The Download: testing six tech promises and biotech’s blind spots

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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. Are we there yet? A reality check on six big tech promises Some seemingly impossible feats are too good to give up on. Decoding a pet’s yowls and yips? Absolutely. Scrubbing the world of forever chemicals? Yes, please. Rocketing to Mars in a fraction of the time? Sounds great, but how close are we, really?

这是今天的《下载》栏目，我们平日的通讯为您提供每日科技世界的动态。我们到了吗？对六大科技承诺的现实检验。一些看似不可能的壮举实在太诱人，让人无法放弃。解读宠物的叫声？当然可以。清除世界上的永久性化学物质？求之不得。在极短时间内飞往火星？听起来很棒，但我们真的离它有多近呢？

In the new Impossible issue of MIT Technology Review, we ran progress reports on six potentially transformative technologies and ideas that have been “just around the corner” for years, or even decades. From exercise in a pill to nuclear-powered spaceships, we asked experts what’s holding them back and how far they’ve come. Check out our stories on how they all stacked up. Over the coming days, we’ll unpack each of the six technologies in The Download. So stay tuned!

在《麻省理工科技评论》最新的“不可能”特刊中，我们对六项可能具有变革性的技术和理念进行了进展报告，这些技术和理念多年甚至几十年来一直被认为“指日可待”。从药丸运动到核动力飞船，我们询问了专家是什么阻碍了它们的发展，以及它们取得了多大进展。请查看我们关于它们表现如何的报道。在接下来的几天里，我们将在《下载》中逐一解析这六项技术。敬请关注！

In the biotech world, you can’t see everything —Jessica Hamzelou Earlier this week, I attended a screening of You Can See Everything, the buzzy new documentary about the disgraced former biotech CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Like many others, I came away feeling unsettled. But not just about Holmes’s fraud and the disturbing interactions between the subjects. The film reignited a concern I’ve had about covering science for most of my career: Despite our best efforts, we never can actually see everything.

在生物技术领域，你无法看到一切 ——杰西卡·汉泽洛（Jessica Hamzelou）。本周早些时候，我参加了《你可以看到一切》（You Can See Everything）的放映会，这是一部关于名誉扫地的生物技术前首席执行官伊丽莎白·霍姆斯（Elizabeth Holmes）的热门新纪录片。和许多人一样，我看完后感到不安。但这不仅仅是因为霍姆斯的欺诈行为以及受访者之间令人不安的互动。这部电影重新点燃了我职业生涯大部分时间里对科学报道的担忧：尽管我们尽了最大努力，但我们永远无法真正看到一切。

The film is a stark reminder of how easy it can be to fall for an appealing narrative. This is why it left me questioning how we cover science. This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. Help choose our next Roundtables topic Our subscriber-only Roundtables bring you into conversation with MIT Technology Review editors and reporters. Now, we want your help choosing our next topic: how to keep your mind going for longer, or what it would take to put a city on the moon. Which do you most want to hear about? Vote for your preferred topic by Monday at 12 p.m. ET.

这部电影是一个鲜明的提醒，告诉我们陷入一个诱人的叙事是多么容易。这就是为什么它让我质疑我们如何报道科学。这篇报道来自我们的每周生物技术通讯《检查》（The Checkup）。注册即可在每周四收到邮件。帮助选择我们下一个圆桌会议的主题。我们仅限订阅者的圆桌会议让您能与《麻省理工科技评论》的编辑和记者进行对话。现在，我们需要您帮助选择下一个主题：如何让大脑保持更长时间的活力，或者在月球上建立城市需要什么。您最想听哪一个？请在美东时间周一中午12点前为您偏好的主题投票。

The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Palmer Luckey’s new startup plans to genetically enhance military dogs Warhound says the dogs will detect explosives and protect troops. (Wired $)+ It’s raised $200 million from investors, including Sequoia. (TechCrunch)+ Colossal Biosciences will help clone and gene-edit the dogs. (Bloomberg $)+ The Pentagon wants an AI-powered lie detector. (MIT Technology Review)

必读内容：我梳理了互联网，为您找到了今天关于科技的最有趣/重要/可怕/迷人的故事。1. 帕尔默·拉奇（Palmer Luckey）的新初创公司计划对军犬进行基因增强。Warhound称这些狗将探测爆炸物并保护部队。（《连线》$）+ 它已从包括红杉资本在内的投资者那里筹集了2亿美元。（TechCrunch）+ Colossal Biosciences将帮助克隆和基因编辑这些狗。（《彭博社》$）+ 五角大楼想要一个人工智能驱动的测谎仪。（《麻省理工科技评论》）

2 Donald Trump says Elon Musk has restored Ukraine’s Starlink access But Zelensky says Starlink speeds remained capped. (Reuters $)+ Trump reportedly asked Musk to lift the speed limits. (WSJ $) 3 The newly disclosed PHP flaw is yet to yield successful attacks Experts say the vulnerabilities are harder to exploit than expected. (NBC News)+ Officials urged patches after the flaws forced websites offline worldwide. (BBC)+ But publicly disclosed fixes can help hackers. (The Economist $)

2. 唐纳德·特朗普称埃隆·马斯克已恢复乌克兰的星链访问权限，但泽连斯基表示星链速度仍受限制。（路透社$）+ 据报道，特朗普要求马斯克取消速度限制。（《华尔街日报》$）3. 新披露的PHP漏洞尚未导致成功的攻击。专家表示，这些漏洞比预期的更难利用。（NBC新闻）+ 在漏洞导致全球网站离线后，官员们敦促进行补丁修复。（BBC）+ 但公开披露的修复程序可能会帮助黑客。（《经济学人》$）

