When people talk about “nature,” they’re generally talking about things that aren’t made by human beings. Rocks. Reefs. Red wolves. But while there is plenty of God’s creation to go around, it is hard to think of anything on Earth that human hands haven’t affected. In the Brazilian rainforest, sc...
“Pull over!” I order my brother one sunny February afternoon. Our target is in sight: a gaggle of Canada geese, pecking at grass near the dog park. As I approach, tiptoeing over their grayish-white poop, I notice that one bird wears a white cuff around its slender black neck. It’s a GPS tracker—p...
Isegye Idol If you thought K-pop was weird, virtual idols—humans who perform as anime-style digital characters via motion capture—will blow your mind. My favorite is a girl group called Isegye Idol, created by Woowakgood, a Korean VTuber (a streamer who likewise performs as a digital persona). Is...
Listen to the session or watch below Watch a special edition of Roundtables simulcast live from EmTech AI, MIT Technology Review’s signature conference for AI leadership. Subscribers got an exclusive first look at a new list capturing 10 key technologies, emerging trends, bold ideas, and powerful...
If you’ve been to an eye doctor and had an image taken of the inside of your eye, chances are good it was done with optical coherence tomography (OCT)—a technology invented by clinician-scientist David Huang ’85, SM ’89, PhD ’93, and now used in 40 million procedures per year. OCT is a noninvasi...
At MIT, AI has become so pervasive that you can almost find your way into it without meaning to. Take Sili Deng, an associate professor of mechanical engineering. Deng says she still doesn’t know whether she’d have gone all in on artificial intelligence had it not been for the covid pandemic. She...
Priority Technologies: Ensuring US Security and Shared ProsperityEdited by Elisabeth B. Reynolds, professor of the practice of urban studies and planning and former executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future MIT PRESS, 2026, $24.95 The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think...
A long stretch of humid heat followed by a powerful thunderstorm is a familiar weather pattern in the tropics, but it’s also becoming more common in midlatitude regions such as the US Midwest. A recent study by two MIT scientists identifies a key atmospheric condition that determines how hot, hum...
Heat generated by electronic devices is usually a problem, but a team led by Giuseppe Romano, a research scientist at MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, has found a way to use it for data processing that doesn’t rely on electricity. In this analog computing method, input data is encode...
Around 2.3 billion years ago, a pivotal period known as the Great Oxidation Event set the evolutionary course for oxygen-breathing life on Earth. But MIT geobiologists and colleagues have found evidence that some early forms of life evolved the ability to use oxygen hundreds of millions of years ...
How does the physical matter in our brains translate into thoughts, sensations, and emotions? It’s hard to explore that question without neurosurgery. But in a recent paper, MIT philosopher Matthias Michel, Lincoln Lab researcher Daniel Freeman, and colleagues outline a strategy for doing so with...
Embedded in the body’s mucosal surfaces, proteins called lectins bind to sugars found on cell surfaces. A team led by MIT chemistry professor Laura Kiessling has found that one such protein, intelectin-2, both helps fortify the mucosal barrier and offers broad-spectrum protection against harmful ...
Single-use plastics are a persistent source of environmental pollution, and the need to house a growing global population puts increasing pressure on resources such as timber. MIT engineers have an idea that could make a dent in both problems at once. In a recent study, a team led by mechanical e...
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. The noise we make is hurting animals. Can we learn to shut up? As human society has expanded, animals have started struggling to hear one another. For many bir...
In the past, even with an icebreaker and during peak melt season, getting to the North Pole wasn’t a sure bet. It took favorable winds to crack the frozen ocean surface, and ships had to fight through ice that had grown many meters thick over several winters. In the summer of 2025, though, Jochen...
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. No one’s sure if synthetic mirror life will kill us all In February 2019, a group of scientists proposed a high-risk, cutting-edge, irresistibly exciting idea ...
If you want to capture something wolflike, it’s best to embark before dawn. So on a morning this January, with the eastern horizon still pink-hued, I drove with two young scientists into a blanket of fog. Forty miles to the west, the industrial sprawl of Houston spawned a golden glow. Tanner Brou...
Tech workers in China are being instructed by their bosses to train AI agents to replace them—and it’s prompting a wave of soul-searching among otherwise enthusiastic early adopters. Earlier this month a GitHub project called Colleague Skill, which claimed workers could use it to “distill” their...
Ellie’s Pi Day post: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/pi-day-2026-food-institute/ How Ellie orchestrated the baking of 30 pies: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/behind-the-scenes-of-thirty-pies/
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. The problem with thinking you’re part Neanderthal There’s a theory that many of us have an “inner Neanderthal.” The idea is that Homo sapiens and a cousin spec...