The Download: gene-edited pig liver transplants, and AI to fight apartheid
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. A brain-dead man was attached to a gene-edited pig liver for three days Surgeon Abraham Shaked thinks he has probably carried out more than 2,500 liver transplants. But in December 2023, the team he oversees at the University of Pennsylvania did something he’d never tried before. Working on the body of a brain-dead man, they attached his veins to a refrigerator-size machine with a pig liver mounted in the middle of it. For three days, the man’s blood […]
Donated bodies are powering gene-edited organ research
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. Hooked up to a ventilation machine, a person can be dead in the eyes of the law, medical professionals, and loved ones, yet still alive enough to be useful for medical research. Such brain-dead people are often used for organ donation, but they are also of increasing importance to the biotech world. This week, we reported how surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania connected a pig liver to a brain-dead person […]
How satellite images and AI could help fight spatial apartheid in South Africa
Raesetje Sefala grew up sharing a bedroom with her six siblings in a cramped township in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The township’s inhabitants, predominantly Black people, had inadequate access to schools, health care, parks, and hospitals. But just a few miles away in Limpopo, white families lived in big, attractive houses, with easy access to all these things. The physical division of communities along economic and racial lines, so that townships are close enough for the people living there to commute to work but too far to easily access essential services, is just one damaging inheritance from South […]
A brain-dead man was attached to a gene-edited pig liver for three days
Surgeon Abraham Shaked thinks he has probably carried out more than 2,500 liver transplants. But in December 2023, a team he oversees at the University of Pennsylvania did something he’d never tried before. Working on the body of a brain-dead man, they attached his veins to a refrigerator-size machine with pig liver mounted in the middle of it. For three days, the man’s blood passed into the machine, through the pig liver, and back into his body. This “extracorporeal,” or outside-the-body, liver—whose initial test was announced today by the University of Pennsylvania and a biotech company, eGenesis—is designed to help […]
The Download: exascale computing, and AI takes on geometry
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. Exascale computers: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 In May 2022, the global supercomputer rankings were shaken up by the launch of Frontier. It’s the fastest supercomputer in the world, and can perform as many calculations in one second as 100,000 laptops. With its launch, the era of exascale computing officially began. Several more such exascale computers will soon join its ranks, from the US, Europe, and reportedly also China. Scientists and engineers are eager to use these turbocharged computers […]
The next generation of nuclear reactors is getting more advanced. Here’s how.
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. I’ve got nuclear power on the brain this week. The workings of nuclear power plants have always fascinated me. They’re massive, technically complicated, and feel a little bit magic (splitting the atom—what a concept). But I’ve reached new levels of obsession recently, because I’ve spent the past week or so digging into advanced nuclear technology. Advanced nuclear is a mushy category that basically includes anything different from the commercial reactors operating now, since those basically all follow […]
Google DeepMind’s new AI system can solve complex geometry problems
Google DeepMind has created an AI system that can solve complex geometry problems. It’s a significant step towards machines with more human-like reasoning skills, experts say. Geometry, and mathematics more broadly, have challenged AI researchers for some time. Compared with text-based AI models, there is significantly less training data for mathematics because it is symbol driven and domain specific, says Thang Wang, a coauthor of the research, which is published in Nature today. Solving mathematics problems requires logical reasoning, something that most current AI models aren’t great at. This demand for reasoning is why mathematics serves as an important benchmark […]
A new AI-based risk prediction system could help catch deadly pancreatic cancer cases earlier
A new AI system could help detect the most common form of pancreatic cancer, new research has found. Pancreatic cancer is a difficult disease to detect. The pancreas itself is hidden by other organs in the abdomen, making it tough to spot tumors during tests. Patients also rarely experience symptoms in the early stages, meaning that the majority of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage—once it’s already spread to other parts of the body. This makes it much harder to cure. As a result, it’s essential to try to catch pancreatic cancer at the earliest stage possible. A team […]
Start with data to build a better supply chain
In business, the acceleration of change means enterprises have to live in the future, not the present. Having the tools and technologies to enable forward-thinking and underpin digital transformation is key to survival. Supply chain procurement leaders are tasked with improving operational efficiencies and keeping an eye on the bottom line. For Raimundo Martinez, global digital solutions manager of procurement and supply chain at bp, the journey toward building a better supply chain starts with data. “So, today, everybody talks about AI, ML, and all these tools,” says Martinez. “But to be honest with you, I think your journey really […]
How hot salt could transform nuclear power
For more than a month in total, 12 metric tons of molten salt coursed through pipes at Kairos Power in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company is developing a new type of nuclear reactor that will be cooled using this salt mixture, and its first large-scale test cooling system just completed 1,000 hours of operation in early January. This is the second major milestone for Kairos in recent weeks. In December, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a construction permit for the company’s first nuclear test reactor. Nuclear power plants can provide a steady source of carbon-free energy, a crucial component […]