We can reverse climate change if we redefine what carbon neutral looks like, said Gabrielle Walker, cofounder of carbon removal startup CUR8, at WIRED Impact in London in November 2023. Scientists define net zero not just as the reduction of carbon emissions, but the removal of carbon from the atmosphere …
Read More »Neuralink’s First Brain Implant Is Working. Elon Musk’s Transparency Isn’t
The first person to receive a Neuralink brain implant has apparently recovered and can now control a computer mouse using their thoughts, according to Elon Musk, the company’s cofounder. “Progress is good and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware …
Read More »Metal Prices Are Soaring. So Is Metal Theft
Something had gone wrong with the giant radio tower. Will Payne, of Payne Media Group, got an alert from his utility company in the middle of the night telling him as much. But it wasn’t until he got to the site around 5 am, in subzero temperatures, that he realized …
Read More »The Transport Companies Leaving Fossil Fuels Behind
Cleaner, greener transport is on its way—from delivery to air travel—but government action on incentives and infrastructure is needed to make it work fast and at scale. “It’s a bit frustrating sometimes in the UK, with the government delaying targets and support,” says Murvah Iqbal, co-CEO and founder of all-electric …
Read More »Measles Strikes a Florida Elementary School With Over 100 Unvaccinated Kids
Florida health officials on Sunday announced an investigation into a cluster of measles cases at an elementary school in the Fort Lauderdale area with a low vaccination rate, a scenario health experts fear will become more and more common amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide. On Friday, Broward County Public School …
Read More »Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be
Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll …
Read More »Tech Still Isn’t Doing Enough to Care for the Environment
We are in a climate crisis, and technology can be either a part of the problem or a force for good, says Greenpeace CTO Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa. According to the International Panel on Climate Change, she explains, we have “less than seven years before Earth becomes really difficult to live on.” …
Read More »Google’s Chess Experiments Reveal How to Boost the Power of AI
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. When Covid-19 sent people home in early 2020, the computer scientist Tom Zahavy rediscovered chess. He had played as a kid and had recently read Garry Kasparov’s Deep Thinking, a memoir of the grandmaster’s 1997 matches against IBM’s chess-playing computer, …
Read More »All That Rain Is Driving Up Cases of a Deadly Fungal Disease in California
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Last week, a long, narrow section of the Earth’s atmosphere funneled trillions of gallons of water eastward from the Pacific tropics and unleashed it on California. This weather event, known as an atmospheric river, broke rainfall …
Read More »Kyiv Is Using Homegrown Tech to Treat the Trauma of War
An air raid alert has just started when Victoria Itskovych joins a Zoom call from Kyiv. “It’s, like, a usual situation,” she says. “But really, it’s not usual.” February 24 will mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For nearly two years now, Kyiv has been under …
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