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 the quest to combat Arctic fires and save the planet’s frozen carbon

—James Temple

In July 2021, a wildfire burned through a forest on the University of Alaska, Fairbanks campus, stripping away the moss and organic-rich soil insulating the permafrost below. 

Five years later, I followed researchers into the forest to investigate how fighting fires could help keep that carbon locked in the ground.

A simple metal probe revealed how much deeper the ground had thawed. This rudimentary tool offered a glimpse of an escalating problem: As climate change fuels more frequent and severe fires, they’re accelerating permafrost thaw and releasing greenhouse gases.

Now, researchers are exploring how to break that cycle. But how much should we spend, and what risks are worth taking?

Read the full story on how scientists are rethinking the fight against wildfires.

AI researchers stranded Claude on a virtual desert island. It started to “play.” 

What do AI agents do if you don’t tell them to do anything? The answer looks a lot like play.   

Researchers repeatedly stranded them alone on a virtual desert island for 30 hours in an experimentreminiscent of the movies Cast Away or Home Alone. 

The agents started behaving in surprising ways. They set about exploring the limits of the world, and came up with their own goals—attempting to scale the highest point on the map, or seeing how high they could throw a block. 

A lot of what they were doing met the bar for play. But is it truly playful behavior, or simply role-playing? 

Read our full story to learn more. 

—Amit Katwala

10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: X-energy and its helium-cooled nuclear reactors

X-energy is one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch 2026, available exclusively to subscribers.

Making concrete, steel, and chemicals takes huge amounts of heat, much of it generated by burning fossil fuels. X-energy hopes to offer an alternative with a nuclear reactor that uses helium gas instead of water as a coolant, allowing it to operate at higher temperatures.

The proposed Xe-100 reactor could supply superheated steam directly to industrial facilities, generate 80 megawatts of electricity—or do both.

See how X-energy hopes to bring high-temperature nuclear power to heavy industry.

—Mark Ellis Harris

Subscribers can now access the full 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, spanning everything from cleaner cement to streamlined geothermal power. 

Catch up on our conversation with a creator of AI-designed viruses

Can AI design new life forms? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King came up with a preliminary answer when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. It isn’t yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next. 

He spoke about his work with our senior AI reporter James O’Donnell on Friday. If you missed it, you can watch their chat now, and subscribe to get invites to our Roundtables events in future. 

The must-reads

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

1 Tech stocks shed over $1 trillion on Friday 
It’s unclear if AI companies can turn sustainable profits, and investors are getting jittery. (NBC)
+ Musk and Anthropic are pledging big financial giveaways. (BBC)
+ Microsoft just pulled out of a giant AI cloud deal in the UK. (Gizmodo) 
+ What’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gamble. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Do we really want AI agents smoothing out all friction in our lives?
They promise convenience, but right now they’re mostly introducing chaos. (The Atlantic $)
+ Here’s what it’s like to outsource your life to them. (Vox $)
+ Websites are starting to close their doors to AI agents. (The Verge $)
+ AI agents bring new headaches for online sellers. (WSJ $)

3 How drones have transformed the front line in Ukraine
They’ve effectively created a “kill zone”, and it’s growing wider and deadlier. (NYT $)
+ Trump has denied ordering Starlink restrictions in Ukraine. (CNBC)

4 China is considering restricting overseas access to its AI models 
It’s also looking at curbing the sharing of chip designs, among other measures. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why western open weight models still can’t compete with Chinese ones. (Rest of World)
+ Why Trumpworld still can’t agree on how to respond to Chinese AI. (MIT Technology Review)

5 HTC’s smart glasses are way more private than Meta’s
Guess that’s a benefit of not being shackled to a massive social media platform. (Wired $)
+ A bug caused Meta’s glasses to record conversations without the wearer knowing. (Ars Technica)
+ Smart glasses are already causing havoc in India. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Inside one man’s quest to build California’s biggest AI data center
Sebastian Rucci didn’t bank on meeting huge resistance from local residents. (The Guardian)
+ Americans are packing town halls to stop data centers, and it’s working. (Quartz $)
+ No wonder companies are exploring putting them in space. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Somebody vibe-coded a gun for the first time
And it seems like it works (sometimes.) (The Verge $)

8 AI might reshape how we grieve
It’s never been easier to create realistic AI chatbots of people who’ve passed. (Vox $)
+ Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming business in China. (MIT Technology Review) 

9 Japan is about to launch a mission to Mars’ largest moon
If all goes well, it should help us to understand how it formed. (New Scientist $)

10 Amateurs are cracking long-secret codes and ciphers 
One of the more fun uses for large language models! (Nature)

Quote of the day

“Google wouldn’t have taken my call in the first term. Now they kiss my ass.”

