DTN 131: AI-designed viruses

Plus: Space beer, crackdown on AI companionship, rescuing forgotten satellites, using vapes as web servers, locking nuclear waste in glass logs, and more.

September 19, 2025

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“We've had to redesign a ship from the keel up to make it fully autonomous. You can't have an engine shutoff valve that's literally a manual wheel like you'd use to turn off water in your basement. That doesn't work for software control.”

“Would the genomes proposed by the A.I. make any sense? To find out, the California researchers chemically printed 302 of the software’s genome designs as DNA strands, then mixed those with E. Coli bacteria. That led to a profound ‘A.I.-is-here’ moment when, one night, the scientists saw plaques of dead bacteria in their petri dishes. They later took microscope pictures of the tiny viral particles, which look like fuzzy dots.“That was pretty striking, just actually seeing, like, this AI-generated sphere,” says Brian Hie, who leads the lab at the Arc Institute where the work was carried out…Overall, 16 of the 302 designs ended up working—that is, the computer-designed phage started to replicate, eventually bursting through the bacteria and killing it.”

Israel's Iron Beam system is shown during a test. (Image: Israeli MoD)

In partnership with defense company RAFAEL, Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced they completed a series of key tests on the Iron Beam laser air defense system, which is expected to go into full deployment later this year. The Iron Beam System will be integrated into their existing Iron Dome and has the potential to “burn or fry objects” at a range of 10 km. The system has been optimized to deal with a variety of atmospheric conditions including fog and can handle numerous threats including rockets. (via Breaking Defense)

Do the oldest satellites in space need saving? / Code, matter, and living systems / The looming crackdown on AI companionship / Hard drive shortage intensifies as AI training data pushes lead times beyond 12 months / California to create first public wildfire model for insurance / Systematic fraud uncovered in mathematics publications / Massive Attack turns concert into facial recognition surveillance experiment / The rise of 'conspiracy physics' / PayPal to support Ethereum and Bitcoin / Hosting a website on a disposable vape / Anthropic irks White House with limits on models’ use / If we want bigger wind turbines, we're gonna need bigger airplanes / Denmark close to wiping out cancer-causing HPV strains after vaccine roll-out / 'Greenhushing' is a trend that leaves businesses downplaying their environmental wins / Brewery makes new beer from yeast launched in rocket / U.S. already has the critical minerals it needs, according to new analysis / Water vapor could cool your next iPhone / The sagrada família takes its final shape / You had no taste before AI / Mystery solved: Jackson Pollock used manganese blue in famous 1948 painting