This is todays edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of whats going on in the world of technology.Whats next for carbon removal?After years of growth that spawned hundreds of startups, the nascent carbon removal sector appears to be facing a reckoning.Running Tide, a promising aquaculture company, shut down its operations last summer, and a handful of other companies have shuttered, downsized, or pivoted in recent months as well. Venture investments have flagged. And the collective industry hasnt made a whole lot more progress toward Running Tides ambitious plans to sequester a billion tons of carbon dioxide by this year.The hype phase is over and the sector is sliding into the turbulent business trough that follows, experts warn.And the open question is: If the carbon removal sector is heading into a painful if inevitable clearing-out cycle, where will it go from there? Read the full story.James TempleThis story is part of MIT Technology Reviews Whats Next series, which looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.An AI app to measure pain is hereThis week Ive also been wondering how science and technology can help answer that questionespecially when it comes to pain.In the latest issue of MIT Technology Reviews print magazine, Deena Mousa describes how an AI-powered smartphone app is being used to assess how much pain a person is in.The app, and other tools like it, could help doctors and caregivers. They could be especially useful in the care of people who arent able to tell others how they are feeling.But they are far from perfect. And they open up all kinds of thorny questions about how we experience, communicate, and even treat pain. Read the full story.Jessica HamzelouThis article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Reviews weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.The must-readsIve combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.1 Metas lawyers advised workers to remove parts of its teen mental health researchIts counsel told researchers to block or update their work to reduce legal liability. (Bloomberg $)+ Meta recently laid off more than 100 staff tasked with monitoring risks to user privacy. (NYT $)2 Donald Trump has pardoned the convicted Binance founderChangpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to violating US money laundering laws in 2023. (WSJ $)+ The move is likely to enable Binance to resume operating in the US. (CNN)+ Trump has vowed to be more crypto-friendly than the Biden administration. (Axios)3 Anthropic and Google Cloud have signed a major chips dealThe agreement is worth tens of billions of dollars. (FT $)4 Microsoft doesnt want you to talk dirty to its AIItll leave that kind of thing to OpenAI, thank you very much. (CNBC)+ Copilot now has its own version of Clippyjust dont try to get erotic with it. (The Verge)+ Its pretty easy to get DeepSeek to talk dirty, however. (MIT Technology Review)5 Big Tech is footing the bill for Trumps White House ballroomStand up Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. (TechCrunch)+ Crypto twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are also among the donors. (CNN)6 US investigators have busted a series of high-tech gambling schemesInvolving specially-designed contact lenses and x-ray tables. (NYT $)+ The case follows insider bets on basketball and poker games rigged by the mafia. (BBC)+ Automatic card shufflers can be compromised, too. (Wired $)7 Deepfake harassment tools are easily accessible on social mediaAnd simple web searches. (404 Media)+ Bans on deepfakes take us only so farheres what we really need. (MIT Technology Review)8 How algorithms can drive up prices onlineEven benign algorithms can sometimes yield bad outcomes for buyers. (Quanta Magazine)+ When AIs bargain, a less advanced agent could cost you. (MIT Technology Review)9 How to give an LLM brain rotTrain it on short superficial posts from X, for a start. (Ars Technica)+ AI trained on AI garbage spits out AI garbage. (MIT Technology Review)10 Meet the tech workers using AI as little as possibleIn a bid to keep their skills sharp. (WP $)+ This professor thinks there are other ways to teach people how to learn. (The Atlantic $)Quote of the dayHe was convicted. Hes not innocent.Republican Senator Thom Tillis criticises Donald Trumps decision to pardon convicted cryptocurrency mogul Changpeng Zhao, Politico reports.One more thingWeve never understood how hunger works. That might be about to change.When youre starving, hunger is like a demon. It awakens the most ancient and primitive parts of the brain, then commandeers other neural machinery to do its bidding until it gets what it wants.Although scientists have had some success in stimulating hunger in mice, we still dont really understand how the impulse to eat works. Now, some experts are following known parts of the neural hunger circuits into uncharted parts of the brain to try and find out.Their work could shed new light on the factors that have caused the number of overweight adults worldwide to skyrocket in recent years. And it could also help solve the mysteries around how and why a new class of weight-loss drugs seems to work so well. Read the full story.Adam PioreWe can still have nice thingsA place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet em at me.)+ Middle aged men are getting into cliff-jumping. Should you?+ Pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies sounds like a great idea to me.+ Christmas Islands crabs are on the move! + Watch out if youre taking the NY subway today: you might bump into these terrifying witches.