Is it ever okay to jump the vaccine queue?

We're living in a golden age of sample return missions

Sponsored by Salesforce The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Vaccine queue-jumping ethics 02.02.21 Good morning! Today: can you ever justify jumping the vaccine queue? And a preview of the exciting sample return missions we can expect this decade. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. Is it ever okay to jump the vaccine queue?   By Wudan Yan, a freelance journalist in Seattle. Around 10 p.m. last Thursday, I received a call from a friend. She told me that a friend of a friend—a healthcare worker who was distributing covid-19 vaccines that evening—was looking for people who wanted one. It was a Moderna vaccine that had been taken out of deep freeze, meaning it needed to get into people’s arms within a matter of hours. I live in Seattle where the vaccine rollout, like in the rest of the US, has been chaotic. The state had just expanded to vaccinating everyone age 65 and older. Although the hospital staff was trying to call those who had priority, most of them were elderly would probably be asleep by then, so they were also creating a backup list.  I quickly went through the ethical gymnastics in my head. Under ordinary circumstances, would I be taking away someone else’s dose? Yes – those 1,600 doses were meant for someone else. Do I have a moral obligation to protect others in my community by being one more person who was immunized? Absolutely – and others argue that it’s better for someone to be vaccinated out of phase than for doses to go to waste. If you decline, there’s no guarantee it will be given to someone of higher priority than you. Worse, it might be thrown out.  I said yes. But there has to be a better, fairer way to distribute spare doses. Read the full story. We’re living in a golden age of sample return missions Unlocking mysteries: The biggest questions in space science—how the solar system formed, how it led to life on Earth, and whether there’s ever been life on other nearby worlds—can really only be answered with direct study of the materials from those worlds. And that means grabbing a sample to study back home on Earth. Last year was a big one for so-called sample return missions, but the most exciting ones are still to come. What's planned: In just a few weeks the Perseverance Rover will land on Mars to explore the landscape for evidence of ancient (or present) life. This includes collecting samples for return to Earth at a later date. China is expected to deliver more moon rocks to Earth in 2023, and Russia will do the same in 2027. Japan will visit the Martian moon Phobos with plans to collect material and return it to Earth in 2029.  Why now: The launches themselves are cheaper, as is the hardware needed. Instruments are smaller, more resilient, and use less power. Autonomous technology has progressed hugely. And engineers are also coming up with more novel ideas for how to actually collect and store these samples. Read the full story.  —Neel V. Patel 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.)   + PANDAS IN THE SNOW.   + Beautiful shots of Scotland.  + Learning about a truer version of Dubai through chai.    + An ode to Claudia Roden's Jewish food bible.    + One for the math geeks… a self-righting shape called a Gömböc.   + In the mood for some art? Checking out this virtual exhibition from Somerset House exploring our current times, and this project on the potential for AI/human collaboration for positive purposes. Sponsor Message The Green Future Index 2021 The Green Future Index is a ranking of 76 leading countries and territories on their progress and commitment toward building a low carbon future. It measures the degree to which their economies are pivoting toward clean energy, industry, agriculture, and society through investment in renewables, innovation, and green finance. Experience the interactive index now. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 To stop the spread of the coronavirus, focus on fresh air I've said this many times, but it's such an important message it bears repeating. (Nature)   + The UK variant has mutated again. (BBC)   + A potential explanation for long covid: it turns the body against itself. (NYT $)   + The WHO is getting sick of conspiracies. (Ars Technica)  2 Which groups should the UK vaccinate next? 💉 It's not as simple as just going by age. (Wired UK)   +  Israel's vaccine rollout has been linked to a drop in cases. (BBC)   + One vaccine dose might be enough for people who've already had covid-19. (The Telegraph $)   + Part of the reason the UK is doing well on vaccines? Its health minister watched Contagion. (Sky)  3 The Russian hack is messing with the US court system  Sensitive documents now have to be printed out and hand-delivered instead of filed electronically. (AP)   4 The GameStop saga is becoming a movie 🎥 This feels inevitable. (Quartz)   + Robinhood had to raise another $2.4 billion. (WSJ $)  5 How Biden can address the US reality crisis In short, make reality something worth coming back to. (NYT $)   + How we got into this mess. (Mother Jones)   + There's no evidence of anti-conservative bias on social media. (The Verge)   + How rabid partisanship became the order of the day on Facebook. (WSJ $)  6 Megacities are in trouble  The future of the work could be bad news for major population hubs. (The Atlantic)   + But urban collapse is not inevitable. (The Atlantic)  7 The rise and fall of a cryptocurrency project in Argentina Around the world, crypto-idealism has rarely survived contact with reality. (Rest of World)   8 Sorry, you can't use these tech designs. They're all patented. It's truly a minefield out there. (OneZero $)   9 Clubhouse's stock is surging. No, not that Clubhouse. The Elon Musk effect strikes again. (FT $)   + Musk says he's wired up a monkey's brain to play video games. (Bloomberg $)   10 A TV show is resurrecting a South Korean singer's voice with AI 🎤 This is a bit of a moral minefield. (Reuters) AI implementation is hard. Be one of the few who get it right.  Join us at EmTech Digital, our annual event entirely focused on artificial intelligence, to learn how to make AI work for your business. Learn more. Quote of the day “The world should not be like this.” —A former engineer at Chinese tech company Pinduoduo explains why he protested against the intense working conditions at the company, the New York Times reports.  Top image credit: Getty Please send Gömböcs 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 Intelligent computing Join us virtually | February 10-11, 2021   Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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