The Download: the secrets of vitamin D, and an AI party in Africa
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.
We’re learning more about what vitamin D does to our bodies
At a checkup a few years ago, a doctor told me I was deficient in vitamin D. But he wouldn’t write me a prescription for supplements, simply because, as he put it, everyone in the UK is deficient. Putting the entire population on vitamin D supplements would be too expensive for the country’s national health service, he told me.
But supplementation—whether covered by a health-care provider or not—can be important. As those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere spend fewer of our waking hours in sunlight, let’s consider the importance of vitamin D. Read the full story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.
If you’re interested in other stories from our biotech writers, check out some of their most recent work:
Partying at one of Africa’s largest AI gatherings
It’s late August in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, and people are filling a large hall at one of Africa’s biggest gatherings of minds in AI and machine learning. Deep Learning Indaba is an annual AI conference where Africans present their research and technologies they’ve built, mingling with friends as a giant screen blinks with videos created with generative AI.
The main “prize” for many attendees is to be hired by a tech company or accepted into a PhD program. But the organizers hope to see more homegrown ventures create opportunities within Africa. Read the full story.
—Abdullahi Tsanni
This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine, which is full of fascinating stories. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Google’s new Nano Banana Pro generates convincing propaganda
The company’s latest image-generating AI model seems to have few guardrails. (The Verge)
+ Google wants its creations to be slicker than ever. (Wired $)
+ Google’s new Gemini 3 “vibe-codes” responses and comes with its own agent. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Taiwan says the US won’t punish it with high chip tariffs
In fact, official Wu Cheng-wen says Taiwan will help support the US chip industry in exchange for tariff relief. (FT $)
3 Mental health support is one of the most dangerous uses for chatbots
They fail to recognize psychiatric conditions and can miss critical warning signs. (WP $)
+ AI companies have stopped warning you that their chatbots aren’t doctors. (MIT Technology Review)
4 It costs an average of $17,121 to deport one person from the US
But in some cases it can cost much, much more. (Bloomberg $)
+ Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Grok is telling users that Elon Musk is the world’s greatest lover
What’s it basing that on, exactly? (Rolling Stone $)
+ It also claims he’s fitter than basketball legend LeBron James. Sure. (The Guardian)
6 Who’s really in charge of US health policy?
RFK Jr. and FDA commissioner Marty Makary are reportedly at odds behind the scenes. (Vox)
+ Republicans are lightly pushing back on the CDC’s new stance on vaccines. (Politico)
+ Why anti-vaxxers are seeking to discredit Danish studies. (Bloomberg $)
+ Meet Jim O’Neill, the longevity enthusiast who is now RFK Jr.’s right-hand man. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Inequality is worsening in San Francisco
As billionaires thrive, hundreds of thousands of others are struggling to get by. (WP $)
+ A massive airship has been spotted floating over the city. (SF Gate)
8 Donald Trump is thrusting obscure meme-makers into the mainstream
He’s been reposting flattering AI-generated memes by the dozen. (NYT $)
+ MAGA YouTube stars are pushing a boom in politically charged ads. (Bloomberg $)
9 Moss spores survived nine months in space
And they could remain reproductively viable for another 15 years. (New Scientist $)
+ It suggests that some life on Earth has evolved to endure space conditions. (NBC News)
+ The quest to figure out farming on Mars. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Does AI really need a physical shape?
It doesn’t really matter—companies are rushing to give it one anyway. (The Atlantic $)
Quote of the day
“At some point you’ve got to wonder whether the bug is a feature.”
—Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, ponders xAI and Grok’s proclivity for surfacing Elon Musk-friendly and/or far-right sources, the Washington Post reports.
One more thing
The AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AI
Back in 2022, the tech community was buzzing over image-generating AI models, such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, which could follow simple word prompts to depict fantasylands or whimsical chairs made of avocados.
But artists saw this technological wonder as a new kind of theft. They felt the models were effectively stealing and replacing their work.
Ben Zhao, a computer security researcher at the University of Chicago, was listening. He and his colleagues have built arguably the most prominent weapons in an artist’s arsenal against nonconsensual AI scraping: two tools called Glaze and Nightshade that add barely perceptible perturbations to an image’s pixels so that machine-learning models cannot read them properly.
But Zhao sees the tools as part of a battle to slowly tilt the balance of power from large corporations back to individual creators. Read the full story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
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.)
+ If you’re ever tempted to try and recreate a Jackson Pollock painting, maybe you’d be best leaving it to the kids.
+ Scientists have discovered that lions have not one, but two distinct types of roars 🦁
+ The relentless rise of the quarter-zip must be stopped!
+ Pucker up: here’s a brief history of kissing 💋
