Our best illustrations of 2021

From the MIT Technology Review art team, here are some of our very favorite illustrations of the year:

An E. coli biocomputer solves a maze by sharing the workANDREA CHRONOPOULOSEight ways scientists are unwrapping the mysteries of the human brainNHUNG LEGeoffrey Hinton has a hunch about what's next for AIKIEL MUTSCHELKNAUSThe food issueThe change issue

3 space science questions that computing is helping to answerDANIEL ZENDERStartups are racing to reproduce breast milk in the labAMRITA MARINOA horrifying new AI app swaps women into porn videos with a clickPEDRO NEKOIFiction: Dark spaces on the mapILLUSTRATIONS BY JOAN WONGGene editing has made pigs immune to a deadly epidemicSELMAN DESIGNWhy Facebook is using Ray-Ban to stake a claim on our facesSELMAN DESIGNTechnology can help us feed the world, if we look beyond profitPABLO DELCANMeet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley's latest wild bet on living foreverALAMY, GETTY (BEZOS)How to build freestanding public restrooms that are clean and safeJULIAN GLANDERNetflix v. Modi and the battle for Indian cinema's soulMAX-O-MATICIs everything in the world a little bit conscious?Decoding the CRISPR-baby stories

We're on track to set a new record for global meat consumptionMS TECH | PEXELSDeepfake porn is ruining women's lives. Now the law may finally ban it.FRANZISKA BARCZYK