Quartz Weekend Brief—Automobiles redux, the biotech bubble, Muslim modernity, sewage love

Good morning, Quartz readers! Few products have had as big an impact on society over the past century as the car. Now, just when the automobile seems to finally beapproaching its decline, America’s most fêted corporate visionaries seem determined once again to reinvent it, or at least how it’s used. Evidence is mounting that Apple wants to develop an electric car. That would pit it against Tesla’s Elon Musk, who is trying to take zero-emissions electric vehicles mainstream. And then there’s Uber, cashed up and on a mission to “basically make car ownership a thing of the past” by making it easier to get one, with a driver, just when you need it. That these efforts come from America, land of the car, seems fitting. You could see them as Silicon Valley’s attempts to redeem the car—to show a new, environment-conscious generation that you can, as it were, have your car and eat it too. But whether that’s actually possible remains to be seen. Many question the economics behind Apple’s rumored move. Cars are a high-cost, low-margin business and the industry is highly competitive. If the company is indeed building one it may be motivated, at least in part, by the whims of its chief designer, Jony Ive, a car fanatic who is underwhelmed by existing vehicles. “There are some shocking cars on the road,” Ive told the New Yorker in a profile published this week. “One person’s car is another person’s scenery.” Musk is happy to wait years to turn a profit, and seems motivated at least as much by a desire to save the planet. At the moment, Wall Street seems happy to go along with him. As for Uber, its globally successful model has inspired an almost equally global backlash. The future of the car may be here, but for the future of the car business, we might have to wait a little longer.—John McDuling Five things on Quartz we especially liked The next bubble is the biotech bubble. Max Nisen explains why we should be concerned less about Snapchat or Uber than theskyrocketing valuations of biotech companies, many of which haven’t even produced a viable drug. If they crash, he writes, the consequences could be dire, denying patients life-saving treatments. Don’t get too excited about humans on the Red Planet. Mars One has picked 100 volunteers to start a Martian colony. But, as Tim Fernholz points out, they are unlikely to ever get off the ground, at least not on their current budget. And, as he wrote last year, how long they’dsurvive on Mars, or even on the way there, is another question. Angela Merkel’s mission to save the world. Jason Karaian and David Yanofsky map out the whirlwind itinerary of the German chancellor, who logged 17,500 miles (28,000 km) in the first two weeks of February, attending to the crises in Ukraine, Greece, and Iraq, visiting eight European cities and finding time to cross the Atlantic. A love letter to a sewage plant. Anne Quito went on a Valentine’s Day tour of a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility in Brooklyn, New York, and fell in love with it. What’s not to adore? It has award-winning design, offers great views, doesn’t smell all that bad, and is part of an exciting new environmental initiative. The confusing horned animal of the lunar New Year. Nikhil Sonnad delves into the linguistics of the debate about the nature of this year’s patron animal, according to the Chinese calendar. Are we in the year of the goat, sheep or ram? It’s not just an issue of translation; views vary in China as well. Five things elsewhere that made us smarter The transformative power of the photocopier. As we marvel at the magic and consider the perils of a 3D printer, let’s not forget a simpler machine that revolutionized the world, writes Clive Thompson at the Smithsonian Magazine. It changed the way knowledge traveled through a company, transformed publishing, and helped create whistleblowing. The brighter side of Silk Road. Sure, the so-called “eBay for drugs” is responsible for selling substances that ruin lives. But it could also be that selling drugs online reduces violence, says Aaron Sankin in a counterintuitive take at The Kernel on the trial of Silk Road’s founder, Ross Ulbright. A touchy subject in a new relationship. In a dispatch for The Globe and Mail from Havana, Craig Offman takes on an uncomfortable issue in newly restored US-Cuba relations: compensation for property that Castro and his rebels grabbed half a century ago. The Americans still plan to reclaim it, and the Cubans are not happy. Uberhackers are uncovered—and tied to the NSA. The Equation Group’s members are among the most sophisticated hackers in the world, demonstrating “almost superhuman technical feats,” writes Dan Goodin at Ars Technica. They may also have infected tens of thousands of computers with malware, and there’s is strong evidence that implicates the US National Security Agency in their actions. The West misunderstands Muslim modernity. In an exhaustive historical dive for the Guardian, Christopher de Bellaigue examines the relationship between Western notions of modernity and the Muslim world. It’s high time, he says, that non-Muslims stop telling Muslims to “catch up” and get with the times: They’ve been doing it for centuries. Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, industrial love letters, and photocopies tohi@qz.com. 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