October 7, 2025

The US is set to cancel funding for two major direct-air capture plants

The Department of Energy appears poised to terminate funding for a pair of large carbon sucking factories that were originally set to receive more than $1 billion in government grants, according to a department issued list of projects obtained by MIT Technology Review and circulating among federal agencies. The projects include the South Texas Direct…

August 2025

NASA’s new AI model can predict when a solar storm may strike

August 20, 2025
NASA and IBM have released a new open-source machine learning model to help scientists better understand and predict the physics and weather patterns of the sun. Surya, trained on over a decade’s worth of NASA solar data, should help give scientists an early warning when a dangerous solar flare is likely to hit Earth. Solar…

The Download: churches in the age of AI, and how to run an LLM at home

August 20, 2025
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. How churches use data and AI as engines of surveillance On a Sunday morning in a Midwestern megachurch, worshippers step through sliding glass doors into a bustling lobby—unaware they’ve just passed through a…

Finally, Notion now works without an internet connection

August 20, 2025
For years, one of the most annoying issues with using Notion was that you couldn’t get much done offline because of its cloud-first architecture. The company has finally solved that problem, adding support for an offline mode to its apps.

Material Cultures looks to the past to build the future

August 20, 2025
Despite decades of green certifications, better material sourcing, and the use of more sustainable materials such as mass timber, the built environment is still responsible for a third of global emissions worldwide. According to a 2024 UN report, the building sector has fallen “significantly behind on progress” toward becoming more sustainable. Changing the way we…