Summary
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. Four nuclear reactors hit a big milestone in the US —Casey Crownhart I was really looking forward to July 4, and not just because I love a poolside barbecue. This year the American holiday also marked a big symbolic deadline for US nuclear power. Last year the Trump administration set a goal to see three new microreactors achieve criticality, a technical milestone establishing that a reactor can sustain a chain reaction, by the nation’s 250th birthday. And just in time, not just three, but four reactors did so. It’s a positive sign for nuclear technologies at a time of increasing need for electricity and emissions-free energy sources. But achieving criticality doesn’t mean a reactor is ready to provide electricity for the grid (or at all, for that matter). This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 China plans to let its top AI firms buy Nvidia H200 chips Alibaba, ByteDance, and DeepSeek are set to get permission. (Information ) 2 NATO is building a network to stop Russian attackers in their tracks It will use sensors, drones, satellites, and AI to detect them. (Business Insider) + Troops are donning odd camouflage to elude drones. (Economist ) + But there could be unexpected consequences. (New Scientist ) + IBM is betting on the technique. (MIT Technology Review) 6 Ivy League students suspected of AI cheating saw scores fall in person From 96% all the way down to 48%. (Ars Technica) + AI giants want to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review) 7 A new study says parents’ phone addictions damage bonds with kids It can exacerbate “insecure attachment” for life. (Bloomberg 1.5 million Twitter settlement with the SEC Despite what she called “serious misgivings” and “red flags.” (Reuters ) 10 A World Cup match drove Google Search traffic to a new record The milestone came after Argentina’s comeback against Egypt. (CNBC) Quote of the day “I talk about it on Tic Tac.” —President Donald Trump tells the public where to find his insights on the dangers of communism, Gizmodo reports. One More Thing Robots are bringing new life to extinct species Paleontologists aren’t easily deterred by evolutionary dead ends or a sparse fossil record. And in the last few years, they’ve developed a new trick for turning back time and studying prehistoric animals: building experimental robotic models of them. In the absence of a living specimen, an ambling, flying, swimming, or slithering automaton is the next best thing for studying the behavior of extinct organisms. Learning more about how they moved can in turn shed light on their lives, such as their historic ranges and feeding habits. Scientists can simply sit back and observe their behavior in different environments.