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The Download: the fossil fuel elephant in the room, and better tests for endometriosis

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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.

This year’s UN climate talks avoided fossil fuels, again

Over the past few weeks in Belem, Brazil, attendees of this year’s UN climate talks dealt with oppressive heat and flooding, and at one point a literal fire broke out, delaying negotiations. The symbolism was almost too much to bear.

While many, including the president of Brazil, framed this year’s conference as one of action, the talks ended with a watered-down agreement. The final draft doesn’t even include the phrase “fossil fuels.”

As emissions and global temperatures reach record highs again this year, I’m left wondering: Why is it so hard to formally acknowledge what’s causing the problem?

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

New noninvasive endometriosis tests are on the rise

Endometriosis inflicts debilitating pain and heavy bleeding on more than 11% of reproductive-­age women in the United States. Diagnosis takes nearly 10 years on average, partly because half the cases don’t show up on scans, and surgery is required to obtain tissue samples.

But a new generation of noninvasive tests are emerging that could help accelerate diagnosis and improve management of this poorly understood condition. Read the full story.

—Colleen de Bellefonds

This story is from the last print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine, which is full of fascinating stories about the body. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI claims a teenager circumvented its safety features before ending his life
It says ChatGPT directed Adam Raine to seek help more than 100 times. (TechCrunch)
+ OpenAI is strongly refuting the idea it’s liable for the 16-year old’s death. (NBC News)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The CDC’s new deputy director prefers natural immunity to vaccines
And he wasn’t even the worst choice among those considered for the role. (Ars Technica)
+ Meet Jim O’Neill, the longevity enthusiast who is now RFK Jr.’s right-hand man. (MIT Technology Review)

3 An MIT study says AI could already replace 12% of the US workforce
Researchers drew that conclusion after simulating a digital twin of the US labor market. (CNBC)
+ Separate research suggests it could replace 3 million jobs in the UK, too. (The Guardian)
+ AI usage looks unlikely to keep climbing. (Economist $)

4 An Italian defense group has created an AI-powered air shield system
It claims the system allows defenders to generate dome-style missile shields. (FT $)
+ Why Trump’s “golden dome” missile defense idea is another ripped straight from the movies. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The EU is considering a ban on social media for under-16s
Following in Australia’s footsteps, whose own ban comes into power next month. (Politico)
+ The European Parliament wants parents to decide on access. (The Guardian)

6 Why do so many astronauts keep getting stuck in space?
America, Russia and now China have had to contend with this situation. (WP $)
+ A rescue craft for three stranded Chinese astronauts has successfully reached them. (The Register)

7 Uploading pictures of your hotel room could help trafficking victims
A new app uses computer vision to determine where pictures of generic-looking rooms were taken. (IEEE Spectrum)

8 This browser tool turns back the clock to a pre-AI slop web
Back to the golden age of pre-November 30 2022. (404 Media)
+ The White House’s slop posts are shockingly bad. (NY Mag $)
+ Animated neo-Nazi propaganda is freely available on X. (The Atlantic $)

9 Grok’s “epic roasts” are as tragic as you’d expect
Test it out at parties at your own peril. (Wired $)

10 Startup founders dread explaining their jobs at Thanksgiving 🍗
Yes Grandma, I work with computers. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“AI cannot ever replace the unique gift that you are to the world.”

—Pope Leo XIV warns students about the dangers of over-relying on AI, New York Magazine reports.

One more thing

Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs

People looking for precursors to artificial intelligence often point to science fiction or thought experiments like the Turing test. But an equally important, if surprising and less appreciated, forerunner is American psychologist B.F. Skinner’s research with pigeons in the middle of the 20th century.

Skinner believed that association—learning, through trial and error, to link an action with a punishment or reward—was the building block of every behavior, not just in pigeons but in all living organisms, including human beings.

His “behaviorist” theories fell out of favor in the 1960s but were taken up by computer scientists who eventually provided the foundation for many of the leading AI tools. Read the full story.

—Ben Crair

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ I hope you had a happy, err, Green Wednesday if you partook this year.
+ Here how to help an endangered species from the comfort of your own home.
+ Polly wants to FaceTime—now! 📱🦜(thanks Alice!)
+ I need Macaulay Culkin’s idea for another Home Alone sequel to get greenlit, stat.

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This year’s UN climate talks avoided fossil fuels, again

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If we didn’t have pictures and videos, I almost wouldn’t believe the imagery that came out of this year’s UN climate talks.

Over the past few weeks in Belem, Brazil, attendees dealt with oppressive heat and flooding, and at one point a literal fire broke out, delaying negotiations. The symbolism was almost too much to bear.

While many, including the president of Brazil, framed this year’s conference as one of action, the talks ended with a watered-down agreement. The final draft doesn’t even include the phrase “fossil fuels.”

