The Obtain: farming on Mars, and lab robots

That is right now’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a every day dose of what is going on on on the planet of expertise.

The search to determine farming on Mars

As soon as upon a time, water flowed throughout the floor of Mars. Waves lapped in opposition to shorelines, robust winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from thick, cloudy skies. It wasn’t actually so totally different from our personal planet 4 billion years in the past, apart from one essential element—its measurement. Mars is about half the diameter of Earth, and that’s the place issues went fallacious.

The Martian core cooled rapidly, quickly leaving the planet with no magnetic discipline. This, in flip, left it susceptible to the photo voltaic wind, which swept away a lot of its environment. With out a essential defend from the solar’s ultraviolet rays, Mars couldn’t retain its warmth. A number of the oceans evaporated, and the subsurface absorbed the remaining, with solely a little bit of water left behind and frozen at its poles. If ever a blade of grass grew on Mars, these days are over.

However may they start once more? And what wouldn’t it take to develop crops to feed future astronauts on Mars? Learn the total story.

—David W. Brown

This lab robotic mixes chemical compounds

Lab scientists spend a lot of their time doing laborious and repetitive duties, be it pipetting liquid samples or working the identical analyses over and over. However what if they may merely inform a robotic to do the experiments, analyze the info, and generate a report?

Enter Organa, a benchtop robotic system devised by researchers on the College of Toronto that may do precisely that. The system may automate some chemistry lab duties utilizing a mixture of laptop imaginative and prescient and a big language mannequin that interprets scientists’ verbal cues into an experimental pipeline. Learn the total story.

—Kristel Tjandra

Each of those tales are from the subsequent print situation of MIT Expertise Assessment, which comes out subsequent Wednesday and delves into the bizarre world of meals. Should you don’t already, subscribe to obtain a replica as soon as it lands.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to search out you right now’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.

1 Inside Elon Musk’s grassroots efforts to elect Donald Trump
His America PAC is struggling to rent door-knockers at this stage. (WP $)+ Musk has donated tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to the Republican marketing campaign. (CNN)

2 GPS jamming is messing with planes in Norway
Fixed disturbance indicators are the brand new regular. (Wired $)

3 A fentanyl vaccine may very well be on the horizon
In contrast to present preventative measures, a vaccine may stop an overdose from ever taking place. (Bloomberg $)

4 Europe’s largest battery startup is plagued with points

Making batteries is severely arduous work, and Northvolt is cracking below the pressure. (FT $)
+ Three takeaways in regards to the present state of batteries. (MIT Expertise Assessment)

5 Meta is shaking up its core companies
Some workers at Instagram, Whatsapp and Actuality Labs have misplaced their jobs. (Insider $)
+ Individually, it fired workers for abusing credit particularly for purchasing meals. (FT $)

6 These cyber athletes are being pushed to the restrict
The Cybathlon competitors showcases people and machines working collectively. (Knowable Journal)
+ These prosthetics break the mould with third thumbs, spikes, and superhero skins. (MIT Expertise Assessment)

7 How BYD took over the world
The Chinese language EV maker’s vehicles are all over the place, simply because the US tries to ban them. (Bloomberg $)
+ The corporate has made main inroads internationally this 12 months. (MIT Expertise Assessment)

8 Donald Trump’s mysterious crypto enterprise is failing
Who may have seen this coming!? (NY Magazine $)
+ An investor in Trump’s social media startup has been jailed. (Bloomberg $)

9 TikTok Store has large plans for the US
If it may well circumvent that pesky ban, that’s. (The Info $)
+ The miserable reality about TikTok’s impending ban. (MIT Expertise Assessment)

10 A kinky courting app has launched its personal print journal
And it really appears fairly good. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“There’s extra to return.”

—James Silver, who runs the US Justice Division’s Laptop Crime and Mental Property part, predicts that the present recognized variety of AI-generated baby sexual abuse photos is ready to blow up, Reuters studies.

The large story

One metropolis’s combat to resolve its sewage drawback with sensors

April 2021

Within the metropolis of South Bend, Indiana, wastewater from folks’s kitchens, sinks, washing machines, and bogs flows by 35 neighborhood sewer strains. On good days, simply earlier than every line ends, a vertical throttle pipe diverts the sewage into an interceptor tube, which carries it to a remedy plant the place strong pollution and micro organism are filtered out.

As in lots of American cities, these pipes are mixed with storm drains, which may fill rivers and lakes with poisonous sludge when heavy rains or melted snow overwhelms them, endangering wildlife and ingesting water provides. However metropolis officers have a plan to make its growing older sewers considerably smarter. Learn the total story.

—Andrew Zaleski

We will nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ A canine has been noticed on the high of the Nice Pyramid of Giza (however don’t fear, they’re secure!)
+ This breaking information in regards to the second verse of Rihanna’s SOS is actually sudden.
+ Al Pacino’s cellphone case is magnificent.
+ Anybody doing these TikTok courtship dances is immediately getting blocked.