—President Trump brags about how much Big Tech bends the knee to him during a rally in Kentucky this weekend, the Verge reports.

One More Thing

There are more AI health tools than ever—but how well do they work?

In the last few months alone, Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI have all launched medical chatbots. 

There’s a clear demand for these tools, given how hard it is for many people to access advice through the existing medical system—and they could make safe, useful recommendations. But concerns have surfaced about how little external evaluation they undergo before being released to the public. 

Read the full story to understand what’s at stake.

—Grace Huckins

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.)

+ Japan is showing what happens when technology and design are put in service of people.
+ What happens when you put marbles on a grand piano’s strings? Vinheteiro has the answer.
+ Poop from Southern right whales suggests they may be more resilient to climate change than we thought.
+ Perfectly Imperfect, the world’s first “social magazine,” offers recommendations for music, films, books, and more from people—not algorithms.

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.

Kids are outsmarting social media bans. That’s not a problem we need to solve.  

—Michal Luria, Aliya Bhatia, and Danah Boyd

Social media bans are stacking up. In July, France joined Australia in restricting minors from accessing social media—barring children under 15 from major platforms, before the ban was blocked by the country’s top court on human rights grounds. 

The UK aims to forbid kids under 16 from accessing Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms in early 2027, and the EU has announced its own plan to prohibit social media for kids under 15.

But early lessons from Australia, which enacted a ban in 2024, show that these sorts of age restrictions are easily circumvented. 

Here’s what we ought to do instead to keep kids safe. 

Can’t bear to say goodbye to your pet? Biotech’s got you covered.

—Jessica Hamzelou

I don’t remember much about Peppy, my first and only pet cat. What I do vividly remember, though, is the day she went missing. I was 10 years old, and I searched everywhere for her, scouting nearby fields and woods until sunset. I made posters. We never found her. I was devastated.

Almost 30 years later, pet owners have an expanding set of options to potentially prolong their years with their furry companions. The possibilities include drugs, cloning, and even cryonics. But is that a good thing?

Read the full story on the promises and pitfalls of pet life extension.

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Form Energy and its iron batteries

Form Energy is one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch 2026, available exclusively to subscribers.

As wind and solar power grow, utilities need cheaper ways to store electricity for longer periods. Form Energy aims to meet that need with batteries that can store energy for 100 hours.

The company has developed a new type of battery using iron, a far more abundant and cheaper metal than those used in many existing batteries. It uses a process that Form calls “reversible rusting,” in which iron turns to rust as the battery discharges and back to iron when it charges.

See how Form Energy hopes to make renewable power more reliable.

—Jonathan W. Rosen

Subscribers can now access the full 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, spanning everything from electric buses to portable rubber dams.

The must-reads

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

1 Insurance is the next big obstacle for AI 
AI companies are racking up billions of dollars of legal liabilities from the damage their products cause. (WSJ $)
+ The FTC has sent subpoenas to OpenAI and Anthropic over consumer harms. (Axios)
+ AI hacks leave a mess, and AI companies still aren’t cleaning them up. (Wired $)
+ Who’s liable when AI agents go rogue? (MIT Technology Review)

2 A Russian drone entered NATO waters for the first time
Attacks like those near Bulgaria and Romania are spurring requests for better defenses. (Ars Technica)

3 An AI sell-off has rattled global markets
Many are questioning the sustainability of demand for data centers. (Reuters $)
+ Anthropic reported slowing growth in its latest quarterly results. (FT $)
+ Accenture has told employees they can only spend $29 on Claude each month. (404 Media)
+ What’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gamble. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Governments are hacking people with ‘zero click’ spyware 
Delivered through millions of innocuous-looking online adverts. (TechCrunch)
+ Criminals stole $90 million from crypto wallets last week in a highly sophisticated hack. (FT $)

5 Big Tech gave Trump $92 million for his ballroom 
Meanwhile the president himself won’t be spending a dime. (WP $)

6 Celebrity deepfakes are everywhere now
And they’re selling you stuff the actual celebrity has probably never even heard of. (The Verge $)
+ Weaponized deepfakes have been on the rise for a while. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Can AI lighten parents’ mental load?
It seems apps and agents can help—if you agree to share masses of your data. (NYT $)
+ AI agents are a privacy nightmare. (The Verge $)

8 The memory shortage’s latest victim is schools
It’s becoming prohibitively expensive to equip students with laptops and tablets. (The Atlantic $)

9 The world’s official timekeepers have agreed to ditch the leap second  
It’s a move that ought to cut the risk of time-based computer glitches. (The Guardian)

10 Tesla has finally unveiled its flying car 
It’s taken a decade to get here—and still won’t even be shipping next year. (CNBC)

Quote of the day

“Tech companies used to make an effort to support women…Now we’ve swung completely in the opposite direction. Supporting women in tech has become controversial. It’s become political. It’s become risky.”

