MIT Technology Review

Ahead of abortion access, ahead of immigration, and way ahead of climate change, US voters under 30 are most concerned about one issue: housing affordability. And it's not just young voters who are identifying soaring rents and eye-watering home sale prices as among their top worries. For the first time in recent memory, the cost...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The arrhythmia of our current age Arrhythmia means the heart beats, but not in proper time-a critical rhythm of life suddenly going rogue and unpredictable. It's frightening to experience, but what if it's...

It turns out that you don't need to be a scientist to encode data in DNA. Researchers have been working on DNA-based data storage for decades, but a new template-based method inspired by our cells' chemical processes is easy enough for even nonscientists to practice. The technique could pave the way for an unusual but...

Thumpa-thumpa, thumpa-thumpa, bump, thumpa, skip, thumpa-thump, pause ... My heart wasn't supposed to be beating like this. Way too fast, with bumps, pauses, and skips. On my smart watch, my pulse was topping out at 210 beats per minute and jumping every which way as my chest tightened. Was I having a heart attack? The...

A few years ago, I had to make one of the biggest decisions of my life: continue as a professor at the University of Melbourne or move to another part of the world to help build a brand new university focused entirely on artificial intelligence. With the rapid development we have seen in AI over...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Exosomes are touted as a trendy cure-all. We don't know if they work. There's a trendy new cure-all in town-you might have seen ads pop up on social media or read rave reviews...

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. War is a catalyst for change, an expert in AI and warfare told me in 2022. At the time, the war in Ukraine had just started, and themilitary AI business was...

There's a trendy new cure-all in town-you might have seen ads pop up on social media or read rave reviews in beauty magazines. Exosomes are being touted as a miraculous treatment for hair loss, aging skin, acne, eczema, pain conditions, long covid, and even neurological diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. That's, of course, if you...

Generative AI could account for up to 5 million metric tons of e-waste by 2030, according to a new study. That's a relatively small fraction of the current global total of over 60 million metric tons of e-waste each year. However, it's still a significant part of a growing problem, experts warn. E-waste is the...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Palmer Luckey on the Pentagon's future of mixed reality Palmer Luckey has, in some ways, come full circle. His first experience with virtual-reality headsets was as a teenage lab technician at a defense...

Palmer Luckey has, in some ways, come full circle. His first experience with virtual-reality headsets was as a teenage lab technician at a defense research center in Southern California, studying their potential to curb PTSD symptoms in veterans. He then built Oculus, sold it to Facebook for $2 billion, left Facebook after a highly public...

The US has a major problem with education inequality. Children from low-income families are less likely to receive high-quality education, partly because poorer districts struggle to retain experienced teachers. Artificial intelligence could help, by improving the one-on-one tutoring sometimes used to supplement class instruction in these schools. With help from an AI tool, tutors could...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How Wayve's driverless cars will meet one of their biggest challenges yet The UK driverless-car startup Wayve is headed west. The firm's cars learned to drive on the streets of London. But Wayve...

This new AI technology-it's very interesting to learn how it works and understand it more," says 10-year-old Luca, a young AI model maker. Luca is one of the first kids to try Little Language Models, a new application from Manuj and Shruti Dhariwal, two PhD researchers at MIT's Media Lab, that helps children understand how...

Mission-critical digital transformation projects too often end with a whimper rather than a bang. An estimated three-quarters of corporate transformation efforts fail to deliver their intended return on investment. Given the rapidly evolving technology landscape, companies often struggle to deliver short-term results while simultaneously reinventing the organization and keeping the business running day-to-day. Post-implementation, some...

Generative AI has the power to surprise in a way that few other technologies can. Sometimes that's a very good thing; other times, not so good. In theory, as generative AI improves, this issue should become less important. However, in reality, as generative AI becomes more human" it can begin to turn sinister and unsettling,...

