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. There’s a lot of hype around perimenopause. Don’t buy it. Perimenopause used to be considered taboo, but not anymore. Thanks at least in part to TV doctors and social media influencers, conversations about the sometimes years-long period before menopause are now more open than ever. But the conversation is increasingly shaped by misinformation. Despite what some marketers will claim, there is no test for perimenopause. That doesn’t mean women should have to put up with symptoms, but treatment suggestions often lack scientific evidence. And not all the symptoms women experience in midlife can be blamed on hormones. This article 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. 1China’s AI gap with the US may have just narrowed A Chinese startup has released the world’s largest open AI model. (Reuters ) + Chinese Nvidia alternatives are also gaining traction. (SCMP) + Xi Jinping pitched China as an AI partner to the developing world. (CNBC) + The country is betting big on open-source. (MIT Technology Review) 2 Trump Media is selling instant access to “market-moving’ social posts It’s developed a new way to monetize the president’s posts. (Quartz) + And Trump could profit directly from selling access to his statements. (BBC) + Kalshi says it caught Trump’s teleprompter operator insider trading. (Verge) 3 Astronomers have found an atmosphere on a nearby Earth-like planet It’s the first potentially habitable world known to host an atmosphere. (NYT ) + China has approved a world-first brain chip. (MIT Technology Review) 5 The EU has told Google to share search data and open up AI on Android It will be forced to share data with competing search providers. (Ars Technica) + And open Android phones to rivals’ AI bots. (WP ) 9 A space-station study suggests why astronauts’ bodies waste away Microgravity disrupts mitochondria, reducing protein production. (Nature) 10 “Adversarial clothing” that confuses facial recognition is all the rage Privacy could be the next big trend. (Guardian) Quote of the day “Xi’s message is clear: China is not going to follow anyone on both AI technology and standards. Instead, China is going to lead the world in both aspects.” —George Chen, chair in digital practice at The Asia Group consultancy, gives Reuters his take on Xi Jinping’s speech at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. One More Thing BRYN NELSON How poop could feed the planet A new industrial facility in suburban Seattle is giving off a whiff of futuristic technology. It can safely treat fecal waste from people and livestock while recycling nutrients that are crucial for agriculture but in increasingly short supply across the nation’s farmlands. It’s among a range of systems reframing feces, urine, and their ingredients as invaluable natural resources to reuse instead of waste products to burn or bury. Several companies are now showing how to safely scale up the transformation with energy-efficient technologies.