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.

“Dr. Google” had its issues. Can ChatGPT Health do better?  

For the past two decades, there’s been a clear first step for anyone who starts experiencing new medical symptoms: Look them up online. The practice was so common that it gained the pejorative moniker “Dr. Google.” But times are changing, and many medical-information seekers are now using LLMs. According to OpenAI, 230 million people ask ChatGPT health-related queries each week.  

That’s the context around the launch of OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Health product, which debuted earlier this month. The big question is: can the obvious risks of using AI for health-related queries be mitigated enough for them to be a net benefit? Read the full story. 

—Grace Huckins

America’s coming war over AI regulation  

In the final weeks of 2025, the battle over regulating artificial intelligence in the US reached boiling point. On December 11, after Congress failed twice to pass a law banning state AI laws, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order seeking to handcuff states from regulating the booming industry.  

Instead, he vowed to work with Congress to establish a “minimally burdensome” national AI policy. The move marked a victory for tech titans, who have been marshaling multimillion-dollar war chests to oppose AI regulations, arguing that a patchwork of state laws would stifle innovation.

In 2026, the battleground will shift to the courts. While some states might back down from passing AI laws, others will charge ahead. Read our story about what’s on the horizon. 

—Michelle Kim

This story is from MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series of stories that look across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.  

Measles is surging in the US. Wastewater tracking could help.

This week marked a rather unpleasant anniversary: It’s a year since Texas reported a case of measles—the start of a significant outbreak that ended up spreading across multiple states. Since the start of January 2025, there have been over 2,500 confirmed cases of measles in the US. Three people have died. 

As vaccination rates drop and outbreaks continue, scientists have been experimenting with new ways to quickly identify new cases and prevent the disease from spreading. And they are starting to see some success with wastewater surveillance. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou 

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things health and biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The US is dismantling itself
A foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck its standing in the world. (Wired $)  
+ We need to talk about whether Donald Trump might be losing it.  (New Yorker $)

2 Big Tech is taking on more debt to fund its AI aspirations
And the bubble just keeps growing. (WP $)
+ Forget unicorns. 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the “hectocorn.” (The Guardian)
+ Everyone in tech agrees we’re in a bubble. They just can’t agree on what happens when it pops. (MIT Technology Review)

3 DOGE accessed even more personal data than we thought 
Even now, the Trump administration still can’t say how much data is at risk, or what it was used for. (NPR)

4 TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new US entity 
Ending years of uncertainty about its fate in America. (CNN)
+ Why China is the big winner out of all of this. (FT $)

5 The US is now officially out of the World Health Organization 
And it’s leaving behind nearly $300 million in bills unpaid. (Ars Technica) 
+ The US withdrawal from the WHO will hurt us all. (MIT Technology Review)

6 AI-powered disinformation swarms pose a threat to democracy
A would-be autocrat could use them to persuade populations to accept cancelled elections or overturn results. (The Guardian)
+ The era of AI persuasion in elections is about to begin. (MIT Technology Review)

7 We’re about to start seeing more robots everywhere
But exactly what they’ll look like remains up for debate. (Vox $)
+ Chinese companies are starting to dominate entire sectors of AI and robotics. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Some people seem to be especially vulnerable to loneliness
If you’re ‘other-directed’, you could particularly benefit from less screentime. (New Scientist $)

9 This academic lost two years of work with a single click
TL;DR: Don’t rely on ChatGPT to store your data. (Nature)

10 How animals develop a sense of direction 
Their ‘internal compass’ seems to be informed by landmarks that help them form a mental map. (Quanta $)

Quote of the day

“The rate at which AI is progressing, I think we have AI that is smarter than any human this year, and no later than next year.”

—Elon Musk simply cannot resist the urge to make wild predictions at Davos, Wired reports. 

One more thing

ADAM DETOUR

Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past

After falling steadily for decades, the prevalence of global hunger is now on the rise—nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Africa’s indigenous crops are often more nutritious and better suited to the hot and dry conditions that are becoming more prevalent, yet many have been neglected by science, which means they tend to be more vulnerable to diseases and pests and yield well below their theoretical potential.

Now the question is whether researchers, governments, and farmers can work together in a way that gets these crops onto plates and provides Africans from all walks of life with the energy and nutrition that they need to thrive, whatever climate change throws their way. Read the full story.

—Jonathan W. Rosen

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 or skeet ’em at me.)

+ The only thing I fancy dry this January is a martini. Here’s how to make one.
+ If you absolutely adore the Bic crystal pen, you might want this lamp. 
+ Cozy up with a nice long book this winter. ($)
+ Want to eat healthier? Slow down and tune out food ‘noise’. ($)

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.

