MIT Technology Review’s The Download surveys embryo selection and carbon removal

MIT Technology Review’s The Download surveys embryo selection and carbon removal

MIT Technology Review published this edition of The Download on October 16, 2025. In its newsletter, Julia Black describes a field using cell analysis to predict what traits an embryo might develop. Some parents seek to avoid inherited genetic disorders; others pay to select for intelligence, appearance, or personality. Black warns that customers may not get what they pay for, and calls the effort an ethical mess. Casey Crownhart points to James Temple’s account of potential problems with bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), a technology Microsoft is betting on to remove carbon pollution. The newsletter says some concerns echo problems with carbon offsets and alternative jet fuels, but does not detail them here. The edition also says Fervo Energy uses fracking techniques to create geothermal reservoirs, and that India’s underinvestment in research and development, institutions, and invention has contributed to its lag in homegrown AI. It presents DeepSeek-R1’s performance against global peers as a prompt for Indian policymakers to confront that gap. These are newsletter summaries linking to fuller stories; the evidence here does not provide their underlying reporting or establish what the technologies deliver in practice.

Publication: c04451ca-2825-6062-d67f-00377a87f218

attribution — pass: This is one newsletter issue commenting on stories in its own words, not a bare listing. The embryo item is signed Julia Black, and the BECCS item is signed Casey Crownhart, who cites James Temple's story. The reading attributes claims to the newsletter or the signed writers and does not present them as established fact.

But there are a few potential problems with BECCS, as my colleague James Temple laid out in a new story.

summary — pass: The reading faithfully covers the main items: embryo prediction tests and the ethical-mess framing, BECCS (spelled out) and Microsoft's bet, Fervo's fracking-based geothermal, and India's AI gap. It does not overstate what the technologies achieve. DeepSeek-R1 could be identified as a Chinese startup's open-source model, but that is a minor point, not a barrier to understanding. The question follows directly from the source's warning about customers.

An emerging field of science is seeking to use cell analysis to predict what kind of a person an embryo might eventually become.

date — pass: originalPublished is 2025-10-16T12:10Z, and the reading states October 16, 2025, matching the UTC day. The Deep Dive sidebar lists items that may have been added later, such as the 377 math findings and the 22-nation call for a global AI body. The reading neither uses nor relies on them. The evidence is a publisher page, so no archive disclosure is needed, and nothing is framed with hindsight.

support — pass: Each claim matches its quoted source text. The limitations correctly note that the newsletter does not detail the BECCS problems or provide evidence about embryo-test accuracy. No benefits, costs or outcomes are invented.

Tech giants like Microsoft are betting big on one technology: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

media — pass: No media was selected and no verified candidates were supplied, so leaving the media empty is appropriate.