4 Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer vaccine cut death by 42% The vaccine reduced melanoma patients’ risk of recurrence. (Ars Technica)+ Federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA. (MIT Technology Review) 5 A powerful new gene editor has reached its first human patient The prime editing technique rewrites DNA in liver cells. (Nature)+ Companies are planning gene-edited babies. (MIT Technology Review)

4. 莫德纳（Moderna）和默克（Merck）表示，他们的mRNA癌症疫苗将死亡率降低了42%。该疫苗降低了黑色素瘤患者的复发风险。（Ars Technica）+ 联邦卫生机构正在放弃mRNA。（《麻省理工科技评论》）5. 一种强大的新型基因编辑器已应用于首位人类患者。先导编辑技术可以重写肝细胞中的DNA。（《自然》）+ 各公司正在计划基因编辑婴儿。（《麻省理工科技评论》）

6 Google will pay customers to free up power for data centers Its virtual power plant will reward people for adjusting energy usage. (NYT $)+ It’s also illegally felled 250,000 trees in Finland for a data center. (Guardian) 7 Dutch spies reportedly hacked Jared Kushner’s iPhone The report alleges financial links to foreign officials. (Vanity Fair $) 8 Fossil fuels may have stopped the next ice age Modern warming reversed 2,000 years of ice growth. (Wired $)

6. 谷歌将向客户付费以释放数据中心的电力。其虚拟发电厂将奖励调整能源使用的人们。（《纽约时报》$）+ 它还在芬兰为数据中心非法砍伐了25万棵树。（《卫报》）7. 据报道，荷兰间谍黑进了贾里德·库什纳（Jared Kushner）的iPhone。报告称其与外国官员存在财务联系。（《名利场》$）8. 化石燃料可能阻止了下一次冰河时代。现代变暖逆转了2000年的冰层增长。（《连线》$）

9 Scientists have recreated solar flares to explain the corona’s mystery They hope to explain why it’s so hot. (New Scientist $) 10 A road trip with America’s cheapest EV shows charging is much improved Fast chargers kept the journey manageable despite sparse coverage. (WSJ $)+ And bigger EVs aren’t always better. (MIT Technology Review)

9. 科学家们重现了太阳耀斑以解释日冕之谜。他们希望解释为什么它如此炎热。（《新科学家》$）10. 一次驾驶美国最便宜电动汽车的公路旅行显示充电情况大有改善。尽管覆盖范围稀疏，但快速充电器使旅程变得可控。（《华尔街日报》$）+ 而且更大的电动汽车并不总是更好。（《麻省理工科技评论》）

Quote of the day “If anything happens to this guy, that’s just it. Everyone is screwed.” —Software developer Ian Landsman says on X that volunteer Ondřej Surý’s work on patching PHP vulnerabilities makes him an unsung hero of the entire internet.

今日名言：“如果这家伙出了什么事，那就完了。大家都完蛋了。”——软件开发人员伊恩·兰兹曼（Ian Landsman）在X上表示，志愿者翁德雷·苏里（Ondřej Surý）在修补PHP漏洞方面的工作使他成为整个互联网的无名英雄。

One more thing STUART BRADFORD How sounds can turn us on to the wonders of the universe For decades, astronomy has relied on visual information to make sense of the cosmos: images, charts, and graphs. Now, some researchers are trying something different: listening to the universe. Using sonification, the process of turning information into sound, they’re helping blind and visually impaired researchers explore the cosmos—and even uncover patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.

还有一件事：斯图尔特·布拉德福德（STUART BRADFORD）。声音如何让我们领略宇宙的奇观。几十年来，天文学一直依赖视觉信息来理解宇宙：图像、图表和图形。现在，一些研究人员正在尝试不同的方法：倾听宇宙。利用“声化”（sonification），即把信息转化为声音的过程，他们正在帮助盲人和视障研究人员探索宇宙，甚至发现那些原本可能被忽视的模式。

The approach is spreading beyond astronomy into fields like climate science, navigation, and education. Discover how sound could make science more accessible—and even more revealing. —Corey S. Powell 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.) + A team of domino experts broke a Guinness World Record with a 29,193-piece 3D pyramid.

这种方法正在从天文学扩展到气候科学、导航和教育等领域。探索声音如何让科学变得更容易获取，甚至更具启发性。——科里·S·鲍威尔（Corey S. Powell）。我们仍然可以拥有美好的事物：一个舒适、有趣和消遣的地方，让您的一天变得明亮。（有什么想法吗？给我写信。）+ 一个多米诺骨牌专家团队以29,193块骨牌搭建的3D金字塔打破了吉尼斯世界纪录。

• Scientists suspect that pigeons sense Earth’s magnetic fields using specialized immune cells in their livers. + See inside cells like never before with these vivid microscopic images from the Nikon Small World competitions. + Cuddly capybaras and playful penguins joined 10,000 animals on the scales for London Zoo’s annual weigh-in.

• 科学家怀疑鸽子利用肝脏中的特殊免疫细胞来感知地球磁场。+ 通过尼康微观世界摄影大赛这些生动的显微图像，以前所未有的方式观察细胞内部。+ 可爱的水豚和顽皮的企鹅加入了伦敦动物园年度称重活动的10,000只动物行列。