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? In the new Impossible issue of MIT Technology Review, editors 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, the reporting asks experts what's holding them back and how far they've come.
In a separate reflection on biotech, Jessica Hamzelou describes attending a screening of You Can See Everything, the new documentary about disgraced former biotech CEO Elizabeth Holmes. The film left her unsettled, not only by Holmes's fraud but by a broader concern she has had about covering science: despite best efforts, reporters can never actually see everything. The documentary is a stark reminder of how easy it is to fall for an appealing narrative, and it has prompted her to question how science is covered.
The newsletter also highlights several stories of the day. Palmer Luckey's new startup, Warhound, says it plans to genetically enhance military dogs to detect explosives and protect troops. The company has reportedly raised $200 million from investors, including Sequoia, and Colossal Biosciences will help clone and gene-edit the dogs.
Other headlines include a 42% reduction in death risk reported by Moderna and Merck for their mRNA cancer vaccine in melanoma patients, and the first human patient treated with a powerful new prime-editing gene editor. Google, meanwhile, will pay customers to free up power for data centers through a virtual power plant.
Source: MIT Technology Review · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing