This startup wants to fight growing global dengue outbreaks with drones
The world is grappling with dengue epidemics, with 100 to 400 million cases worldwide every year, an eightfold increase since 20 years ago, according to the World Health Organization. Much of this is driven by the warming climate, which allows mosquitos to thrive in more areas. A startup in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the countries being hit the hardest by dengue outbreaks, has a possible solution: drones that release sterile male mosquitoes. Birdview has previously used drones in agriculture—releasing pest-fighting insects to make it easier to get to every corner of crop fields, which allows farmers to use fewer […]
The Download: the world’s most expensive drug, and New York City’s e-bike plan
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. There is a new most expensive drug in the world. Price tag: $4.25 million The news: There is a new most expensive drug ever—a gene therapy that costs as much as a Brooklyn brownstone or a Miami mansion, and more than the average person will earn in a lifetime. Lenmeldy is a gene treatment for metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and was approved in the US on Monday. Its maker, Orchard Therapeutics, says the $4.25 million wholesale cost reflects the […]
Why New York City is testing battery swapping for e-bikes
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Spend enough time in a city and you’ll get to know its unique soundscape. In New York City, it features the echoes of car stereos, the deep grumbles of garbage truck engines, and, increasingly, the high-pitched whirring of electric bikes. E-bikes and scooters are becoming a staple across the city’s boroughs, and e-bikes in particular are especially popular among the tens of thousands of delivery workers who zip through the streets. On a recent cloudy afternoon in […]
There is a new most expensive drug in the world. Price tag: $4.25 million
There is a new most expensive drug ever—a gene therapy that costs as much as a Brooklyn brownstone or a Miami mansion, and more than the average person will earn in a lifetime. Lenmeldy is a gene treatment for metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and was approved in the U.S. on Monday. Its maker, Orchard Therapeutics, said today the $4.25 million wholesale cost reflects the value the treatment has for patients and families. No doubt, MLD is awful. The nerve disorder strikes toddlers, quickly robbing them of their ability to speak and walk. Around half die, the others live on in a […]
Building a more reliable supply chain
In 2021, when a massive container ship became wedged in the Suez Canal, you could almost hear the collective sigh of frustration around the globe. It was a here-we-go-again moment in a year full of supply chain hiccups. Every minute the ship remained stuck represented about $6.7 million in paralyzed global trade. The 12 months leading up to the debacle had seen countless manufacturing, production, and shipping snags, thanks to the covid-19 pandemic. The upheaval illuminated the critical role of supply chains in consumers’ everyday lives—nothing, from baby formula to fresh produce to ergonomic office chairs, seemed safe. For companies […]
New York City’s plan to stop e-bike battery fires
Walk just a few blocks in New York City and you’ll likely spot an electric bike zipping by. The vehicles have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially among delivery drivers, tens of thousands of whom weave through New York streets. But the e-bike influx has caused a wave of fires sparked by their batteries, some of them deadly. Now, the city wants to fight those fires with battery swapping. A pilot program will provide a small number of delivery drivers with alternative options to power up their e-bikes, including swapping stations that supply fully charged batteries on demand. Proponents […]
The Download: AI drugs, and how AI is improving soccer tactics
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 wave of drugs dreamed up by AI is on its way Alex Zhavoronkov has been messing around with artificial intelligence for more than a decade. In 2016, the programmer and physicist was using AI to rank people by looks and sort through pictures of cats. Now he says his company, Insilico Medicine, has created the first “true AI drug” that’s advanced to a test of whether it can cure a fatal lung condition in humans. Popular forms […]
Chinese platforms are cracking down on influencers selling AI lessons
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Over the last year, a few Chinese influencers have made millions of dollars peddling short video lessons on AI, profiting off people’s fears about the as-yet-unclear impact of the new technology on their livelihoods. But the platforms they thrived on have started to turn against them. Just a few weeks ago, WeChat and Douyin began suspending, removing, or restricting their accounts. While influencers on these platforms have been turning people’s anxiety into traffic and profits for a […]
A wave of drugs dreamed up by AI is on its way
Alex Zhavoronkov has been messing around with artificial intelligence for more than a decade. In 2016, the programmer and physicist was using AI to rank people by looks and sort through pictures of cats. Now he says his company, Insilico Medicine, has created the first “true AI drug” that’s advanced to a test of whether it can cure a fatal lung condition in humans. Zhavoronkov says his drug is special because AI software not only helped decide what target inside a cell to interact with, but also what the drug’s chemical structure should be. Popular forms of AI can draw […]
Google DeepMind’s new AI assistant helps elite soccer coaches get even better
Soccer teams are always looking to get an edge over their rivals. Whether it’s studying players’ susceptibility to injury, or opponents’ tactics—top clubs look at reams of data to give them the best shot of winning. They might want to add a new AI assistant developed by Google DeepMind to their arsenal. It can suggest tactics for soccer set-pieces that are even better than those created by professional club coaches. The system, called TacticAI, works by analyzing a dataset of 7,176 corner kicks taken by players for Liverpool FC, one of the biggest soccer clubs in the world. Corner kicks […]