possible for photo voltaic geoengineering eases the societal force to lower greenhouse fuel emissions. They additionally alarm such study might perchance presumably perchance perchance accomplish a slippery slope that will enhance the percentages that countries or rogue actors will at some point deploy it, despite the possible for harmful facet-outcomes. Read the corpulent story.

—James Temple

This self-riding startup is the utilization of generative AI to foretell web page visitors

The guidelines: Self-riding firm Waabi is the utilization of a generative AI model to encourage predict the motion of vehicles. The recent machine used to be trained on troves of files from lidar sensors, which use mild to sense how a long way away objects are.

The arrangement in which it in point of truth works: Whereas you suggested the model with a instruct, love a driver recklessly merging onto a twin carriageway at high hunch, it predicts how the encompassing vehicles will hasten, then generates a lidar illustration of 5 to 10 seconds into the long bustle. 

Why it issues: Whereas self reliant riding has long relied on machine studying to blueprint routes and detect objects, some corporations and researchers are now betting that generative AI — fashions that soak up files of their setting and generate predictions — will encourage lift autonomy to the following stage. Read the corpulent story.

—James O’Donnell

The must-reads

I’ve combed the safe to search out you this day’s most fun/most significant/provoking/charming tales about expertise.

1 The Biden administration’s social media fight has reached the Supreme Court docket
Justices will hear arguments over whether officers violated the First Amendment after they told platforms to put off alleged misinformation. (The Hill)
+ It highlights the difficulties in defining free speech in the safe age. (NYT $)
+ What constitutes censorship is in the peep of the beholder. (WP $)

2 SpaceX is building a explore satellite tv for pc community for US intelligence
And China isn’t pleased about it. (Reuters)
+ Chinese automakers are equipping electrical cars with digicam drones. (Wired $)

3 Apple is facing an AirTags stalking lawsuit
The firm’s disclose to have the claims overturned used to be pushed apart. (Bloomberg $)+ Google is failing to enforce its comprise ban on ads for stalkerware. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

4 How a county in South Carolina is waging a war to connect rural The US
Broadband services are reluctant to lay fiber optic cable in “unprofitable areas.” (The Guardian)

5 Ukraine is tickled that US satellite tv for pc imagery is guiding Russian missiles
Its army believes Russia’s strikes are too true to be random. (The Atlantic $)
+ It’s shockingly easy to aquire gorgeous files about US army personnel. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

6 Sam Bankman-Fried is facing up to 110 years in penal complex
But a sentence between 40 and 50 years is extra seemingly. (NYT $)

7 AI is getting uncannily correct at creating pro-stage songs
Startup Suno’s model works in tandem with ChatGPT to carry out songs indistinguishable from human creations. (Rolling Stone $)
+ Why is Slack’s assist music so darn catchy? (Wired $)
+ These very no longer going instruments might perchance presumably perchance perchance exchange the manner forward for music. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

8 An airplane’s Wi-Fi is frequently rather stable ✈️
But there are additional-cautious steps you might perchance presumably perchance take. (WSJ $)

9 Gen Z is over quiet quitting
Youthful workers are quitting their jobs loudly, and in entrance of an on-line viewers. (FT $)
+ Keynes used to be nasty. Gen Z will have it worse. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)

10 Never believe AI’s assertion that a mushroom is stable to expend 🍄
Mushroom identification apps fair aren’t legitimate ample—so don’t threat checking out the laborious manner. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“I merely swiped fair on contributors in the industry I aspire to be a half of.”

—Jade Liang, a master’s student in Shanghai, tells NBC News why China’s extra and extra sophisticated labor market is riding the nation’s young jobseekers to an irregular hiring avenue: dating apps.

The big story

After 25 years of hype, embryonic stem cells are soundless looking ahead to their moment​

August 2023

In 1998, researchers remoted extremely efficient stem cells from human embryos. It used to be a breakthrough, since these cells are the place to begin for human bodies and have the ability to change into every other variety of cell—coronary heart cells, neurons, you identify it.

Nationwide Geographic would later summarize the unheard of promise: “the dream is to launch a medical revolution in which in glum health organs and tissues might perchance presumably perchance very nicely be repaired” with residing replacements. It used to be the daybreak of a recent generation. A holy grail. Pick your celebrated cliché—all of them bought airtime.

But this day, bigger than two a few years later, there are no treatments in the marketplace in step with these cells. Now not one. Our biotech editor Antonio Regalado arrangement out to analysis why, and when that would exchange. Here’s what he chanced on.

We can soundless have nice things

A assign for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any suggestions? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I love the look of this humongous blueberry.
+ This Reddit neighborhood for submitting photos of yourself caught unawares by supply drivers is terribly comical.
+ This beautifully detailed Mario cookie is a piece of artwork.
+ Belgium’s recent soccer away equipment is a becoming tribute to the one and easiest Tintin.

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