The Most Important Question

Essay: What Would You Say You Do Here


Listen Later

This week:

Is what you’re working on important?

Plus: The cleanest produce, a mosquito factory, lots of rooftop solar, autonomous GPT, maybe, and the latest with the Colorado River

Here's What You Can Do:
  • ⚡️ Climate change and mental health are inextricably linked. Get some help with the Climate Mental Health Network.
  • ⚡️ Live in or own a multi-family building? Check out how BlocPower can help electrify it.
  • ⚡️ If you’re like “I wonder if my town or state has e-bike rebates”, here’s a Google Sheet with every known rebate in the country
  • ⚡️ Start a student alliance for tech ethics at your university with the Techshift Alliance.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

  • The countries with the highest rates of malaria deaths have approved Oxford’s new vaccine
  • Brazil built a massive mosquito factory — it’s not what you think
  • Our friends at Biobot Analytics have expanded their wastewater monitoring into norovirus outbreaks
  • Are we close to a combo flu and COVID vaccine?

Climate

  • Why SUV’s got so big, and so popular
  • Germany shut down their remaining operational nuclear plants for really no reason, but banned new gas and oil heating?
  • Elon’s Twitter could break disaster response
  • Jigar’s Energy Department committed $3 billion to rooftop solar access for those with lower credit scores

Food & Water

  • These are EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” in produce
  • Radical “seed breeding” could bring about more climate friendly crops
  • The Colorado River crisis didn’t have to be this way, but big meat made it this way
  • The massive batteries sloshing around beneath our feet

Beep Boop

  • OpenAI’s hunger for data might come back to bite them
  • State tech laws are starting to look like state marijuana laws
  • How Mexico became the biggest user of Pegasus spyware
  • Hype grows over “autonomous” GPT

COVID

  • The NIH spent $1 billion on Long COVID research. Where’d it go?
  • Ed Yong is back and asking why we’re so keen on erasing Long COVID

Get more:
  • Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
  • Got feedback? Email us at [email protected]
  • Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
  • Subscribe to our YouTube channel
  • Take a nap you deserve it

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The Most Important QuestionBy Important, Not Important

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