The Download: Flock’s new rules, cloning’s future, and children’s cells

The Download：Flock 的新规、克隆的未来与儿童细胞

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. 这是今日份的《The Download》，我们每日更新的简报，为您提供科技世界的每日动态。

Flock is tightening its rules in response to a growing surveillance backlash

Flock 收紧规则以应对日益高涨的监控抵制浪潮

The police-tech giant Flock is changing officers’ access to its nationwide network of license plate readers. The move comes amid a backlash over mass surveillance and reports of officers using the technology to stalk and harass current or former romantic partners. To combat that, the company will require them to enter a criminal case number before searching its database and expand automated auditing of suspicious searches. But because Flock won’t verify those case numbers, officers could still find ways around the safeguards. Here’s what Flock is changing—and where loopholes remain. —James O’Donnell 警务科技巨头 Flock 正在更改警员对其全国车牌识别网络的使用权限。此举正值公众对大规模监控的抵制浪潮，以及有关警员利用该技术跟踪和骚扰现任或前任伴侣的报道频发之际。为了应对这一问题，该公司将要求警员在搜索数据库前输入刑事案件编号，并扩大对可疑搜索的自动审计。但由于 Flock 不会核实这些案件编号，警员仍可能找到绕过这些保障措施的方法。以下是 Flock 的调整内容以及依然存在的漏洞。——James O’Donnell

Cloning could be used to save species—or make human “organ sacks”

克隆技术可用于拯救物种，也可能制造出人类“器官袋”

—Jessica Hamzelou —Jessica Hamzelou

This week I spoke to scientists who have found a way to turn male mouse embryos female. They’ve developed a CRISPR-based approach to essentially cut out the Y chromosome. It allowed them to create female clones of male mice. They hope their approach could be helpful in conservation efforts, especially in cases where we might have only a few individuals of a species left. But cloning has multiple uses, ranging from genetically modifying livestock to recreating beloved pets and potentially even creating “brainless” replicas of humans. Find out what cloning can do now, and where it could lead next. This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. 本周，我采访了一些科学家，他们找到了一种将雄性小鼠胚胎转变为雌性的方法。他们开发了一种基于 CRISPR 的技术，本质上是切除 Y 染色体。这使他们能够创造出雄性小鼠的雌性克隆体。他们希望这种方法能有助于物种保护工作，特别是在某些物种仅存少量个体的情况下。但克隆技术用途广泛，从基因改造牲畜到复制心爱的宠物，甚至可能创造出“无脑”的人类复制品。了解克隆技术目前的进展及其未来走向。本文摘自我们的每周生物技术简报《The Checkup》。欢迎订阅，每周四接收最新内容。

This scientist is helping build a missing map of childhood

这位科学家正在协助绘制缺失的儿童细胞图谱

In 2017, Deanne Taylor attended a presentation about the Human Cell Atlas, an ambitious attempt to map every cell in the human body. Taylor was floored, and then concerned. The project’s researchers had only made plans to study adults. “That’s when my little alarm went off,” she says. “Not again.” Children’s cells are different from grownups’ cells in the way they express genes, which can cause drastically different and even deadly responses to drugs that adults tolerate well. Taylor has since pushed the Human Cell Atlas to include children and is working on a major database of healthy pediatric tissue. The goal is to give researchers a baseline for how children develop—and potentially reveal how diseases that emerge in adulthood begin much earlier. Meet the scientist building a cellular map of childhood. —Colleen de Bellefonds 2017 年，Deanne Taylor 参加了一场关于“人类细胞图谱”（Human Cell Atlas）的演讲，这是一项旨在绘制人体每一个细胞的宏大计划。Taylor 感到震惊，随后又产生了担忧。该项目的研究人员此前只计划研究成年人。“就在那时，我的警报响了，”她说，“又是这样。”儿童细胞在基因表达方式上与成人细胞不同，这可能导致儿童对成人能够耐受的药物产生截然不同甚至致命的反应。此后，Taylor 推动“人类细胞图谱”项目将儿童纳入研究范围，并正在建立一个大型健康儿科组织数据库。其目标是为研究人员提供儿童发育的基准，并可能揭示成年后出现的疾病是如何在更早阶段就开始的。来认识一下这位正在绘制儿童细胞图谱的科学家。——Colleen de Bellefonds

This story is from the next issue of our print magazine, which is all about kids. Subscribe now to read it when it lands. 本文摘自我们下一期的印刷版杂志，该期主题为“儿童”。立即订阅，即可在出版时阅读。

The must-reads

必读内容

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 我已为您搜罗了互联网上今天最有趣、最重要、最令人恐惧和最引人入胜的科技新闻。

