The Download: carbon removal’s future, and measuring pain using an app

This is today's episode Loading, Our weekday newsletter, breaking down what's happening in tech, every day.

What's next for carbon removal?

After years of growth that have spawned hundreds of startups, the nascent carbon removal sector appears to be facing a reckoning.

Last summer, Running Tide, an up-and-coming aquaculture company, went out of business, and in recent months several other companies have also closed, cut staff or changed their operations. Venture capital investment has declined. And the collective industry has made little progress on Running Tide's ambitious plans to capture a billion tons of carbon dioxide by this year.

Experts warn that the boom phase is over and the sector is sliding into a turbulent business low.

And the question remains: As the carbon removal sector approaches a painful but inevitable cleanup cycle, where will it go next? Read the full story.

—James Temple

This story is part of MIT Technology Review's What's Next series, which examines industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them Here.

AI Pain Measuring App Is Here

This week I also wondered how science and technology can help answer this question, especially when it comes to pain.

In the latest issue of the magazine MIT Technology Review print magazine, Dina Musa describes how smartphone application based on artificial intelligence used to assess the amount of pain a person is experiencing.

The app and other similar tools can help doctors and caregivers. They can be especially helpful when caring for people who are unable to tell others how they are feeling.

But they are far from perfect. And they open up all sorts of thorny questions about how we experience, communicate, and even treat pain. Read the whole story.

— Jessica Hamzelu

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review's weekly biotechnology newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday and be the first to read articles like this, register here.

A must read

I've scoured the internet to find you the funniest/important/scary/fascinating technology stories of today.

1. Meta's lawyers advised workers to remove parts of the study on teen mental health.
His lawyer advised the researchers to block or update their work to reduce legal liability. (Bloomberg $)
+ Meta recently laid off more than 100 employees tasked with monitoring user privacy risks. (NOW $) 

2 Donald Trump pardons the convicted Binance founder
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to violating US money laundering laws in 2023. (WSJ $)
+ This move will likely allow Binance to resume operations in the US. (CNN)
+ Trump has promised to be friendlier to cryptocurrencies than the Biden administration. (Axios)

3 Anthropic and Google Cloud Sign Major Chip Deal
The agreement is worth tens of billions of dollars. (F.T. $)

4 Microsoft Doesn't Want You To Talk Dirty To Its AI
This will be left to OpenAI's discretion, thank you very much. (CNBC)
+ Copilot now has its own version of Clippy—just don't try to be erotic with it. (Edge)
+ However, it is quite easy to get DeepSeek to talk dirty. (MIT Technology Review)

5. Big tech companies are footing the bill for Trump's White House ballroom.
Stand up Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft. (TechCrunch)
+ Crypto twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are also among the donors. (CNN)

Six American investigators uncovered a series of high-tech gambling schemes
Use of specially designed contact lenses and x-ray tables. (NOW $)
+ The case concerns insider bets on basketball and poker games rigged by the mafia. (BBC)
+ Automatic card shuffling devices can also be compromised. (Wired $)

7 Deepfake Harassment Tools Easily Available on Social Media
And a simple search on the Internet. (404 Media)
+ Deepfake bans will take us far – that's what we really need. (MIT Technology Review)

8. How algorithms can raise prices online
Even benign algorithms can sometimes lead to bad results for customers. (Kvanta Magazine)
+ When AI is bargaining, a less advanced agent can cost you dearly. (MIT Technology Review)

9. How to brain rot an LLM graduate
Practice it first with short “superficial” posts from X. (Ars Technique)
+ AI trained on AI garbage spits out AI garbage. (MIT Technology Review)

10. Meet tech workers who use as little AI as possible
Striving to keep my skills sharp. (W.P. $)
+ This professor believes there are other ways to teach people to learn. (Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“He was convicted. He is not innocent.”

— Republican Senator Thom Tillis criticizes Donald Trump's decision to pardon convicted cryptocurrency tycoon Changpeng Zhao, Politician reports.

One more thing

We have never understood how hunger works. Perhaps the situation will change soon.

When you are hungry, hunger is like a demon. He awakens the most ancient and primitive parts of the brain, and then forces other neural mechanisms to do his bidding until he gets what he wants.

Although scientists have had some success in stimulating hunger in mice, we still don't fully understand how the impulse to eat works. Now some experts are tracing known parts of the neural circuits of hunger into unknown parts of the brain to try to find out.

Their work may shed new light on the factors that have led to a sharp rise in the number of overweight adults worldwide in recent years. And it may also help solve the mystery of how and why a new class of weight-loss drugs works so well. Read the full story.

-Adam Piore

We can still have good things

A place for comfort, fun and entertainment that will brighten your day. (Any ideas? Write to me or shoot skeet at me.)

+ Middle-aged men are fond of jumping from cliffs. If you?
+ Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies Sounds like a great idea to me.
+ Christmas Island crabs are on the move!
+ Be careful if you ride the New York subway today: you might run into them. terrifying witches.