DTN 113: The Rare Earth Cold War

Plus: The organ-on-a-chip boom, first flight of a detonation rocket engine, breakthrough personalized CRISPR therapy, and more.

May 16, 2025

“The beauty of industrial investments is that they touch things people think are difficult. As such, they're much more defensible, especially in the age of agentic AI systems further lowering the barrier to the production of purely digital goods and services.”

“The future of everything from smartphones, to military equipment, to electric vehicles hangs on 17 rare earth minerals and the magnets that they’re made into. And China, the world’s largest refiner and producer, is tightening its grip and threatening the US’ largest automakers.

Over the last 30 years, China has methodically cornered the market on mining and refining rare earth minerals, which are used to produce a variety of common items like passenger vehicles and everyday electronics. In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive trade war, China is leveraging its position as the world’s largest producer, at the expense of the American auto industry.”

KJ Muldoon, a baby treated with a personalized gene-editing drug, relaxes with his parents and siblings.

Doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have successfully treated a baby, KJ Muldoon, with the world’s first personalized gene-editing drug designed to correct a deadly metabolic disorder caused by a single DNA mutation. The experimental therapy, developed in just seven months, used a cutting-edge technique called base editing to precisely rewrite a single DNA letter. The case highlights both the transformative potential of personalized gene editing and the challenges of making such treatments scalable and economically viable. (via MIT Technology Review)

What the hell are rare earth elements? / Why alien languages could be far stranger than we imagine Essays / E-COM: The $40M USPS project to send email on paper / Robot chefs take over at South Korea's highway restaurants, to mixed reviews / Harvard Law Paid $27 for a Copy of Magna Carta. It's an Original / An Under-Appreciated Threat from Airborne Attacks on Large Nuclear Power Plants / About as close to aliens as we’ll ever get.’ Can AI crack animal language? / French crypto sector in shock after wave of violent attacks / Beyond qubits: Meet the qutrit (and ququart) / Scientists in Mexico develop tortilla for people with no fridge / Residents of California town baffled by mysterious exploding birds / Seagrass bread as a food product of the future / How Did Geometry Create Modern Physics? / Indian police are trying to ‘read minds' of suspects, over neuroscientists' objections / Large Hadron Collider Physicists Turn Lead into Gold—For a Fraction of a Second / Your fingers wrinkle in the same pattern every time you're in the water for too long, study shows / Gabon longs to cash in on sacred hallucinogenic remedy / Universe expected to decay in 10⁷⁸ years, much sooner than previously thought / Elizabeth Holmes’ partner reportedly fundraising for new blood-testing startup / Could this be the end of menopause as we know it? / Why alien languages could be far stranger than we imagine