The Download: Anthropic launches Claude Science, and California’s carbon manure math

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.

Claude Science is Anthropic’s newest flagship product

—Grace Huckins

Why California’s carbon manure math doesn’t add up

Something stinks in California’s climate policies. 

Years ago, the state set up a system that pays cattle farmers to turn the methane emitted from cattle manure into natural gas. It’s become wildly popular because the subsidies are extremely lucrative. But research suggests the program exposes the shortcomings of carbon offsetting and trading schemes.

Instead of forcing industries to directly cut their pollution or pay for it as a cost of doing business, legislators have opted for incentives that swap climate responsibilities between parties and regions. The system could ultimately lock in more warming.

Read the full story on California’s dubious carbon calculations.

—James Temple

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Watch now: longevity’s next frontier—“reprogramming” your body

Billions of dollars are pouring into efforts to reverse aging as scientists investigate ways to return cells to a younger state. But how close are these experimental treatments? And are they likely to work? 

At a recent virtual Roundtables event, MIT Technology Review explored the answers with science editor Mary Beth Griggs and senior biotechnology reporter Jessica Hamzelou. Subscribers can now watch the full recording of the fascinating discussion.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: the search for dark matter has been blown wide open

For decades, physicists have hunted for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a leading candidate for dark matter. But their search has run into a new problem: neutrinos. 

These tiny particles from the sun and other stars can create a “neutrino fog” that drowns out any signal of dark matter. Hitting the neutrino fog does not, however, mean an end to the search. Researchers just have to shift the focus of their hunt.

They’re now casting a much wider net. New proposals include quantum sensors, liquid-helium detectors, and even searches in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

—Dan Garisto

This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

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

Quote of the day

“Caveman save you token, save you money.” 

—The GitHub repository for the “caveman” plugin explains how the project curbs AI spending by turning verbose LLM outputs into concise text.

One More Thing

SELMAN DESIGN

AI is dreaming up drugs that no one has ever seen. Now we’ve got to see if they work.

On average, it takes more than 10 years and billions of dollars to develop a new drug. A growing number of startups are betting that AI can make the process faster and cheaper. 

By predicting how potential drugs might behave in the body and discarding dead-end compounds before they leave the computer, machine-learning models can cut down on the need for painstaking lab work. 

Yet it is still early days for AI drug discovery. A lot of AI companies are making claims they can’t back up—and the technology is not a panacea. But the technology is beginning to move from promise to practice.

Find out how AI is speeding up drug discovery.