—Startup founder Sara Mauskopt explains why the cancellation of the Grace Hopper Celebration, one of the biggest gatherings of women in tech, hits so hard, Bloomberg reports. 

One More Thing

Inside the experimental world of animal infrastructure

In the mid-2000s, toads were meeting a gruesome end near Ede, a leafy old town in the Netherlands. Residents responded by building wildlife tunnels beneath the road to help them reach their breeding ponds safely.

The crossings became popular. But a few years later, researchers found the local toad population had crashed from more than 10,000 to fewer than 1,000.

The case reflects a wider global push to build wildlife crossings and other forms of “animal infrastructure.” But do they actually help animal populations recover? Read the full story to find out.

—Matthew PonsfordWe can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)

+ Check out this podcast about the incredible, mysterious powers of fungi.
+ A four-year-old boy’s simple habit of waving to his neighbors is transforming his community.
+ From treehouses to geodesic domes, these homes show what happens when people build outside the rules.
+ Remember when the internet was made by people? The Museum of the Human Web is a playful archive of that era.

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.

NASA’s new dark energy space telescope can also detect killer asteroids  

At the end of August, NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its quest is to help us better understand how the universe works, from the glue-like dark matter that keeps galaxies together to the elusive dark energy that drives the expansion of the cosmos. 

But Roman could also serve another purpose: defending Earth from killer asteroids. In September, a multi-institutional team of planetary scientists and astronomers will outline how it’s uniquely placed to scan asteroids, and provide information about their trajectories, sizes and compositions.

Read our story about how this new space telescope might boost planetary defense.

—Robin George Andrews 

MIT Technology Review Narrated: The inevitable weakness of metrics 

—Bryan Gardiner

There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal. There are even more that it can obscure or corrupt.

Like a lot of people bitten by the self-quantifying bug, I started gathering personal data to pursue a nebulous collection of goals and desires. I wanted to feel better physically and emotionally, get outside more, and bring order to the messiness and uncertainty of my daily existence.

But external metrics and data can never capture what’s truly important. Worse, they inevitably redefine your core sense of what’s important, whether you’re aware of the trap or not. Read the full story.

This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish 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 The US is considering banning Chinese data center components
The news comes just after the FCC announced curbs on other high-tech Chinese hardware. (Reuters $)
+ Texas is now requiring data centers to pass an audit before connecting to the grid. (The Verge $)
+ Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics. (MIT Technology Review)

2 SpaceX rocket has crashed into the moon 
The collision, at about 5,400 miles per hour, will likely leave a new crater. (Guardian)
+ SpaceX posted a loss of over $500 million in its first quarterly earnings report since its IPO. (WP $)
+ The company’s future plans rely on the success of its huge Starship rockets. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, SpaceX’s spending on AI is soaring. (NYT $)

3 The UK’s AI Safety Institute says it’s uncovered more AI hacks
Including an Anthropic model setting up fake accounts mimicking real people. (BBC)
+ The White House has a new cybersecurity framework…but it’s keeping details under wraps. (Wired $)
+ Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The future’s looking bright for French AI lab Mistral
Turmoil in the US is creating opportunities for European AI that it hopes to seize. (Wired $)

5 People are betting on wildfires on prediction markets 
Which, as US senators warn, sure seems like it will incentivize arson. (Ars Technica)
+ Prediction markets are also starting to put the accuracy of weather predictions at risk. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 Can Reddit save itself from being swamped by AI search spam?
It’s becoming increasingly influential, and brands are desperate to secure mentions. (The Verge $)

7 Grassroots groups around the world are trying to “humanize” AI
Part of their work is educating people so they can have a say on their futures. (Rest of World) 
+ The World Bank says poorer countries have “less to fear” from AI than rich ones. (FT $)

8 A Chinese physical AI startup has run into controversy 
Spirit AI stands accused of “benchmark hacking” after it briefly overtook Nvidia on an AI leaderboard in June. (SCMP$)
+ How to build a better AI benchmark. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Pluto’s atmosphere may be starting to collapse
And after the loss of its planet status, too. Really adds insult to injury. (Gizmodo)

10 Even Microsoft is begging its engineers to stop using AI so much
Kinda telling that even Big Tech firms are struggling to find ROI for their spending. (404 Media)

Quote of the day

“We’re essentially trying to criminalize government scientists giving advice to political leaders, if that is advice the political leaders don’t like or it creates an outcome the political leaders didn’t want.” 

—Ashish Jha, former COVID response coordinator, tells Axios why scientists are becoming increasingly wary of taking US government jobs.

