1 year ago
135 When Aaron Drake flew from Arizona to the Yinfeng Biological Group successful China successful 2016, helium was traveling determination to usher China’s archetypal forays into cryonics, oregon freezing corpses for reanimation.
Drake had spent the erstwhile 7 years arsenic the aesculapian effect manager of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a tiny nonprofit that had managed to go the longtime person successful cryonics, freezing the bodies and brains of its members, with the thought of 1 time bringing them backmost to life, since 1976.
The foundation, and cryonics successful general, had agelong survived extracurricular of mainstream acceptance. But it’s the caller engagement of Yinfeng that signals thing of a caller epoch for cryonics.
With awesome fiscal resources, authorities support, and technological staff, it’s 1 of a fistful of caller labs focused connected expanding the user entreaty of cryonics and trying anew to bring credibility to the long-disputed mentation of quality reanimation. Still, the tract remains rooted successful religion alternatively than immoderate existent grounds that it works. Read the afloat story.
—Laurie Clarke
This portion is from our forthcoming mortality-themed issue, disposable from 26 October. If you privation to work it erstwhile it comes out, you tin subscribe to MIT Technology Review for arsenic small arsenic $80 a year.
Are rats with quality encephalon cells inactive conscionable rats?
This week, my workfellow Jessica Hamzelou wrote astir a fascinating experimentation that progressive implanting quality encephalon cells into rats’ brains. The encephalon cells from some taxon were capable to signifier connections and enactment together. The quality cells became portion of the rats’ brains.
A fewer months aft they’d been implanted, the quality cells made up astir a sixth of the rats’ brains and appeared to person a relation successful controlling the animals’ behavior. Which invites the tricky question: Are these animals inactive 100% rat? Read the afloat story.
Jessica’s communicative is from The Checkup, her play newsletter exploring each things biotech and health. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Thursday.
ClimateTech 2022
This week MIT Technology Review held its inaugural ClimateTech league connected exertion solutions for clime change—a large convey you to everyone who attended in-person oregon online!
If you missed it, you tin drawback up with each the biggest quality and announcements via our unrecorded blog covering day one and day two of the conference.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.1 China is preparing for its historical Communist enactment congress
A 3rd word for president Xi Jinping is simply a near-certainty. (Economist $)
+ The legislature is an accidental for Xi to reassert his control. (FT $)
+ All 2,3000 elder enactment members volition be the meeting. (The Guardian)
+ Douying, Tiktok’s Chinese sister app, is silencing Cantonese speakers. (Rest of World)
2 Not everyone successful California tin spend electrical vehicles
They’re expensive, and the state’s propulsion towards EVs risks overlooking little earners. (The Guardian)
+ Even the US caput of proscription acknowledges the obstacles. (Recode)
+ The US lone has 6,000 accelerated charging stations for EVs. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Turkey has passed a flawed “disinformation bill” up of its elections
Which, handily enough, restricts criticisms of its President Erdoğan. (FT $)
+ The European Parliament has accused Big Tech of secretive lobbying. (Bloomberg $)
4 Food is getting much costly 🥪
Supply issues and higher state prices are conscionable immoderate of the reasons why. (Vox)
+ The rising outgo of nutrient has contributed to those sky-high ostentation figures. (New Yorker $)
5 An AI is readying to tally for predetermination successful Denmark
The Synthetic Party, which is led by an AI, claims to correspond the values of “non-voting Danes.” (Motherboard)
6 Gamers are the cleanable people for cybercriminals
Younger players are peculiarly susceptible to fraudsters' advances. (NYT $)
7 Ads connected Netflix are arriving adjacent month
The institution desperately wants to pull caller customers, pursuing months of users canceling their subscriptions. (WSJ $)
8 Intense vigor therapy isn’t conscionable for elite athletes ☀️
Carefully controlled vulnerability to vigor could forestall cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, too. (Neo.Life)
9 Your edifice server hates your paper hacks
And apps are making it easier than ever to bid elaborate concoctions anonymously. (Eater)
10 There aren’t legs successful the metaverse aft each 🦵
Hard to believe, I know, but Meta misled us. (Kotaku)
+ Meta is desperately trying to marque the metaverse happen. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“There volition often beryllium 1 oregon 2 radical moving astir similar crazy, oregon doing thing similar creating a monolithic cartoon of a cat.”
—Antti Innanen, main enforcement of Dot, a Finnish ineligible plan consultancy, explains the pitfalls of trying to clasp people’s attraction portion giving seminars successful the metaverse to the Financial Times.
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.)
+ Hey, that’s not however the adjacent enactment of the song goes!
+ The 1 and lone Patti Smith is releasing a publication adjacent month—and it’s inspired by, err, Instagram.
+ This sunlit waterfall is consecutive retired of House of the Dragon.
+ If you ever find yourself successful London, it’s lone close you indulge successful a spot of pub grub.
+ We thin to gravitate towards the familiar erstwhile something’s coming to an end, and that’s okay.
