The Download: worms fight pollution, and geoengineering faces reality

This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake through a bed of dark, wet wood chips to reveal a half-dozen squirming red earthworms. There are likely hundreds of thousands more wriggling just under the surface.

The worms and microbes are part of a “vermifiltration” system that cleans manure wastewater. The approach may dramatically cut methane, nitrous oxide, and water pollution.

Vermifiltration is just one of a variety of methods that farmers, companies, and scientists are employing to drive down manure pollution as the livestock industry faces growing pressure to address the environmental harms from one of the smelliest parts of the business.

Explore how the humble earthworm could reshape the future of sustainable farming .

Solar geoengineering, the controversial idea that we could deliberately intervene in the climate system to counteract global warming, is moving beyond computer simulations and into the practical engineering challenges required to make it real.

Researchers are now working on aircraft, materials, and other systems for solar geoengineering. But as they delve into these details, they’re finding that even early deployment would require significant new infrastructure, time, and investment .

This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts . Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The Trump administration has lifted restrictions on OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 The green light came after additional testing and meetings. ( Axios ) + OpenAI subsequently said it will launch widely tomorrow. ( Bloomberg $) + The rollout had been delayed due to security concerns. ( Verge ) + Does AI know too much? ( MIT Technology Review ) 2 China is looking at curbing overseas access to its top AI models Alibaba, ByteDance, and Z.ai attended meetings about the plan. ( Reuters $) + Beijing is also weighing the security risks of open-weight AI. ( SCMP ) + And has issued a “backdoor” security alert over Claude Code. ( CNBC ) 3 European NATO allies have unveiled a $50 billion high-tech missile plan They will engineer stealth and high-speed hypersonic weapons. ( BBC ) + Which can strike targets at least 300 km away. ( Reuters $) + The Dutch and British are also developing amphibious ships. ( Bloomberg $) 4 Meta is testing “super sensing” AI glasses that record every moment It plans to disable privacy LEDs that alert people when they’re “on.” ( FT $) + It’s also released an AI image generator. ( NYT $) + Which lets anyone use your Instagram photos in AI images . ( Wired $) 5 China’s DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip, sources say It could reduce the company’s reliance on Nvidia and Huawei. ( Bloomberg $) + DeepSeek V4 was a win for Chinese chipmakers. ( MIT Technology Review ) 6 Wikipedia is fighting to survive the internet’s next era It’s under attack from MAGA, AI raids, and repressive regimes. ( NYT $) + AI has given Wikipedia a language problem. ( MIT Technology Review ) 7 SpaceX plans to launch its first model coproduced with Cursor The new frontier model could arrive as soon as this week. ( Information $) + It’s built with AI startup Cursor, which SpaceX is buying for $60 billion. ( FT $) 8 A new academic “humanizer” tool can erase signs of AI-written text But researchers are very divided over its potential impact. ( Nature $) 9 Scientists have detected a mystery chemical on Pluto and Titan It appears to absorb light in a way we don’t currently understand. ( Wired $) 10 A Waymo robotaxi reportedly called the cops on drinking teens Officers then approached the vehicle with guns drawn. ( 404 Media )