How poop could help feed the planet

January 3, 2025
A new industrial facility in suburban Seattle is giving off a whiff of futuristic technology. It can safely treat fecal waste from people and livestock while recycling nutrients that are crucial for agriculture but in increasingly short supply across the nation’s farmlands.  Within the 2.3-acre plant, which smells lightly of ammonia, giant rotating spindles turn…

Jobs of the future: Stool bank manager

January 3, 2025
Each year, about half a million Americans are diagnosed with Clostridioides difficile, a common bacterial infection of the large intestine. Only some patients respond to antibiotics. Infection recurs in about 20% of patients and proves fatal in about 30,000 cases annually.  But there is a highly effective, albeit unconventional, treatment: fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), which…

The Download: AI flops, and what the year ahead holds for EVs

January 2, 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. The biggest AI flops of 2024 The past 12 months have been undeniably busy for those working in AI. There have been more successful product launches than we can count, and even Nobel…