Is Ginkgo’s synthetic biology story worth $15 billion?

The Taliban, not the West, won Afghanistan's technological war

The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Programmable biology 08.24.21 Good morning! Today we investigate whether genetic engineering company Ginkgo Bioworks is worth its $15 billion valuation, and look at how the Taliban got the technological upper hand in Afghanistan. If you enjoy the newsletter, please do consider sending a friend or two to sign up here to get The Download every day. Is Ginkgo’s synthetic biology story worth $15 billion?   The Boston genetic engineering company Ginkgo Bioworks is gearing up to begin trading as a public stock in September with a valuation of $15 billion. That valuation shows just how spectacularly successful its CEO, Jason Kelly, has been at selling a story: that synthetic biology will transform the manufacture of physical products. What computers did for information, Kelly says, biology will do for the physical world. The point is that biology can make just about anything. In Ginkgo’s hands biology would become programmable, revolutionary, and insanely lucrative, just like those famous tech products in the slide. Given Kelly’s spiel, it is surprising that 13 years after it was founded, Ginkgo can’t name a single significant product that is manufactured and sold using its organisms. To the company’s fans, that’s no problem. They say Ginkgo embodies the biggest trends in DNA science and surely will become the Intel, Microsoft, or Amazon of biology.  To skeptics, however, Ginkgo is a company with modest scientific achievements and little revenue, and its greatest talents lie in winning glowing press coverage and raising money. Read the full story. —Antonio Regalado The Taliban, not the West, won Afghanistan’s technological war The big picture: Wars are usually won by the side that is the most technologically advanced. But Afghanistan is different. There has been technological progress—the evolution of drone warfare, for example. But the technological advances that have taken place during the 20 years of conflict have actually helped the Taliban more than the West. Sophistication: The Taliban began this war with AK-47s and other simple, conventional weapons, but today they have harnessed mobile telephony and the internet—not just to improve their weapons and their command-and-control systems, but even more crucially, to carry out their strategic communications and their influence operations. They have developed a sophisticated public affairs team, harnessing social media domestically and abroad. The lessons: Technology is not a driver of conflict, nor a guarantor of victory. Instead, it is an enabler. And even rudimentary weapons can carry the day in the hands of motivated, patient humans fighting an existential battle. Read the full story. By Christopher Ankersen, clinical associate professor of global affairs at New York University, and Mike Martin, a Pushtu-speaking former British army officer who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, and is now a visiting war studies fellow at King’s College London. 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.)   + Surely one of the best venn diagrams ever made.   + Isolation sucks. This charming cartoon offers some advice on how to make it more bearable.    + Totally mesmerizing fractal art.   + The most beautiful towns in America.   + That's a slide worthy of James Brown.   + Now there's a dog that knows exactly what it wants.    + Thanks Anna for this amazing historical artifact: a vest of chain mail dating back to when the Normans invaded Ireland over 800 years ago. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The FDA has fully approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine 💉 It'll now be marketed as... Comirnaty (see the quote at the bottom of this list). (Gizmodo)    + Don't panic about the hospitalization data coming out of Israel. (Covid Data Science)   + We will eventually learn to live with covid. (The Atlantic $)   + Cases are rising rapidly in New Zealand. (The Guardian)  2 A homegrown app is helping Kabul residents to avoid danger It relies on ground-level reports from a vetted team of users to a private WhatsApp group. (Ars Technica)   3 Why we should pay attention to China's digital yuan This is much more than a centralized digital currency. It's also a potential tool for control and dominance. (Wired UK)   4 The Facebook group that's winning over vaccine skeptics    Vaccine Talk now has nearly 70,000 members, and their efforts couldn't be more urgent. (WP $)   + How to talk to vaccine-hesitant people. (TR)  5 AI could be used to spot art forgeries 🖼️ One model could distinguish Rembrandt from his imitators with an accuracy of over 90%. (IEEE Spectrum)    + AI can write in English (sort of). Now work is underway to teach it other languages. (Wired $)   6 How to mentally prepare for a disaster You need plenty of empathy, including for yourself. (Wired $)   7 We need robots to be jerks sometimes 🤖 It simply isn't good for us to be surrounded by endless subservience. (Slate $)   + Don’t overthink it: Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot is a joke. (The Verge)   8 The farmers market is moving online  This makes so much sense—but it's incredibly tricky to get right. (The Verge)   9 What an adult tricycle can tell us about the world's supply chain problems Everything is very interlinked, and very fragile. (NYT $)   10 Somebody just spent $1.3 million on a picture of a rock Perhaps this is the universe's way of telling you that you have too much money (or not enough sense.) (CNBC) Immerse yourself in bold thinking and innovation at EmTech MIT. Join us to get critical, ahead-of-the-curve knowledge and actionable insights on the breakthrough technologies fundamentally changing how business is done. Purchase your ticket today. Quote of the day “I feel like the brainstorm session that came up with the name ‘Comirnaty’ either ended too soon or went on way too long.” —Seattle pulmonologist Nick Mark joined many others online in mercilessly mocking the new name for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the Washington Post reports. Top image credit: Ms Tech Please send chain mail 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 today Leading with Innovation. Join us virtually September 28-30. Register now Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142   Subscription Information This email was sent to Webmaster220 Bible Study Blog  *the blog owner has deleted the hyperlink intentionally