As emissions and global temperatures reach record highs again this year, I’m left wondering: Why is it so hard to formally acknowledge what’s causing the problem?

This is the 30th time that leaders have gathered for the Conference of the Parties, or COP, an annual UN conference focused on climate change. COP30 also marks 10 years since the gathering that produced the Paris Agreement, in which world powers committed to limiting global warming to “well below” 2.0 °C above preindustrial levels, with a goal of staying below the 1.5 °C mark. (That’s 3.6 °F and 2.7 °F, respectively, for my fellow Americans.)

Before the conference kicked off this year, host country Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, cast this as the “implementation COP” and called for negotiators to focus on action, and specifically to deliver a road map for a global transition away from fossil fuels.

The science is clear—burning fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases and drives climate change. Reports have shown that meeting the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require stopping new fossil-fuel exploration and development.

The problem is, “fossil fuels” might as well be a curse word at global climate negotiations. Two years ago, fights over how to address fossil fuels brought talks at COP28 to a standstill. (It’s worth noting that the conference was hosted in Dubai in the UAE, and the leader was literally the head of the country’s national oil company.)

The agreement in Dubai ended up including a line that called on countries to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. It was short of what many advocates wanted, which was a more explicit call to phase out fossil fuels entirely. But it was still hailed as a win. As I wrote at the time: “The bar is truly on the floor.”

And yet this year, it seems we’ve dug into the basement.

At one point about 80 countries, a little under half of those present, demanded a concrete plan to move away from fossil fuels.

But oil producers like Saudi Arabia were insistent that fossil fuels not be singled out. Other countries, including some in Africa and Asia, also made a very fair point: Western nations like the US have burned the most fossil fuels and benefited from it economically. This contingent maintains that legacy polluters have a unique responsibility to finance the transition for less wealthy and developing nations rather than simply barring them from taking the same development route. 

The US, by the way, didn’t send a formal delegation to the talks, for the first time in 30 years. But the absence spoke volumes. In a statement to the New York Times that sidestepped the COP talks, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said that president Trump had “set a strong example for the rest of the world” by pursuing new fossil-fuel development.

To sum up: Some countries are economically dependent on fossil fuels, some don’t want to stop depending on fossil fuels without incentives from other countries, and the current US administration would rather keep using fossil fuels than switch to other energy sources. 

All those factors combined help explain why, in its final form, COP30’s agreement doesn’t name fossil fuels at all. Instead, there’s a vague line that leaders should take into account the decisions made in Dubai, and an acknowledgement that the “global transition towards low greenhouse-gas emissions and climate-resilient development is irreversible and the trend of the future.”

Hopefully, that’s true. But it’s concerning that even on the world’s biggest stage, naming what we’re supposed to be transitioning away from and putting together any sort of plan to actually do it seems to be impossible.

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

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Moving toward LessOps with VMware-to-cloud migrations

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Today’s IT leaders face competing mandates to do more (“make us an ‘AI-first’ enterprise—yesterday”) with less (“no new hires for at least the next six months”).

VMware has become a focal point of these dueling directives. It remains central to enterprise IT, with 80% of organizations using VMware infrastructure products. But shifting licensing models are prompting teams to reconsider how they manage and scale these workloads, often on tighter budgets.

DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE

For many organizations, the path forward involves adopting a LessOps model, an operational strategy that makes hybrid environments manageable without increasing headcount. This operational philosophy minimizes human intervention through extensive automation and selfservice capabilities while maintaining governance and compliance.

In practice, VMware-to-cloud migrations create a “two birds, one stone” opportunity. They present a practical moment to codify the automation and governance practices LessOps depends on—laying the groundwork for a leaner, more resilient IT operating model.

Download the full article.

This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.

This content was researched, designed, and written by human writers, editors, analysts, and illustrators. This includes the writing of surveys and collection of data for surveys. AI tools that may have been used were limited to secondary production processes that passed thorough human review.

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How to Create Short-Form Video Content That Stops the Scroll

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How to Create Short-Form Video Content That Stops the Scroll by Social Media Examiner

Are you struggling to make your video content stand out on social media? Wondering how to stop people from scrolling past your posts? In this article, you’ll discover the specific techniques content strategists use to create short-form video content that captures attention and drives engagement. Why Short-Form Video Matters for Marketers Today Video has historically […]

The post How to Create Short-Form Video Content That Stops the Scroll appeared first on Social Media Examiner.

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Nordic founders are taking bigger swings, and it’s paying off

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Ten years ago, raising €1 million in Copenhagen was enough to make waves in the region’s tech scene. Today, the Nordics are turning out billion-dollar companies like Lovable — which hit $200 million in revenue just 12 months after launching.  Dennis Green-Lieber, founder of AI-powered customer intelligence platform Propane, has had a front-row seat to that shift […]
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