In other news, the Biden administration's social media battle has reached the Supreme Court over allegations of First Amendment violations. SpaceX is building a spy satellite network for US intelligence, which has upset China. Apple faces a lawsuit over AirTags stalking, and a county in South Carolina is working to connect rural America with broadband. The newsletter also discusses concerns over US satellite imagery guiding Russian missiles in Ukraine, and the potential prison sentence facing Sam Bankman-Fried. Finally, it explores the use of AI in music creation and the unreliability of mushroom identification apps.
Key takeaways:
- The field of longevity medicine, which aims to add years to human lifespans and improve health during those extra years, is seeking recognition as a credible medical field. The field faces challenges such as disagreement on how to assess and treat aging and the risk of harm to patients in the absence of standards and guidelines.
- Harvard researchers have stopped a long-planned atmospheric geoengineering experiment due to delays and public criticism. The experiment aimed to counteract global warming by spraying particles into the atmosphere to scatter sunlight, but critics argue that it could ease pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the risk of dangerous side-effects.
- Self-driving company Waabi is using a generative AI model to predict the movement of vehicles, which could help advance autonomous driving. The model uses data from lidar sensors and can generate a lidar representation of a situation 5 to 10 seconds into the future.
- Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to turn into any type of cell, have been hailed as a medical revolution since they were first isolated in 1998. However, more than two decades later, there are still no treatments on the market based on these cells.