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The Download: measuring vaccine hesitancy, and the rise of DeepSeek

This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US’s health agencies, has been facing questions from senators as part of his confirmation hearing for the role. So... Read more »

How measuring vaccine hesitancy could help health professionals tackle it

Theirs is not the first vaccine hesitancy scale out there—similar questionnaires have been developed by others, often focusing on parents’ feelings about their children’s vaccinations. But Kantor says this is the first... Read more »

The Download: climate tech under Trump, and scaling up quantum computing

1 Trump advisers were blindsided by Elon Musk’s team’s offer to federal workersOfficials weren’t consulted about plans to induce civil service workers to resign. (WP $)+ The radical sweeping measures are just... Read more »

Three questions about the future of US climate tech under Trump

Even if the order is temporary or doesn’t hold up in court, it could be enough to chill investment in a sector that’s already been on shaky ground. As I reported last... Read more »

This quantum computer built on server racks paves the way to bigger machines

Aurora has a modular design that consists of four similar units, each installed in a standard server rack that is slightly taller and wider than the average human. To make a useful... Read more »

The Download: mice with two dads, and Meta’s fact-checking challenges

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Is this the end of animal testing? Animal studies are notoriously bad at identifying human treatments. Around 95% of the drugs developed through animal research fail in people.... Read more »

Three reasons Meta will struggle with community fact-checking

Enlisting volunteers is how moderation started on the Internet, long before social media giants realized that centralized efforts were necessary. And volunteer moderation can be successful, allowing for the development of bespoke... Read more »

Mice with two dads have been created using CRISPR

“It’s exciting,” says Kotaro Sasaki, a developmental biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the work. Not only have Li and his team been able to avoid a... Read more »

The Download: DeepSeek forces a reality check, and robotaxis’ future

Just a week in, the AI sector has already seen its first battle of wits under the new Trump administration. The clash stems from two key pieces of news: the announcement of... Read more »

AI’s energy obsession just got a reality check

DeepSeek poked some holes in that approach. It didn’t train on yet-unreleased chips that are light-years ahead. It didn’t, to our knowledge, require the eye-watering amounts of computing power and energy behind... Read more »