Inside Singapore’s huge bet on vertical farming

A man caught coronavirus twice—and it was worse the second time

Sponsored by DX Healthcare The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology 10.13.20 Good morning! Today: Singapore is betting big on vertical farming, and a man caught coronavirus twice—and it was worse the second time. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. Inside Singapore’s huge bet on vertical farming   From the outside, VertiVegies looked like a handful of grubby shipping containers put side by side and drilled together. But inside, Ankesh Shahra saw potential.   Here, mismatched plastic trays sat carefully stacked on industrial metal shelves, stretching all the way from the concrete floor to the corrugated-steel ceiling. In each tray were small green plants of different species and sizes, all with their roots bathed in the same watery solution, their leaves curling up toward the same pink glow of faintly humming LED bar lights above.   With VertiVegies, Sekaran was farming vertically: growing vegetables indoors, with towers of crops stacked one on the other instead of in wide, sprawling fields, and in hydroponic solution instead of soil. He was growing food without exposure to weather or seasons, using techniques pioneered by others, in a country that was badly in need of a new way to meet its food needs.  Singapore is the third most densely populated country in the world, known for its tightly packed high-rises. But to cram all those gleaming towers and nearly 6 million people into a land mass half the size of Los Angeles, it has sacrificed many things, including food production. Farms make up no more than 1% of its total land (in the United States it’s 40%), forcing the small city-state to shell out around $10 billion each year importing 90% of its food.  Here was an example of technology that could change all that. Read the full story. —Megan Tatum   A man caught coronavirus twice—and it was worse the second time The news: A man in the US caught covid-19 for a second time in the space of just two months, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. That makes him the fifth person to have officially caught the coronavirus twice, after cases recorded in Hong Kong, Belgium, Ecuador, and the Netherlands (although there will certainly be more cases we don't know about.) However, what’s remarkable about his case is that he had had a worse bout of illness the second time round. There’s only one other recorded instance where this has happened—the case in Ecuador. The significance: Being infected once does not mean you’re protected from being infected again, even if such cases are still vanishingly rare, with just five identified out of nearly 40 million confirmed cases worldwide. That means people who have had covid-19 once already still need to stay vigilant, following the advice on social distancing, wearing face masks, and avoiding crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. Read the full story.  We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + A Japanese desk tent is not the solution to any of your problems, but enjoy learning about it anyway.   + Missing your colleagues? Here’s what you can do about it. (NYT $)   + Imagine just casually popping over to tell your neighbor they’ve won a Nobel Prize.   + A quokka being baffled by some juggling.   + Meet Milo, the dog that loves butterflies.    + An Instagram account dedicated to high school yearbooks.    + There’s something so innately relaxing about a cat’s purr.   + How Eddie van Halen hacked his guitars. Sponsor Message Digital technologies and strategy; reshaping BFSI and the customer experience Join Dave Wilner from Auth0 at the IQPC Virtual #DXTBFSI Exchange, discussing IAM as a Catalyst for Digital Transformation at this invitation-only virtual experience. This is an opportunity to cross pollinate best practices during these unprecedented times, while gaining valuable insights and solutions from recognized thought leaders in Banking, Finance and Insurance, including CIO 100 honoree Paul Algreen. Engage in thoughtful discussion in our peer-to-peer networking sessions and benchmark solutions with leading providers.  Download Paul Algreen’s Q&A and join the conversation. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.  1 How to stop the second wave from becoming a tsunami Measures like mass mask-wearing, contact tracing, clear public health communication, and good ventilation would go a long way. (The Atlantic)    + Iran has shattered its single-day record for deaths and infections for the second day in a row. (AP)   + The Chinese city Qingdao is testing all nine million residents for covid-19 (and it’ll take less than a week.) (BBC)   + The UK has a new system of tiered lockdown rules. (CNBC)   + Will targeted lockdowns in New York stop infections from rising? (Wired $)  2 Facebook has banned Holocaust denial A real “wait, that wasn’t already the policy?!” moment. (WSJ $)   + Misinformation on Facebook is more popular now than it was in 2016. (NYT $)   + Facebook has donated $1.3 million to keep a UK WWII code-breaking center open. (The Verge)   + Militant groups in Michigan just returned with different names after they were booted off Facebook. (Buzzfeed)   + Twitter is labeling false claims by Trump on covid-19, while Facebook does nothing. (CNN)  3 Facial recognition is being woven into everyday life in Singapore Its government is exempt from data privacy laws which seems… bad. (NBC)   4 The hunt for a super-antibody against the coronavirus 🔎 If it works, it would not only protect against covid-19 but all coronaviruses. (NYT $)   + Why we should be optimistic for the future. (NYT $)   + Johnson & Johnson had to pause its vaccine study. (Stat)   + China has joined a global vaccine subsidy initiative (the US and Russia still refuse.) (Axios)  5 AI is being unleashed on battery development 🔋 And that could be promising news for combating climate change. (Wired $)   6 Governments still want tech companies to build encryption backdoors And it’s still a bad idea. (ZDNet)   7 China’s digital yuan has arrived Here’s a glimpse at what it’s like. (Quartz)   8 Clear already conquered US airports by letting you skip the line Now it wants to own your entire digital identity. (OneZero)    9 Jetpacks are here, finally But what—and who—are they for? (Wired UK)   10 Russian space Twitter is getting seriously spicy 🍿 Two cosmonauts criticized the country’s space program. Its leader responded by calling them both drunks. (Ars Technica) Next week, prepare to lead with innovation at EmTech MIT. Our annual flagship event on emerging technology and trends is going online. Join us as we examine the technology driving and the forces influencing our digital world: AI, biomedicine, cybersecurity, diversity, equality, global-scale technology, and more. Register now. Take a stand “It has not yet dawned on hardly anybody the amount of complexity and chaos and confusion that will happen in a few short months.” —Dr Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic, tells the New York Times that next year people may be able to pick from several vaccines, none of them able to magically end the pandemic. Top image credit: ZAKARIA ZAINAL Please send confused quokkas to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free From prevention to response Join us online | December 2-3, 2020 Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Want to change how you receive these emails? 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