The Download: bad news for inner Neanderthals, and AI warfare’s human illusion

MIT Technology Review's daily digest surfaces two substantive editorial threads worth tracking. First, French geneticists have challenged the widely accepted Neanderthal interbreeding hypothesis, proposing that what looks like ancient cross-species DNA mixing may instead reflect population structure, the natural concentration of genes within isolated groups. If the alternative model holds, it would revise one of the most cited narratives in modern paleoanthropology without necessarily displacing the underlying data. Second, a contributor op-ed by Uri Maoz argues that Pentagon-mandated human oversight of AI weapons systems provides accountability in name only. The piece contends that human overseers cannot reliably interpret what AI systems are processing, making the 'human in the loop' standard a procedural shield rather than a genuine check. This framing is gaining traction as AI systems are reportedly involved in the conflict with Iran and as a legal dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon continues. Separately, the digest flags a Starlink outage that disrupted Navy drone tests, raising Pentagon exposure to single-vendor infrastructure risk at a moment when DoD is broadening commercial technology partnerships.