The Download: mining metals with plants, and our dystopian future
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.
How plants could mine metals from the soil
Nickel may not grow on trees—but there’s a chance it could someday be mined using plants. Many plants naturally soak up metal and concentrate it in their tissues. The US government is now spending $9.9 million funding research on how to use that trait for plant-based mining, or phytomining.
It could be a good new way to source increasingly in-demand metals like nickel, crucial for the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. But for now, the goal is just to better understand which plants could help with mining and determine how researchers can tweak them to get our hands on all the critical metals we’ll need in the future. Read the full story.
—Casey Crownhart
The year is 2149 and…
—An excerpt from a short story written for us by novelist Sean Michaels, which envisions what life will look like 125 years from now.
The year is 2149 and people mostly live their lives “on rails.” That’s what they call living according to the meticulous instructions of software. Software knows most things about you—what causes you anxiety, what raises your endorphin levels, everything you’ve ever searched for, everywhere you’ve been.
Software understands everything that has led to this instant and it predicts every moment that will follow. There was a time when everybody kept their data to themselves, but the truth is, it works better to combine it all. So they poured it all together, all the data—the Big Merge. Everything into a giant basin, a Federal Reserve of information—a vault, or really a massively distributed cloud. It is very handy. It shows you the best route.
Very occasionally, people step off the rails. Instead of following their suggested itinerary, they turn the software off. They take a deep, clear, uncertain breath and luxuriate in this freedom. Of course, some people believe that this too is contained within the logic in the vault. That there are invisible rails beside the visible ones; that no one can step off the map. Read the rest of the story here.
This piece is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is celebrating 125 years of the magazine! If you don’t already, subscribe now to get 25% off future copies once they land.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Telegram will start to moderate private chats
Prior to its CEO’s arrest, they were shielded from moderation. (The Verge)
+ Pavel Durov called the platform’s openness to criminal exploitation ‘growing pains.’ (NYT $)
+ He’s threatened to pull the platform from countries that oppose its values. (FT $)
2 Google is under investigation in the UK
Antitrust officials believe it may be unfairly favoring its own ad tech services. (WSJ $)
+ Google disagrees with their interpretations of the sector. (Bloomberg $)+ The probe started all the way back in 2022. (TechCrunch)
3 Amazon’s Alexa is picking political sides
Which, predictably, has sparked a wave of right-wing conspiracy theories. (WP $)
4 It’s high time we welcomed the first nuclear clock
Unlike atomic clocks, it wouldn’t lose even a second over time. (Quanta Magazine)
+ It could have the additional benefit of speeding up the internet, too. (Vice)
+ ‘Quantum squeezing’ is improving timekeeping precision. (MIT Technology Review)
5 An AI solution to the ‘cocktail party problem’ has been used in court
It uses AI to filter out background sounds, much like the human brain. (BBC)
+ Noise-canceling headphones use AI to let a single voice through. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Japan has a plan to stage a tech leader comeback
This time it’s working with, rather than against, the US. (NYT $)
7 How climate change is impacting creatures’ eggs
They may not be able to adapt quickly enough to cope with extreme weather. (Time $)
8 It’s cheaper to rent Nvidia chips in China than in the US
Which demonstrates America’s export restrictions aren’t having the desired effect. (FT $)
+ What’s next in chips. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Why aren’t there more electric school buses? 
Cleaner, greener buses make sense. But the grid isn’t equipped to deal with them. (Vox)
+ Electric three-wheelers are on the rise in the Philippines. (Rest of World)
+ How 5-minute battery swaps could get more EVs on the road. (MIT Technology Review)
10 The Boeing Starliner is set to return to Earth 
But its two-astronaut crew will remain on the ISS. (NYT $)
+ The test flight has been disappointing, to say the least. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day
“It’s holding her captive.”
Fiona, a Brooklyn-based 11-year-old, describes her younger sister Margot’s obsessive iPad use to Vox.
The big story
The future of urban housing is energy-efficient refrigerators
The aging apartments under the purview of the New York City Housing Authority don’t scream innovation. The largest landlord in the city, housing nearly 1 in 16 New Yorkers, NYCHA has seen its buildings literally crumble after decades of neglect. It would require at least $40 billion to return the buildings to a state of good repair.
Despite the scale of the challenge, NYCHA is hoping to fix them. It has launched a Clean Heat for All Challenge which asks manufacturers to develop low-cost, easy-to-install heat-pump technologies for building retrofits. The stakes for the agency, the winning company, and for society itself could be huge—and good for the planet. Read the full story.
—Patrick Sisson
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 or tweet ’em at me.)
+ It’s time to rearrange your coats for fall—and to donate the old ones you don’t wear any more.
+ Imperfect typography is where it’s at.
+ TapeDeck is a seriously cool resource for lovers of cassettes from years gone by.
+ If you’ve heard any howls of outrage from the UK this morning, this controversial new tea ranking is to blame. 