What it’s like to be banned from the US for fighting online hate  

Just before Christmas the Trump administration dramatically escalated its war on digital rights by banning five people from entering the US. One of them, Josephine Ballon, is a director of HateAid, a small German nonprofit founded to support the victims of online harassment and violence. The organization is a strong advocate of EU tech regulations, and so finds itself attacked in campaigns from right-wing politicians and provocateurs who claim that it engages in censorship. 

EU officials, freedom of speech experts, and the five people targeted all flatly reject these accusations. Ballon told us that their work is fundamentally about making people feel safer online. But their experiences over the past few weeks show just how politicized and besieged their work in online safety has become. Read the full story. 

—Eileen Guo

TR10: AI companions

Chatbots are skilled at crafting sophisticated dialogue and mimicking empathetic behavior. They never get tired of chatting. It’s no wonder, then, that so many people now use them for companionship—forging friendships or even romantic relationships. 

72% of US teenagers have used AI for companionship, according to a study from the nonprofit Common Sense Media. But while chatbots can provide much-needed emotional support and guidance for some people, they can exacerbate underlying problems in others—especially vulnerable people or those with mental health issues. 

Although some early attempts to regulate this space are underway, AI companionship is going nowhere. Read why we made it one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year, and check out the rest of the list.

And, if you want to learn more about what we predict for AI this year, sign up to join me for our free LinkedIn Live event tomorrow at 12.30pm ET.

Why inventing new emotions feels so good  

Have you ever felt “velvetmist”?  

It’s a “complex and subtle emotion that elicits feelings of comfort, serenity, and a gentle sense of floating.” It’s peaceful, but more ephemeral and intangible than contentment. It might be evoked by the sight of a sunset or a moody, low-key album.  

If you haven’t ever felt this sensation—or even heard of it—that’s not surprising. A Reddit user generated it with ChatGPT, along with advice on how to evoke the feeling. Don’t scoff: Researchers say more and more terms for these “neo-­emotions” are showing up online, describing new dimensions and aspects of feeling. Read our story to learn more about why. 

—Anya Kamenetz

This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive the next edition as soon as it lands (and benefit from some hefty seasonal discounts too!)

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Ads are coming to ChatGPT 
For American users initially, with plans to expand soon. (CNN)
+ Here’s how they’ll work. (Wired $)

2 What will we be able to salvage after the AI bubble bursts? 
It will be ugly, but there are plenty of good uses for AI that we’ll want to keep. (The Guardian) 
+ What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)

3 It’s almost impossible to mine Greenland’s natural resources 
It has vast supplies of rare earth elements, but its harsh climate and environment make them very hard to access. (The Week)

4 Iran is now 10 days into its internet shutdown
It’s one of the longest and most extreme we’ve ever witnessed. (BBC)
+  Starlink isn’t proving as helpful as hoped as the regime finds ways to jam it. (Reuters $)
+ Battles are raging online about what’s really going on inside Iran. (NYT $)

5 America is heading for a polymarket disaster 
Prediction markets are getting out of control, and some people are losing a lot of money. (The Atlantic $)
+ They were first embraced by political junkies, but now they’re everywhere. (NYT $)

6 How to fireproof a city 
Californians are starting to fight fires before they can even start. (The Verge $)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Stoking ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories can be dangerous 
Especially if you’re then given the task of helping run one of those state institutions, as Dan Bongino is now learning. (WP $)
+ Why everything is a conspiracy now. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Why we’re suddenly all having a ‘Very Chinese Time’ 
It’s a fun, flippant trend—but it also shows how China’s soft power is growing around the globe. (Wired $) 

9 Why there’s no one best way to store information
Each one involves trade-offs between space and time. (Quanta $)

10 Meat may play a surprising role in helping people reach 100
Perhaps because it can assist with building stronger muscles and bones. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“That’s the level of anxiety now – people watching the skies and the seas themselves because they don’t know what else to do.”

—A Greenlander tells The Guardian just how seriously she and her fellow compatriots are taking Trump’s threat to invade their country. 

One more thing

KATHERINE LAM

Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there

Gavesh’s journey started, seemingly innocently, with a job ad on Facebook promising work he desperately needed.

Instead, he found himself trafficked into a business commonly known as “pig butchering”—a form of fraud in which scammers form close relationships with targets online and extract money from them. The Chinese crime syndicates behind the scams have netted billions of dollars, and they have used violence and coercion to force their workers, many of them trafficked like Gavesh, to carry out the frauds from large compounds, several of which operate openly in the quasi-lawless borderlands of Myanmar.

