Climate Tech Pivots to Critical Minerals as Online Safety Faces Legal Battles

Tech researchers are suing the Trump administration over the future of online safety. For months, the Trump administration has been going after researchers who study and try to counter hate speech, harassment, propaganda, and disinformation online. Now, some of those researchers are fighting back, seeking to strike down a visa restriction policy against "foreign officials and other persons" announced last year by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They say the policy violates the speech and due process rights of foreign-born workers whose "work supports greater moderation of content on the [tech] platforms."

Meanwhile, climate tech companies are finding ways to survive and even thrive in this new environment, including by looking beyond decarbonization. One example is Boston Metal, a startup that has raised a $75 million round to produce critical metals. The company is best known for its efforts to clean up steel production, an industry that's responsible for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But the new focus and fresh funds could help it survive a period of waning support for industrial decarbonization.

The idea that many of us have an "inner Neanderthal" has been called into question by a pair of French geneticists. They proposed that what scientists interpret as interbreeding could instead be explained by population structure—the way genes concentrate in smaller, isolated groups. This challenges the 21st century's most celebrated discovery in human evolution.

Additionally, the idea of "humans in the loop" when it comes to AI warfare is a comforting distraction. The real danger isn't that machines will act without oversight; it's that human overseers have no idea what the machines are actually "thinking." Thankfully, science may offer a way forward to address the urgent need for new safeguards around AI warfare.