The Download: the aging/disease debate, and WeChat’s dark side

1 year ago 142

Last October, connection began to dispersed among researchers that the World Health Organization was considering a alteration to its International Classification of Diseases, a catalog utilized to standardize illness diagnosis worldwide.

In an upcoming revision, the program was to regenerate the diagnosis of “senility” with thing much expansive: “old age.” Crucially, the codification associated with the diagnosis included the word “pathological,” which could person been interpreted arsenic suggesting that aged property is simply a illness successful itself. 

While immoderate researchers looked guardant to the revision, seeing it arsenic portion of the way toward creating and distributing anti-­aging therapies, others feared that these changes would lone further ageism, pointing retired that if property unsocial were presumed to beryllium a disease, that could pb to inadequate attraction from physicians. Read the afloat story.

—Sarah Sloat

Read more:

+ What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease? If this arguable thought gains acceptance, it could radically alteration the mode we dainty getting old. Read the afloat story.

The acheronian broadside of a ace app similar WeChat

Imagine being blocked from accessing astir the entirety of your societal and integer beingness successful 1 fell swoop. That’s what happened to radical successful Beijing who discussed the caller banner protestation successful Beijing against the 20th Chinese Communist enactment legislature implicit the weekend, aft Tencent banned them from accessing their WeChat accounts.

It whitethorn not beryllium truthful evident to radical extracurricular China conscionable however important the ace app is successful the country—there simply aren’t galore alternatives. Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal are each blocked, SMS messages are inundated with spam, and email is fundamentally nonexistent among the wide population. 

But the interaction of WeChat is not conscionable personal. It’s truthful fashionable and truthful ubiquitous that it has influenced Chinese nine arsenic a whole, and transformed it into a unsafe instrumentality to beryllium wielded by those successful power. Read the afloat story.

—Zeyi Yang

Zeyi’s communicative is from China Report, our caller play newsletter covering everything you request to cognize astir what’s going connected successful China. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Tuesday.

Podcast: I was determination erstwhile AI replicated Darth Vader

I Was There When is an oral past task that’s portion of the In Machines We Trust podcast. It features stories of however breakthroughs and watershed moments successful artificial quality and computing happened, arsenic told by the radical who witnessed them. In this occurrence we conscionable Alex Serdiuk, laminitis and CEO of dependable cloning institution Respeecher. Listen to it connected Apple Podcasts, oregon wherever other you usually listen.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.

1 Ebola has returned to Uganda
And there’s nary existent proven vaccine for this peculiar strain. (Wired $)
+ The US has sent shipments of an experimental antibody drug. (Reuters)
+ Experts are assured the outbreak successful the portion tin beryllium contained. (NBC)

2 Alex Hanna near Google to effort to prevention AI’s future
She’s joined her erstwhile manager Timnit Gebru’s probe institute. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Hand-counting ballots would marque results little accurate
Some Republicans are pushing for full elections to beryllium tallied by manus anyway. (NYT $)
+ US predetermination misinformation is thriving connected WeChat. (Wired $)

4 Europe’s antitrust regulators are getting results 
The UK has forced Meta to merchantability Giphy, the archetypal clip a planetary regulator has reversed specified an acquisition. (Vox)
+ Where bash GIF fans spell from here? (The Atlantic $)

5 Meet the pistillate weeding retired non-consensual intimate images online 
Mia Landsem spends hours a time helping survivors to get the violating contented taken disconnected the internet. (The Guardian)
+ A horrifying caller AI app swaps women into porn videos with a click. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Death is an indispensable portion of keeping quality thriving
But not each ecologists agree. (New Scientist $)

7 Why gamers rejected NFTs
Despite the industry’s hopeless attempts to unit players to clasp them. (Bloomberg $)
+ How Black gamers are creating caller opportunities for representation. (FT $)

8 Surveillance isn’t ever imposed connected us
Many paying customers opt into it willingly. (The Atlantic $)

9 Fans emotion taking celebrities’ societal media handles 
Some stars are much amenable than others to negotiation. (WSJ $)
+ There’s a full achromatic marketplace for Twitter’s sought-after bluish checks. (The Verge)

10 The shadowy disappearance and reemergence of Austin Li
He’s 1 of China’s biggest stars, but it wasn’t conscionable his fans who were watching him. (Rest of World)
+ How China’s biggest online influencers fell from their thrones. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“All I tin bash is slumber and look retired the window.”

—How James McDivitt, commandant of 2 pivotal NASA missions, who has died aged 93, described the confines of abstraction formation to his wife, reports the Washington Post.

The large story

India’s surging system could doom clime efforts—unless richer nations measurement up

April 2019

In the level terrain of eastbound Karnataka, heavy successful the interior of the Indian subcontinent, you don’t spot the Pavagada Solar Park coming. But erstwhile it appears, connected the acold broadside of a dusty small village, it is, each astatine once, everywhere. When it’s complete, the project, which outgo much than $2.5 billion, volition beryllium 1 of the largest star parks successful the world.

India is present a shining lawsuit survey successful however rapidly procreation of renewable powerfulness tin grow with authorities concern and support, adjacent successful a profoundly mediocre country. But it besides underscores the information that adding cleanable vigor and cutting clime emissions aren’t the aforesaid thing. Read the afloat story.

—James Temple

We tin inactive person bully things

A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line or tweet 'em astatine me.)

+ These 2 are the caller Seigfried and Roy. 🪄
+ Aww I’m gladsome Pip the wonderment pup is location safe.
+ Seriously, trust nary one.
+ An absorbing question: bash bad artists cognize that they’re bad?
+ This skyscraper successful Singapore is location to tens of thousands of plants.

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