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.
A new tick-borne disease is killing cattle in the US
In the spring of 2021, Cynthia and John Grano, who own a cattle operation in Culpeper County, Virginia, started noticing some of their cows slowing lanugo and vicarial “spacey.” They figured the animals were suffering from a worldwide infectious disease that causes anemia in cattle. But their veterinarian had warned them that flipside disease carried by a parasite was spreading rapidly in the area.
After a third cow died, the Granos decided to test its blood. Sure enough, the test came when positive for the disease: theileria. And with no treatment available, the cows kept dying.
Cattle owners like the Granos are not alone. Livestock producers virtually the US are confronting this new and unfamiliar disease without much information. Researchers still don’t know how theileria will unfold, plane as it quickly spreads west wideness the country. If states can’t get the disease under control, then nationwide production losses from sick cows could significantly forfeiture both individual operations and the unshortened industry. Read the full story.
—Britta Lokting
Super-hot salt could be coming to a shower near you
The world is towers increasingly topics for renewables, expressly solar and wind power that come and go with the weather. But for renewables to make a real difference, we need largest options for storing energy. That’s where batteries come in. And handily, there’s a wave of volitional chemistries slowly percolating into the growing energy storage market.
Some of these new players could sooner be cheaper (and in various ways, better) than the industry-standard lithium-ion batteries. Among the most promising is molten salt technology, which Ambri, a Boston-area startup, is convinced could be up to 50% cheaper over its lifetime than an equivalent lithium-ion system.
But, like its rivals experimenting with other forms of energy storage, Ambri is facing real barriers to adoption, with scaling presenting the main, ever-present hurdle. Read the full story.
—Casey Crownhart
Casey’s story is from The Spark, her weekly newsletter tent shower breakthroughs and other climate news. 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 well-nigh technology.
1 What comes without Twitter?
Whatever the answer, downloading data and contacts is a smart move. (NYT $)
It’s unlikely, however, that you’ll be worldly-wise to save everything. (Wired $)
A load of fired contractors aren’t planning on going quietly. (Bloomberg $)
One of its former data scientists is extremely worried. (Rest of World)
Twitter’s potential swoon could wipe out vast records of recent human history. (MIT Technology Review)
2 The ripple effects of FTX’s collapse
The crypto exchange’s poor practices are triggering fears well-nigh the industry’s future—and its employees are furious. (WSJ $)
Sam Bankman-Fried had an ill-advised yack with a journalist over Twitter. (Vox)
A matriculation whoopee has been filed versus FTX in the US. (The Guardian)
3 The US’s bioweapon detection system is unreliable
20 years without its introduction, it still financing $80 million a year. (The Verge)
4 Telehealth sites are riddled with data trackers
They could reveal sensitive tendency information that’s ripe for abuse. (Wired $)
5 Activision Blizzard’s games are stuff pulled offline in China
It’s been unable to strike a deal with its Chinese distributor. (FT $)
6 Intel thinks it can reservation deepfakes with 96% accuracy
By tracking the “blood flow” of video pixels to snift living humans. (VentureBeat)
A horrifying AI app swaps women into porn videos with a click. (MIT Technology Review)
7 We’ve ignored concrete’s stat footprint for too long
It’s not as big a polluter as transport or energy, but it’s in urgent need of a greener overhaul. (Knowable Magazine)
How Joe Biden got yonder with passing the IRA. (The Atlantic $)
How hydrogen and electricity can wipe up heavy industry. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Lab-grown meat is unscratched to eat 
The FDA has untried lit lab-grown chicken—but it needs to pass other tests surpassing it can be sold. (NBC News)
Will lab-grown meat reach our plates? (MIT Technology Review)
9 Why NASA’s astronauts aren’t unliable to TikTok from space 
Even though their European counterparts are. (Vox)
NASA’s Artemis 1 launch was an oddly muted affair. (The Atlantic $)
Here’s everything the mission is taking with it to the moon. (IEEE Spectrum)
10 We could hitch a ride on a flying taxi one day 
By the end of the decade, apparently. Let’s see. (Economist $)
Quote of the day
“Ireland really bet the sublet on the future of tech . . . almost at the expense of everything else.”
—Mark O’Connell, executive chair and founder of OCO Global, a trade and investment focused newsy firm, tells the Financial Times why the tech sector’s mass job cuts will hit Ireland particularly hard.
The big story
Bright LEDs could spell the end of visionless skies
August 2022
Scientists have known for years that light pollution is growing and can harm both humans and wildlife. In people, increased exposure to light at night disrupts sleep cycles and has been linked to cancer and cardiovascular disease, while wildlife suffers from interruption to their reproductive patterns, increased danger and loss of stealth.
Astronomers, policymakers, and lighting professionals are all working to find ways to reduce light pollution. Many of them well-wisher installing light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, in outdoor fixtures such as municipality streetlights, mainly for their worthiness to uncontrived light to a targeted area. But the upper initial investment and tautness of modern LEDs midpoint cities need to get the transition right the first time or potentially squatter decades of consequences. Read the full story.
—Shel Evergreen
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and lark in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
A luxurious train journey looks like the perfect way to unwind to me.
Nothing can replace the joy of picking out a unconfined read from a bookstore.
It’s never too early to start planning for your next unconfined adventure.
Olive oil? Good. Cake? Good. An olive oil cake?! GOOD!
The oldest known sentence written in the first alphabet is entertainingly domestic.