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The Download: saving the “doomsday glacier,” and Europe’s hopes for its rockets
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.
Inside a new quest to save the “doomsday glacier”
The Thwaites glacier is a fortress larger than Florida, a wall of ice that reaches nearly 4,000 feet above the bedrock of West Antarctica, guarding the low-lying ice sheet behind it.
But a strong, warm ocean current is weakening its foundations and accelerating its slide into the sea. Scientists fear the waters could topple the walls in the coming decades, kick-starting a runaway process that would crack up the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, marking the start of a global climate disaster. As a result, they are eager to understand just how likely such a collapse is, when it could happen, and if we have the power to stop it.
Scientists at MIT and Dartmouth College founded Arête Glacier Initiative last year in the hope of providing clearer answers to these questions. The nonprofit research organization will officially unveil itself, launch its website, and post requests for research proposals today, timed to coincide with the UN’s inaugural World Day for Glaciers, MIT Technology Review can report exclusively. Read the full story.
—James Temple
Europe is finally getting serious about commercial rockets
Europe is on the cusp of a new dawn in commercial space technology. As global political tensions intensify and relationships with the US become increasingly strained, several European companies are now planning to conduct their own launches in an attempt to reduce the continent’s reliance on American rockets.
In the coming days, Isar Aerospace, a company based in Munich, will try to launch its Spectrum rocket from a site in the frozen reaches of Andøya island in Norway. A spaceport has been built there to support small commercial rockets, and Spectrum is the first to make an attempt.
Regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, the launch attempt heralds an important moment as Europe tries to kick-start its own private rocket industry. It and other launches scheduled for later this year could give Europe multiple ways to reach space without having to rely on US rockets. Read the full story.
—Jonathan O’Callaghan
Autopsies can reveal intimate health details. Should they be kept private?
—Jessica Hamzelou
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been following news of the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa. It was heartbreaking to hear how Arakawa appeared to have died from a rare infection days before her husband, who had advanced Alzheimer’s disease and may have struggled to understand what had happened.
But as I watched the medical examiner reveal details of the couple’s health, I couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable. Media reports claim that the couple liked their privacy and had been out of the spotlight for decades. But here I was, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, being told what pills Arakawa had in her medicine cabinet, and that Hackman had undergone multiple surgeries.
Should autopsy reports be kept private? A person’s cause of death is public information. But what about other intimate health details that might be revealed in a postmortem examination? Read the full story.
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Elon Musk will be briefed on the US’s top-secret plans for war with China
Despite Tesla’s reliance on China, and SpaceX’s role as a US defense contractor. (WSJ $)
+ Other private companies could only dream of having access to sensitive military data. (NYT $)
2 Take a look inside the library of pirated books that Meta trains its AI on
It considered paying for the books, but decided to use LibGen instead. (The Atlantic $)
+ “Copyright traps” could tell writers if an AI has scraped their work. (MIT Technology Review)
3 A judge has blocked DOGE from accessing social security systems
She accused DOGE of failing to explain why it needed to see the private data of millions of Americans. (TechCrunch)
+ Federal workers grilled a Trump appointee during an all-hands meeting. (Wired $)
+ Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)
4 The Trump administration is poised to shut down an anti-censorship fund
The project, which helps internet users living under oppressive regimes, is under threat. (WP $)
+ Tens of millions will lose access to secure and trusted VPNs. (Bloomberg $)
+ Activists are reckoning with a US retreat from promoting digital rights. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Tesla is recalling tens of thousands of Cybertrucks
After it used the wrong glue to attach its steel panels. (Fast Company $)
+It’s the largest Cybertruck recall to date. (BBC)
6 This crypto billionaire has his sights set on the stars
Jed McCaleb is the sole backer of an ambitious space station project. (Bloomberg $)
+ Is DOGE going to come for NASA? (New Yorker $)
7 The irresistible allure of Spotify
Maybe algorithms aren’t all bad, after all. (Vox)
+ By delivering what people seem to want, has Spotify killed the joy of music discovery? (MIT Technology Review)
8 Dating apps and AI? It’s complicated 💔
While some are buzzing at the prospect of romantic AI agents, others aren’t so sure. (Insider $)
9 Crypto bars are becoming a thing
And Washington is the first casualty. (The Verge)
10 The ways we use emojis is evolving 🤠
Are you up to date? (FT $)
Quote of the day
“It’s an assault, and a particularly cruel one to use my work to train the monster that threatens the ruination of original literature.”
—Author AJ West, whose books were included in the library of pirated material Meta used to train its AI model, calls for the company to compensate writers in a post on Bluesky.
The big story
Are we alone in the universe?
November 2023The quest to determine if anyone or anything is out there has gained a greater scientific footing over the past 50 years. Back then, astronomers had yet to spot a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know the galaxy is teeming with a diversity of worlds.
We’re now getting closer than ever before to learning how common living worlds like ours actually are. New tools, including artificial intelligence, could help scientists look past their preconceived notions of what constitutes life.
Future instruments will sniff the atmospheres of distant planets and scan samples from our local solar system to see if they contain telltale chemicals in the right proportions for organisms to prosper. But determining whether these planets actually contain organisms is no easy task. Read the full story.
—Adam Mann
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.)
+ Get your weekend off to a good start with these beautiful nebulas.
+ Justice for Mariah: a judge has ruled that she didn’t steal All I Want For Christmas Is You from other writers.
+ We’re no longer extremely online any more apparently—so what are we?
+ The fascinating tale of White Mana, one of America’s oldest burger joints. 🍔
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