The Download: the dream of cryonics, and enhanced rats

Barbie Espinol

This is now&#8217s version of The Down load, our weekday e-newsletter that offers a day-to-day dose of what&#8217s likely on in the world of technological innovation.

Why the sci-fi dream of cryonics in no way died

When Aaron Drake flew from Arizona to the Yinfeng Organic Group in China in 2016, he was traveling there to manual China’s first forays into cryonics, or freezing corpses for reanimation.

Drake experienced put in the past 7 a long time as the health-related reaction director of the Alcor Lifestyle Extension Basis, a tiny nonprofit that had managed to develop into the longtime leader in cryonics, freezing the bodies and brains of its members, with the notion of one day bringing them back again to lifetime, considering the fact that 1976.

The foundation, and cryonics in typical, had extended survived exterior of mainstream acceptance. But it’s the new involvement of Yinfeng that alerts something of a new era for cryonics.

With remarkable economic methods, authorities guidance, and scientific personnel, it is a single of a handful of new labs centered on growing the shopper enchantment of cryonics and trying anew to carry reliability to the very long-disputed theory of human reanimation. Nevertheless, the industry continues to be rooted in religion alternatively than any genuine proof that it functions. Browse the full story.

—Laurie Clarke

This piece is from our forthcoming mortality-themed difficulty, available from 26 October. If you want to go through it when it arrives out, you can subscribe to MIT Technological innovation Overview for as little as $80 a 12 months.

Are rats with human brain cells nonetheless just rats?

This week, my colleague Jessica Hamzelou wrote about a fascinating experiment that associated implanting human mind cells into rats’ brains. The mind cells from equally species were being capable to kind connections and get the job done with each other. The human cells became portion of the rats’ brains.

A handful of months soon after they’d been implanted, the human cells built up around a sixth of the rats’ brains and appeared to have a position in controlling the animals’ actions. Which invites the tricky problem: Are these animals nevertheless 100% rat? Study the total story.

Jessica’s story is from The Checkup, her weekly publication discovering all issues biotech and wellbeing. Signal up to obtain it in your inbox just about every Thursday.

ClimateTech 2022

This 7 days MIT Know-how Critique held its inaugural ClimateTech meeting on engineering alternatives for local climate change—a large thank you to absolutely everyone who attended in-human being or on-line! 

If you skipped it, you can catch up with all the most important information and bulletins by means of our live website covering day one particular and working day two of the meeting.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to come across you today’s most entertaining/significant/frightening/intriguing stories about technologies.1 China is preparing for its historic Communist get together congress 
A 3rd phrase for president Xi Jinping is a in the vicinity of-certainty. (Economist $)
+ The congress is an possibility for Xi to reassert his regulate. (FT $)
+ All 2,3000 senior celebration customers will show up at the conference. (The Guardian)
+ Douying, Tiktok’s Chinese sister application, is silencing Cantonese speakers. (Rest of Entire world)

2 Not every person in California can pay for electrical motor vehicles
They are costly, and the state’s thrust toward EVs challenges overlooking decrease earners. (The Guardian)
+ Even the US secretary of transportation acknowledges the hurdles. (Recode)
+ The US only has 6,000 fast charging stations for EVs. (MIT Technological know-how Assessment)

3 Turkey has handed a flawed “disinformation bill” in advance of its elections
Which, handily ample, restricts criticisms of its President Erdoğan. (FT $) 
+ The European Parliament has accused Large Tech of secretive lobbying. (Bloomberg $)

4 Food is obtaining additional high priced 🥪
Supply problems and higher gasoline price ranges are just some of the reasons why. (Vox)
+ The increasing value of meals has contributed to these sky-substantial inflation figures. (New Yorker $)

5 An AI is scheduling to run for election in Denmark
The Artificial Occasion, which is led by an AI, promises to characterize the values of “non-voting Danes.” (Motherboard)

6 Players are the excellent target for cybercriminals
Youthful players are specifically vulnerable to fraudsters&#8217 advancements. (NYT $)

7 Adverts on Netflix are arriving following month
The company desperately desires to entice new prospects, following months of users canceling their subscriptions. (WSJ $)

8 Extreme warmth treatment is not just for elite athletes ☀
Very carefully managed publicity to warmth could stop cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, far too. (Neo.Everyday living)

9 Your cafe server hates your menu hacks 
And applications are building it much easier than at any time to order elaborate concoctions anonymously. (Eater)

10 There are not legs in the metaverse soon after all 🦵
Tricky to think, I know, but Meta misled us. (Kotaku)
+ Meta is desperately striving to make the metaverse occur. (MIT Know-how Evaluate)

Estimate of the day

“There will frequently be one particular or two persons functioning about like crazy, or executing anything like making a huge cartoon of a cat.”

—Antti Innanen, chief government of Dot, a Finnish lawful style and design consultancy, points out the pitfalls of hoping to maintain people’s interest whilst offering seminars in the metaverse to the Fiscal Times.

We can still have awesome items

A spot for comfort and ease, fun and distraction in these unusual times. (Got any thoughts? Drop me a line or tweet &#8217em at me.)

+ Hey, which is not how the next line of the tune goes!
+ The just one and only Patti Smith is releasing a book upcoming month—and it is impressed by, err, Instagram.
+ This sunlit waterfall is straight out of House of the Dragon.
+ If you at any time uncover yourself in London, it’s only appropriate you indulge in a bit of pub grub.
+ We are likely to gravitate toward the common when something’s coming to an finish, and that is all right.

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