The Obtain: greener cement, and the largest tech tales of 2023


+ The worst know-how failures of 2023. The Titan submersible, lab-grown rooster, and GM’s wayward Cruise robotaxis all made our annual run-down of the worst in tech. Learn the complete checklist.

+ How 2023 marked the demise of anonymity on-line in China. As Chinese language social media platforms transfer towards requiring customers to reveal extra details about their actual identities, will we lose what made us need to be on-line within the first place? Learn the complete story.

+ Why final yr marked the primary time gene modifying lastly began residing as much as its potential.

+ 4 tendencies that modified AI in 2023. Infinite product launches, boardroom coups, intense coverage debates, and a race to search out the subsequent huge factor. Learn the complete story.

+ Have a look again over all of the local weather data that had been damaged in 2023, from greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels to highest-ever temperatures.

+ But it surely wasn’t all unhealthy information. There was some good local weather information in 2023. Actually! Learn concerning the causes for optimism.

The race is on to avoid wasting coral reefs—by freezing them

As sweltering ocean temperatures make graveyards of coral reefs throughout the Caribbean and past, a workforce of scientists is scrambling to chill corals down. Method down. To -200 °C. 

Coral reefs, as an ecosystem, are anticipated to go functionally extinct by 2035. Now, scientists hope to freeze sufficient coral sperm, larvae, and grownup polyps not simply to help present conservation efforts, however to reboot reefs within the more and more probably occasion of a marine mass extinction. But main engineering hurdles nonetheless stand in the best way of this plan. Learn the complete story.

—Allison Man