Big Tech may hold the key to breaking up the scam syndicates—if these companies can be persuaded or compelled to act. Read the full story.

—Peter Guest & Emily Fishbein

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 or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Blue Monday isn’t real (but it is an absolute banger of a track.) 
+ Some great advice here about how to be productive during the working day.
+ Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s most fun plays—as these top actors can attest. 
+ If the cold and dark gets to you, try making yourself a delicious bowl of soup. 

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.

How next-generation nuclear reactors break out of the 20th-century blueprint  

The popularity of commercial nuclear reactors has surged in recent years as worries about climate change and energy independence drowned out concerns about meltdowns and radioactive waste. The problem is, building nuclear power plants is expensive and slow.  

A new generation of nuclear power technology could reinvent what a reactor looks like—and how it works. Advocates hope that new tech can refresh the industry and help replace fossil fuels without emitting greenhouse gases.  Here’s what that might look like.

—Casey Crownhart

Next-gen nuclear is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. If you want to learn more about why it made the list, sign up to receive The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about energy and climate change, tomorrow. You can also check out the rest of the technologies on the list here.

Data centers are amazing. Everyone hates them.

The hyperscale datacenter is a marvel of our age. A masterstroke of engineering across multiple disciplines. They are nothing short of a technological wonder. People hate them.  

People hate them in Virginia, which leads the nation in their construction. They hate them in Nevada, where they slurp up the state’s precious water. They hate them in Michigan, and Arizona, and South Dakota. They hate them all around the world, it’s true. But they really hate them in Georgia. Read our story about why they’re provoking so much fury. 

—Mat Honan

This story first featured in The Debrief with Mat Honan, a weekly newsletter about the biggest stories in tech from our editor in chief. Sign up here to get the next one in your inbox on Friday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Iran is systematically crippling Starlink
The satellite internet service is meant to be impossible to jam—but the Iranian authorities are doing just that. (Rest of World)  
+ Messages getting around Iran’s internet block suggest that thousands of people have been killed. (NYT $)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Studies claiming microplastics harm us are being called into question
Some scientists say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. (The Guardian) 

3 Trump is trying to temper the data center backlash 
He hopes cajoling tech companies to pay more and thus reduce people’s energy bills will do the trick. (WP $) 
+ Microsoft has just become the first tech company to promise it will do just that. (NYT $)
+ We know AI is power hungry. But just how big is the scale of the problem? (MIT Technology Review) 

4 US emissions jumped last year
Thanks to a combination of rising electricity demand, and more coal being burned to meet it. (NYT $)
+ But it’s not all bad news: coal power generation in India and China finally started to decline. (The Guardian)
+ Four bright spots in climate news in 2025. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Elon Musk needs to face consequences for his actions
If we tolerate him unleashing a flood of harassment of women and children, what will come next? (The Atlantic $) 
+ The US Senate has passed a bill that could give non-consensual deepfake victims a new way to fight back. (The Verge $)

6 Why the US is set to lose the race back to the moon 
Cuts to NASA aren’t helping, but they’re not the only problem. (Wired $)

7 Google’s Veo AI model can now turn portrait images into vertical videos
Really slick ones, too. (The Verge $)
+ AI-generated influencers are sharing fake images of them in bed with celebrities on Instagram. (404 Media $)

8 Former NYC mayor Eric Adams has been accused of a crypto ‘pump and dump’ 
He promoted a token that saw its market cap briefly soar to $580 million before plummeting. (Coindesk)

9 Are you a middle manager? Here’s some good news for you
Your skills are not being replaced by AI any time soon. (Quartz) 

10 Even miniscule lifestyle tweaks can extend your lifespan
A study of 60,000 adults found just a little bit more sleep and exercise makes a huge difference. (New Scientist $)
+ Aging hits us in our 40s and 60s. But well-being doesn’t have to fall off a cliff. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“What I’m hopeful for in ’26 is for more people speaking up. Speaking truth to power is the point of freedom of speech, is the point of American society.”

—LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman tells Wired he wants more people in Silicon Valley to start pushing back against the Trump administration this year. 

One more thing

DEEP LEARNING INDABA 2024

What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player

Africa is still early in the process of adopting AI technologies. But researchers say the continent is uniquely hospitable to it for several reasons, including a relatively young and increasingly well-educated population, a rapidly growing ecosystem of AI startups, and lots of potential consumers.  

However, ambitious efforts to develop AI tools that answer the needs of Africans face numerous hurdles. Taken together, researchers worry, they could hold Africa’s AI sector back and hamper its efforts to pave its own pathway in the global AI race. Read the full story.