The UK driverless-car startup Wayve is headed west. The firm's cars learned to drive on the streets of London. But Wayve has announced that it will begin testing its tech in and around San Francisco as well. And that brings a new challenge: Its AI will need to switch from driving on the left to...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Introducing: The AI Hype Index There's no denying that the AI industry moves fast. Each week brings a bold new announcement, product release, or lofty claim that pushes the bounds of what we...

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review's weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. As a climate reporter, I'm all too aware of the greenhouse-gas emissions that come from food production. And yet, I'm not a vegan, and I do enjoy a good cheeseburger (at least...

Google DeepMind has developed a tool for identifying AI-generated text and is making it available open source. The tool, called SynthID, is part of a larger family of watermarking tools for generative AI outputs. The company unveiled a watermark for images last year, and it has since rolled out one for AI-generated video. In May,...

In his quest to understand the hermit crab housing market, biologist Mark Laidre of Dartmouth College had to get creative. Crabs are always looking to move into a bigger, better shell, but having really nice digs also comes with risks. Sometimes crabs gang up to pull an inhabitant out of an especially desirable shell. If...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Introducing: the Food issue What are we going to eat? It is the eternal question. We humans have been asking ourselves this for as long as we have been human. The question itself...

There's no denying that the AI industry moves fast. Each week brings a bold new announcement, product release, or lofty claim that pushes the bounds of what we previously thought was possible. Separating AI fact from hyped-up fiction isn't always easy. That's why we've created the AI Hype Index-a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you...

Under a slice-of-heaven sky, 150 acres of rolling green hills stretch off into the distance. About a dozen people-tree enthusiasts, conservationists, research biologists, biotech entrepreneurs, and a venture capitalist in long socks and a floppy hat-have driven to this rural spot in New York state on a perfect late-July day. We are here to see...

In the 1960s, Norman Borlaug, an American biologist, helped spark a period of transformative agricultural innovation known as the Green Revolution by selectively breeding a grain-packed, dwarf variety of wheat. (He would win a Nobel Peace Prize for this work.) In Asia, the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) had similar success with rice. By...

What are we going to eat? It is the eternal question. We humans have been asking ourselves this for as long as we have been human. The question itself can be tedious, exciting, urgent, or desperate, depending on who is asking and where. There are many parts of the world where there is no answer....

A metronome ticks. A record spins. And as a feel-good pop track plays, a giant compactor slowly crushes a Jenga tower of material creations. Paint cans burst. Chess pieces topple. Camera lenses shatter. An alarm clock shrills and then goes silent. A guitar neck snaps. Even a toy emoji is not spared, its eyes popping...

Collagen, a protein prevalent in bones and connective tissue, has been discovered in dinosaur fossils as old as 195 million years-even though the normal half-life of the peptide bonds that hold proteins together is about 500 years. A new study from MIT offers an explanation for collagen's longevity: A special atomic-level interaction prevents water from...

Intermittent fasting can delay the onset of some age-related diseases and lengthen lifespan. In part, MIT researchers have found, that's because it boosts intestinal stem cells' ability to regenerate, which helps the intestine recover from injuries or inflammation. A new mouse study by the same researchers now sheds further light on how this mechanism works,...

The most effective way to prevent death when someone has overdosed on opioids is to administer a drug called naloxone: It binds to opioid receptors, sometimes restoring normal breathing in minutes. But people often don't receive it in time if at all, especially if they overdose while they are alone. Now mechanical engineer Giovanni Traverso...

When alumni opened the first issue of The Technology Review in January 1899, they found not only a description of MIT's new Pierce Building but crisp photographs of its interiors as well. The second issue featured photos of the varsity football team and an alumni banquet in Chicago that looped in 130 long-distance guests by...

A bird's-eye view of campus featuring Maseeh Hall, captured by a DJI Mavic 3 drone in late August. Given airspace restrictions, the photographer, an FAA-certified drone pilot, had to get FAA clearance three days ahead of time-and hope the weather forecast would hold-to get this shot.