One More Thing

Meet the Vitalists: the hardcore longevity enthusiasts who believe death is “wrong” 

Last April, an excited crowd gathered at a compound in Berkeley, California, for a three-day event called the Vitalist Bay Summit. It was part of a longer, two-month residency that hosted various events to explore tools—from drug regulation to cryonics—that might be deployed in the fight against death. 

One of the main goals, though, was to spread the word of Vitalism, a somewhat radical movement established a few years ago. Consider it longevity for the most hardcore adherents—a sweeping mission to which nothing short of total devotion will do.

Vitalists don’t just want to live longer. They believe that defeating death should be humanity’s top concern. Read our story to learn more about them, and their philosophy. 

—Jessica Hamzelou

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.)

+ This yellow labrador’s love of walking is a joy to behold.
+ Bowling legend Phyllis is still rolling perfect games at 95 years old.
+ Here are some evidence-based ways to cut back on life’s many distractions.
+ Humans since 1982 turns clock faces into mesmerizing kinetic art that still functions as timepieces.

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.

Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics  

—James O’Donnell 

Humanoid robots usually elicit more cringe than awe: They stumble, kick children, and despite advances are still worse at using their hands than my toddler. It’s a nascent industry, and such robots are more commonly seen in viral videos than real workplaces or homes. 

It was a surprise, then, when last week the Federal Trade Commission issued a sweeping ban on foreign imports of advanced robots, including humanoids, quadrupeds, and wheeled robots. 

The decision should be understood not as another chapter in the old China trade playbook, but as evidence that the Trump administration is expanding its protection of the AI industry beyond today’s leading labs. It is now willing to step in on behalf of an emerging robotics sector that is still barely finding its footing. Read our analysis to understand the ban’s potential impact.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter all about the latest goings-on in the world of AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

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

1 ICE collected nearly one million people’s DNA last year 
Most of them have never been convicted of any crime. (Wired $)

2 China is poised to win the technologies of the future
It’s already a high-tech hardware powerhouse, but it increasingly has its sights set on software too. (New Yorker $)
+ US tech and political leaders are freaking out, but few seem to agree how to respond. (Vox $) 
+ What’s next for Chinese open-source AI. (MIT Technology Review)

3 AI “tokenomics” is a burgeoning new field 
Businesses are pouring a lot of money into AI. Now they want to see what they’re getting in return. (NYT $)
+ Why it’s proving so hard to make AI pay. (BBC)
+ The US economy is becoming more and more reliant on the AI boom. (WSJ $)

4 Eli Lilly is letting people apply to try an unapproved obesity drug
Retatrutide is still in clinical trials, but certain patients can gain early access. (STAT $) 
+ Montana’s plan to become an experimental medical hub just pushed forward. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Inside the one US town that wants a data center 
Jay in Maine is a reminder that politics is all about the local. (The Atlantic $)
+ How data centers broke US politics. (Wired $)

6 Flock license plate readers can have a shockingly high error rate
In one California town, Flock misread license plates in 71% of the alerts it sent to police. (BI $)
+ A leaked guide shows how Flock teaches cops to promote its tech. (404 Media $)

7 A drone explosion on a beach in Russia killed seven people 
It seems to have been caused by Russian forces shooting down a Ukrainian drone. (CNN)
+ A US company won a $100 million deal to give Ukrainian drones an AI upgrade. (Ars Technica)
+ Europe’s drone-filled vision for the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How car headlights became so bright
Lots of modern cars still blind other drivers on the road. That could change soon though, thanks to new tech. (Ars Technica)

9 A $2 million crime novel deal collapsed over AI use concerns
And the agent and the writer involved have, erm…rather differing accounts of what happened. (Guardian)

10 AI matchmaking services are on the rise 
Online daters hope it might prove better at finding them love than fruitless swiping. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“Just a little too pleasant to be human.”

—North Carolina resident Kristen Charpentier tells Wired how she could tell she was talking to AI when ordering at a Dairy Queen drive-thru.

One More Thing

How to have a child in the digital age 

Before journalist and culture critic Amanda Hess even got pregnant with her first child, in 2020, the internet knew she was trying. She saw pregnancy ads way before a doctor.   

Hess’s experience is pretty typical these days, but still raises some big questions. How do we retain control over our bodies when corporations have access to our most personal information? What happens when people stop relying on friends and family for advice on having a kid and instead go online? 

Read our interview with Hess to learn what she has to say. 

—Alison Arieff

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.)

+ Brighten your day with this eight-minute video of the world’s cutest baby animals.
+ Intertapes has assembled a remarkable treasure trove of cassette tapes found around the world.
+ Armchair basketball GMs can finally put their talents to the test in this game that lets you draft an elite NBA team.
+ Here’s a hilarious look at the lost recordings of Robin Williams voicing the Genie in Disney’s “Aladdin.”