Curated from MIT Technology Review — Here’s what matters right now:
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. Putin says organ transplants could grant immortality. Not quite. —Jessica Hamzelou Earlier this week, my editor forwarded me a video of the leaders of Russia and China talking about immortality. “These days at 70 years old you are still a child,” China’s Xi Jinping, 72, was translated as saying. “With the developments of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” Russia’s Vladimir Putin, also 72, is reported to have replied. In reality, rounds of organ transplantation surgery aren’t likely to help anyone radically extend their lifespan anytime soon. And it’s a simplistic way to think about aging — a process so complicated that researchers can’t agree on what causes it, why it occurs, or even how to define it, let alone “treat” it. 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, and read articles like this first, sign up here . India is using robots to clean sewer pipes so humans no longer have to When Jitender was a child in New Delhi, both his parents worked as manual scavengers—a job that involved clearing the city’s sewers by hand. Now, he is among almost 200 contractors involved in the Delhi government’s effort to shift from this manual process to safer mechanical methods. Although it has been outlawed since 1993, manual scavenging—the practice of extracting human excreta from toilets, sewers, or septic tanks—is still practiced widely in India. And not only is the job undignified, but it can be extremely dangerous. Now, several companies have emerged to offer alternatives at a wide range of technical complexity. Read the full story . —Hamaad Habibullah This story is from our new print edition, which is all about the future of security. Subscribe here to catch future copies when they land. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 RFK Jr buried a major study linking alcohol and cancer Clearly, the alcohol industry’s intense lobbying of the Trump administration is working. ( Vox ) + RFK Jr repeated health untruths during a marathon Senate hearing yesterday. ( Mother Jones ) + His anti-vaccine stance alarmed Democrats and Republicans alike. ( The Atlantic $) 2 US tech giants want to embed AI in education They’re backing a vaguely worded initiative to that effect launched by Melania Trump. ( Rolling Stone $) + Tech leaders took it in turns to praise Trump during dinner. ( WSJ $) + Elon Musk was nowhere to be seen. ( The Guardian ) + AI’s giants want to take over the classroom. ( MIT Technology Review ) 3 The FTC will probe AI companies over their impact on children In a bid to evaluate whether chatbots are harming th
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Original reporting: MIT Technology Review