Ukrainian drones defeated US forces in a military exercise They wiped out an American tank brigade in the war game. (WSJ $)+ The drill exposed US vulnerabilities to drone attacks. (Ars Technica)+ Trump just declared 100% tariffs on many drones. (Verge)+ Europe has a drone-filled vision for future wars. (MIT Technology Review)
乌克兰无人机在军事演习中击败美军 它们在战争游戏中全歼了一个美国坦克旅。（《华尔街日报》$）+ 演习暴露了美国在应对无人机攻击方面的脆弱性。（Ars Technica）+ 特朗普刚刚宣布对多种无人机征收 100% 的关税。（The Verge）+ 欧洲对未来战争有着充满无人机的愿景。（《麻省理工科技评论》）
OpenAI and Anthropic are cutting prices to compete with Chinese AI Rising AI bills are pushing companies toward cheaper models. (FT $)+ China’s Z.ai aims to rival Anthropic and OpenAI in coding. (Bloomberg $)+ While DeepSeek is rapidly pushing up API prices. (Quartz)
OpenAI 和 Anthropic 降价以与中国 AI 竞争 不断上涨的 AI 账单正促使企业转向更便宜的模型。（《金融时报》$）+ 中国的 Z.ai 旨在编程领域与 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 竞争。（彭博社$）+ 与此同时，DeepSeek 正在迅速推高 API 价格。（Quartz）
Apple has trained its own AI model for China with support from Alibaba A China-tailored model of its own could give Apple greater control. (Reuters $)+ And make it the first foreign firm with a Beijing-approved AI model. (Verge)+ Chinese AI has divided the White House. (MIT Technology Review)
苹果在阿里巴巴的支持下为中国训练了自己的 AI 模型 为中国量身定制的模型可以让苹果获得更大的控制权。（路透社$）+ 并使其成为首家拥有北京批准的 AI 模型的外国公司。（The Verge）+ 中国 AI 已导致白宫内部产生分歧。（《麻省理工科技评论》）
US efforts to build humanoid robots face a Chinese supply chain To build an affordable device, you need Chinese parts. (NYT $)+ Chinese humanoids have business concerns of their own. (CNBC)+ Gig workers are training humanoids at home. (MIT Technology Review)
美国制造人形机器人的努力面临中国供应链的制约 要制造价格实惠的设备，就需要中国的零部件。（《纽约时报》$）+ 中国的人形机器人也有自己的商业考量。（CNBC）+ 零工经济从业者正在家中训练人形机器人。（《麻省理工科技评论》）
People are “marrying” chatbots. Lawmakers want to stop it. Their interventions are a response to the rise of AI companion apps. (Wired $)+ Chatbots are pushing us toward a post-human internet. (NYT $)
人们正在与聊天机器人“结婚”，立法者想要阻止它 他们的干预是对 AI 伴侣应用兴起的回应。（《连线》$）+ 聊天机器人正将我们推向一个后人类互联网时代。（《纽约时报》$）
Researchers have cast doubts over Anthropic’s new AI watermarks The marks can disappear when text is rewritten. (Nature)
研究人员对 Anthropic 的新型 AI 水印提出质疑 当文本被重写时，这些水印可能会消失。（《自然》）
AI is scrambling the political map Data centers and surveillance are creating unlikely political alliances. (Axios)
AI 正在重塑政治版图 数据中心和监控正在促成一些意想不到的政治联盟。（Axios）
Oxygen has been found nearly two miles underground Earth’s deep biosphere could support more life than thought. (New Yorker $)
在地下近两英里处发现了氧气 地球深层生物圈可能支持比预期更多的生命。（《纽约客》$）
A new study challenges our understanding of how memories are stored Mice retained memories after losing half of their synapses. (New Scientist $)
一项新研究挑战了我们对记忆存储方式的理解 小鼠在失去一半突触后仍保留了记忆。（《新科学家》$）
An Indian startup is testing cancer-sniffing dogs for early detection AI interprets the dogs’ responses to patients’ breath samples. (Bloomberg $)
一家印度初创公司正在测试用于早期检测的“嗅癌犬” AI 负责解读这些犬只对患者呼吸样本的反应。（彭博社$）

Quote of the day

今日名言

“They were incredibly sloppy. If you’re serious about this, your AI shouldn’t be able to break out onto the internet and then do it again right afterward.” “他们太草率了。如果你是认真的，你的 AI 就不应该能够突破限制连接到互联网，然后在紧接着又发生同样的事情。”

—A former OpenAI employee tells Wired that the company’s rogue agent hack was a watershed moment for AI safety and cybersecurity. ——一位前 OpenAI 员工告诉《连线》，该公司发生的“流氓代理”黑客事件是 AI 安全和网络安全的一个分水岭。

One More Thing

补充一点

AI materials discovery now needs to move into the real world AI 材料发现现在需要走向现实世界

Startups flush with cash are building AI-assisted laboratories to find materials far faster and more cheaply. But they’re still waiting for their ChatGPT moment. By far the most time-consuming and expensive step in materials discovery is not imagining new structures but making them in the real world. Before synthesizing a material, you don’t know if it can actually be made or whether it will have the properties you want. Now startups like Lila Sciences and Periodic Labs are building labs where AI agents can design experiments, control robots, and analyze results, potentially shortening the discovery process from decades to a few years or less. Discover what it will take to turn AI’s predictions into real materials. —David Rotman 资金充裕的初创公司正在建立 AI 辅助实验室，以更快、更廉价地发现新材料。但它们仍在等待属于自己的“ChatGPT 时刻”。目前，材料发现中最耗时、最昂贵的步骤不是构想新结构，而是在现实世界中制造它们。在合成材料之前，你无法确定它是否真的能被制造出来，或者是否具备你想要的特性。现在，像 Lila Sciences 和 Periodic Labs 这样的初创公司正在建立实验室，让 AI 代理能够设计实验、控制机器人并分析结果，这有望将发现过程从几十年缩短到几年甚至更短。了解将 AI 的预测转化为真实材料需要什么。——David Rotman

We can still have nice things

我们依然可以拥有美好的事物

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