MIT Technology Review Honors Biotech Innovators and Cleaner-Steel Founder

The biotech innovators include a researcher developing a “reprogramming” therapy that reverses vision loss, another designing tiny brain electrodes inspired by Japanese art, and a team behind a personalized gene-editing treatment for a baby with a rare genetic disorder. Some are trying to design new viruses with generative AI, an effort that the publication said could produce new drugs or soak up pollution.

Laureen Meroueh, founder of Hertha Metals, has proposed a furnace that turns iron ore into refined liquid steel in a single step and replaces coal with natural gas. Meroueh says those changes slash emissions by at least half and cut costs by 25 percent compared with steelmaking as usual. The steel industry has changed little since the process for purifying iron ore was invented and commercialized in the 1850s, according to the report.

The newsletter also reported that Anthropic said it had blocked potential plots to build biological weapons, identifying five such cases. It also found six cases of using AI to build software for conventional weapons, according to the roundup. Governments have used Anthropic’s Claude for surveillance, while Russia-linked hackers used it to automate attacks on Ukraine, the report said, citing a new Anthropic report. Bill Gates said AI needs new guardrails.

California banned addictive social media features for users under 16, prohibiting infinite scroll and autoplay and introducing new rules for AI and companion chatbots. The law is the first of its kind in the United States, according to the roundup.

Two AI researchers left Anthropic and Google over safety risks, a day after Jacob Coxon’s viral departure from Anthropic. Elon Musk called their concerns a “setup” and a “psyop.” AI fears are pushing Congress toward tougher regulation, the newsletter said.

Sam Altman pitched OpenAI’s cyber defenses to power companies following reports of AI attacks on critical systems, and he told staff that OpenAI is open to slowing down AI, according to the roundup. Universal is partnering with ElevenLabs on an AI remix platform, a shift for music labels that have fought AI for years, while AI continues to complicate definitions of creativity.

Chinese drugmakers are challenging US dominance in weight-loss drugs by developing hundreds of GLP-1 treatments for global markets. Electric air taxis began official test flights in Texas, the first flights under a White House pilot program. Chinese drones are helping rescue survivors of Nepal’s floods by delivering food and airlifting bodies from flood-hit areas. NASA and IBM have built an AI model to map the moon, which could help locate ice and identify safer landing sites. One man is using a museum-style repository of 3D scans, called the Restroom Archive, to digitally preserve America’s public restrooms.

The newsletter also highlighted a quote from travel content creator Kalie Roberts, who said in an Instagram reel that she did not ask Facebook to build a profile of her family and that Meta AI used years of Facebook posts to piece together her children’s identities and pinpoint where her family lives.