One of the things I've come to value deeply about the MIT community is the near-universal willingness to name a problem, measure it, design a solution, and keep iterating until it's right. It's an approach that has worked for a long time, and it's one we'll continue to rely on. As we step into the...

I spent 10 years at MIT, earning four degrees in electrical engineering and computer science," says Arvola Chan '74, SM '76, EE '78, PhD '80. I was a beneficiary of scholarships through my undergraduate years and research assistantships through my graduate years, so I'm forever grateful." As planned-giving chair for the Class of 1974 50th...

When Anthony Jones '08 reminisces about his childhood, he thinks of clams. Growing up on the reservation of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, about an hour from Seattle, he spent a lot of time playing outside with his brothers-fishing, digging clams, and gathering oysters on the beach. Those idyllic childhood memories wouldn't have been possible,...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How refrigeration ruined fresh food Three-quarters of everything in the average American diet passes through the cold chain-the network of warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, display cases, and domestic fridges that keep meat, milk,...

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. I've recently been feeling heartbroken. A very close friend recently cut off contact with me. I don't really understand why, and my attempts at fixing the situation have backfired. Situations like...

Before you buy orange juice, it probably waited, for as long as two years, in a two-story, stainless-steel tank filled with 265,000 gallons of viscous brown slush. It's orange juice, but with its water and volatile flavor molecules burned off. The result is a simple syrup six times more sugary than juice and devoid of...

The demand for new and improved infrastructure across the world is not being met. The Asian Development Bank has estimated that in Asia alone, roughly $1.7 trillion needs to be invested annually through to 2030 just to sustain economic growth and offset the effects of climate change. Globally, that figure has been put at $15...

Dried cells-it's what's for dinner. At least that's what a new crop of biotech startups, armed with carbon-guzzling bacteria and plenty of capital, are hoping to convince us. Their claims sound too good to be true: They say they can make food out of thin air. But that's exactly how certain soil-dwelling bacteria work. In...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. These companies are creating food out of thin air A new crop of biotech startups, armed with carbon-guzzling bacteria and plenty of capital, are promising something that seems too good to be true....

This is simply a question of right and wrong." You can't deny the costs, though. You keep saying that just one more year of taxes will solve- We're not solving-we're mitigating!" Then what's the point?" The shrill back-and-forth fills the kitchen, where Xia is busy making breakfast, some kind of awful cricket-protein smoothie with kale....

Meta is releasing a massive data set and models, called Open Materials 2024, that could help scientists use AI to discover new materials much faster. OMat24 tackles one of the biggest bottlenecks in the discovery process: data. To find new materials, scientists calculate the properties of elements across the periodic table and simulate different combinations...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. AI could help people find common ground during deliberations Reaching a consensus in a democracy is difficult because people hold such different ideological, political, and social views. Perhaps an AI tool could help....

This article first appeared in The Checkup,MIT Technology Review'sweekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first,sign up here. There have been plenty of reports of potentially concerning viruses this last year. Covid is still causing thousands of deaths, and bird flu appears set to make the...

Reaching a consensus in a democracy is difficult because people hold such different ideological, political, and social views. Perhaps an AI tool could help. Researchers from Google DeepMind trained a system of large language models (LLMs) to operate as a caucus mediator," generating summaries that outline a group's areas of agreement on complex but important...

Generative AI's promises for the software development lifecycle (SDLC)-code that writes itself, fully automated test generation, and developers who spend more time innovating than debugging-are as alluring as they are ambitious. Some bullish industry forecasts project a 30% productivity boost from AI developer tools, which, if realized, could inject more than $1.5 trillion into the...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The quest to figure out farming on Mars Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from...

Lab scientists spend much of their time doing laborious and repetitive tasks, be it pipetting liquid samples or running the same analyses over and over again. But what if they could simply tell a robot to do the experiments, analyze the data, and generate a report? Enter Organa, a benchtop robotic system devised by researchers...

Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from thick, cloudy skies. It wasn't really so different from our own planet 4 billion years ago, except for one crucial detail-its size. Mars is about half the diameter of Earth,...