—Abdullahi Tsanni

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 or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Still keen to do a bit of reflecting on the year behind and the one ahead? This free guide might help!
+ Turns out British comedian Rik Mayall had some pretty solid life advice.
+ I want to stay in this house in São Paolo.  
+ If you want to stop doomscrolling, it’s worth looking at your sleep habits. ($)

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.

The State of AI: A vision of the world in 2030  

There are huge gulfs of opinion when it comes to predicting the near-future impacts of generative AI. In one camp there are those who predict that over the next decade the impact of AI will exceed that of the Industrial Revolution—a 150-year period of economic and social upheaval so great that we still live in the world it wrought. 

At the other end of the scale we have team ‘Normal Technology’: experts who push back not only on these sorts of predictions but on their foundational worldview. That’s not how technology works, they argue.

Advances at the cutting edge may come thick and fast, but change across the wider economy, and society as a whole, moves at human speed. Widespread adoption of new technologies can be slow; acceptance slower. AI will be no different. What should we make of these extremes? 

Read the full conversation between MIT Technology Review’s senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and Tim Bradshaw, FT global tech correspondent, about where AI will go next, and what our world will look like in the next five years.

This is the final edition of The State of AI, a collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Read the rest of the series, and if you want to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the world of AI, sign up to receive our free Algorithm newsletter every Monday.

How AI is changing the economy

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to understanding how AI is changing the economy at large. What’s the right outlook to have? Join Mat Honan, editor in chief, David Rotman, editor at large, and Richard Waters, FT columnist, at 1pm ET today to hear them discuss what’s happening across industries and the market. Sign up now to be part of this exclusive subscriber-only event.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Trump says he’ll sign an order blocking states from regulating AI
But he’s facing a lot of pushback, including from members of his own party. (CNN)
+ The whole debacle can be traced back to congressional inaction. (Semafor)

2 Google’s new smart glasses are getting rave reviews 
You’ll be able to get your hands on a pair in 2026. Watch out, Apple and Meta. (Tech Radar)

3 Trump gave the go-ahead for Nvidia to sell powerful AI chips to China
The US gets a 25% cut of the sales—but what does it lose longer-term? (WP $)
+ And how much could China stand to gain? (NYT $)
+ How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions. (MIT Technology Review)

4 America’s data center backlash is here
Republican and Democrat alike, local residents are sick of rapidly rising power bills. (Vox $)
+ More than 200 environmental groups are demanding a US-wide moratorium on new data centers. (The Guardian)
+ The data center boom in the desert. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A quarter of teens are turning to AI chatbots for mental health support
Given the lack of real-world help, can you really blame them? (The Guardian)
+ Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered. (MIT Technology Review)

6 ICEBlock is suing the US government over its App Store removal 
Its creator is arguing that the Department of Justice’s demands to Apple violated his First Amendment rights. (404 Media)
+ It’s one of a number of ICE-tracking initiatives to be pulled by tech platforms this year. (MIT Technology Review)

7 This band quit Spotify, but it’s been replaced by AI knockoffs
The platform seems to be struggling against the tide of slop. (Futurism) 
+ AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Think you’re immune to online ads? Think again
If you’re scrolling on social media, you’re being sold to. Relentlessly. (The Verge $)

9 People really do not like Microsoft Copilot
It’s like Clippy all over again, except it’s even less avoidable. (Quartz $)

10 The longest solar eclipse for 100 years is coming
And we’ll only have to wait until 2027 to see it! (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“Governments and MPs are shooting themselves in the foot by pandering to tech giants, because that just tells young people that they don’t care about our future.”

—Adele Zeynep Walton, founding member of online safety campaign group Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, tells The Guardian why young activists are taking matters into their own hands. 

One more thing

COURTESY OF OCEANBIRD

Inside the long quest to advance Chinese writing technology

Every second of every day, someone is typing in Chinese. Though the mechanics look a little different from typing in English—people usually type the pronunciation of a character and then pick it out of a selection that pops up, autocomplete-style—it’s hard to think of anything more quotidian. The software that allows this exists beneath the awareness of pretty much everyone who uses it. It’s just there.

What’s largely been forgotten is that a large cast of eccentrics and linguists, engineers and polymaths, spent much of the 20th century torturing themselves over how Chinese was ever going to move away from the ink brush to any other medium. Read the full story.

—Veronique Greenwood

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 or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Pantone chose a ‘calming’ shade of white for its Color of 2026… and people are fuming. 
+ Ozempic needles on the Christmas tree, anyone? Here’s why we’re going crazy for weird baubles. 
+ Can relate to this baby seal for instinctively heading to the nearest pub.
+ Thrilled to see One Battle After Another get so many Golden Globes nominations.

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.

Why it’s so hard to stop tech-facilitated abuse

After Gioia had her first child with her then husband, he installed baby monitors throughout their home—to “watch what we were doing,” she says, while he went to work. She’d turn them off; he’d get angry. By the time their third child turned seven, Gioia and her husband had divorced, but he still found ways to monitor her behavior. One Christmas, he gave their youngest a smartwatch. Gioia showed it to a tech-savvy friend, who found that the watch had a tracking feature turned on. It could be turned off only by the watch’s owner—her ex.

And Gioia is far from alone. In fact, tech-facilitated abuse now occurs in most cases of intimate partner violence—and we’re doing shockingly little to prevent it. Read the full story. 

—Jessica Klein 

This story is from the next print edition of MIT Technology Review, which explores power—who has it, and who wants it. It’s set to go live on Wednesday June 25, so subscribe & save 25% to read it and get a copy of the issue when it lands!

Why AI hardware needs to be open

—by Ayah Bdeir, a leader in the maker movement, champion of open source AI, and founder of littleBits, the hardware platform that teaches STEAM to kids through hands-on invention. 

Once again, the future of technology is being engineered in secret by a handful of people and delivered to the rest of us as a sealed, seamless, perfect device. When technology is designed like this, we are reduced to consumers. We don’t shape the tools; they shape us. 

However, this moment creates a chance to do things differently. Because away from the self-centeredness of Silicon Valley, a quiet, grounded sense of resistance is reactivating.  Read the full story.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business

In China, people are seeking help from AI-generated avatars to process their grief after a family member passes away. Our story about this trend is the latest to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Iran is going offline to avoid Israeli cyberattacks
A government spokesperson said it plans to disconnect completely from the global internet this evening. (The Verge)
+ How attacks on Iran’s oil exports could hurt China. (WSJ $)

2 Trump is giving TikTok another reprieve from a US ban
It’s been a full five years since he signed the original executive order telling Bytedance to sell it. (CNN)
+ Why Chinese manufacturers are going viral on TikTok. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Conspiracy theories about the Minnesota shooting are all over social media
Whenever there’s an information vacuum, people are all too keen to fill it with noise and nonsense. (NBC) 
+ The shooting suspect allegedly used data broker sites to find targets’ addresses. (Wired $)

4 Tensions between OpenAI and Microsoft are starting to boil over 
OpenAI has even threatened to report its formerly close partner to antitrust regulators. (WSJ $)
+ Here are the concessions OpenAI is seeking. (The Information $)
+ Inside the story that enraged OpenAI. (MIT Technology Review) 

5 California cops are using AI cameras to investigate ICE protests
And sharing license plate data with other agencies, a practice some experts say is illegal. (404 Media)
+ How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Social media is now Americans’ primary news source
It’s overtaken TV for the first time. (Reuters)
+ They watched more TV via streaming than cable last month, too. (NYT $)

7 Weight loss drugs may not work quite as well as hoped
Researchers analysed data from 51,085 patients and found bariatric surgery delivered better, more sustainable results. (The Guardian)

8 What is AI doing to reading? 
Here’s what we stand to gain—and lose—when we outsource reading to machines. (New Yorker $) 

9 India is relying on China to build up its EV market
It’s taking a drastically different course to the US. (Rest of World)
+ Why EVs are (mostly) set for solid growth in 2025. (MIT Technology Review)

10 People are building AI tools to decipher cats’ meows 
Bet at least half of them are “feed me.” (Scientific American $)

Quote of the day

“Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”

—Remarks made by federal judge Williams G. Young this week as he voided some of the Trump administration’s cuts to National Institutes of Health grants, saying they were discriminatory, the New York Times reports. 

One more thing

STEPHANIE ARNETT/MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW | GETTY

Why AI could eat quantum computing’s lunch

Tech companies have been funneling billions of dollars into quantum computers for years. The hope is that they’ll be a game changer for fields as diverse as finance, drug discovery, and logistics.

But while the field struggles with the realities of tricky quantum hardware, another challenger is making headway in some of these most promising use cases. AI is now being applied to fundamental physics, chemistry, and materials science in a way that suggests quantum computing’s purported home turf might not be so safe after all. Read the full story.

—Edd Gent

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 or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Wait a minute, Will Smith was offered a role in Inception? Much to think about.
+ No pain, no gain? Not necessarily.
+ John Waters, you really are one of a kind.
+ Say it ain’t so—I refuse to believe that young love is dead!