MIT Technology Review

This article was produced in partnership with Type Investigations, where Eileen Guo is an Ida B. Wells Fellow, and is being co-published by MIT Technology Review and Consumer Reports. A few hours before dawn in early May of last year, four police officers were dispatched to an address that they had come to know: the…

Every 10 years, US astronomers have to make some tough decisions. Outlined in a plan called the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics, a set of studies produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, these decisions determine the next decade’s scientific priorities for the field. The Decadal Survey has set the stage for big leaps in space exploration since the early…

In late January, Elon Musk tweeted that he planned to give $100 million to promising carbon removal technologies, stirring the hopes of researchers and entrepreneurs. A few weeks later, Arin Crumley, a filmmaker who went on to develop electric skateboards, announced that a team was forming on Clubhouse, the audio app popular in Silicon Valley,…

In the run-up to the 2020 election, the most highly contested in US history, Facebook’s most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were being run by Eastern European troll farms. These pages were part of a larger network that collectively reached nearly half of all Americans, according to an internal company report, and…

When the United Arab Emirates paid over $1.3 million for a powerful and stealthy iPhone hacking tool in 2016, the monarchy’s spies—and the American mercenary hackers they hired—put it to immediate use. The tool exploited a flaw in Apple’s iMessage app to enable hackers to completely take over a victim’s iPhone. It was used against…

When 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968, it didn’t feel like a stretch to dream of lounging in a space hotel, sipping a martini while watching Earth drift by. This vision got a boost in the early 1980s, when the space shuttle program heralded a future of frequent and routine trips to orbit. And when the first…

At the end of August, KT Volkova got an abortion in central Texas, where they live. KT was nearly six weeks pregnant. “Time was of the essence,” they say. Just a few days later, on September 1, SB8 became law in Texas. SB8 effectively bans abortion in the state by making the procedure illegal when…

Last week Facebook released its new $299 “Ray-Ban Stories” glasses. Wearers can use them to record and share images and short videos, listen to music, and take calls. The people who buy these glasses will soon be out in public and private spaces, photographing and recording the rest of us, and using Facebook’s new “View”…

Calithera Biosciences is a small, Northern California immunotherapy company with a pipeline of drugs in various stages of premarket development for cancer and cystic fibrosis. Like any manufacturer creating complex new products, Calithera keeps track of lots of data. But unlike advanced technology companies in other fields, drug discovery companies have the US Food and…

Exposure notification apps were developed at the start of the pandemic, as technologists raced to help slow the spread of covid. The most common system was developed jointly by Google and Apple, and dozens of apps around the world were built using it—MIT Technology Review spent much of 2020 tracking them. The apps, which run…

Update: As of September 14, a day after this story published, Y posted a new notice saying it is now unavailable. We will continue to monitor the site for more changes. The website is eye-catching for its simplicity. Against a white backdrop, a giant blue button invites visitors to upload a picture of a face.…

The news: President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that will require millions of American workers to get vaccinated against covid-19. The order mandates all companies with more than 100 workers to require employees to be vaccinated or get tested weekly. Employers will have to provide paid time off for employees to get their…

Quoting Vladimir Lenin, Bill Kanarick describes the tectonic industry shifts brought on by the pandemic: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” After months of hunkering down at home, consumers got used to online shopping, telehealth doctor’s appointments and contactless and curbside pickup, effectively doubling e-commerce sales in the…

The dinosaurs didn’t have a space program, so when an asteroid headed toward Earth with their name on it 65 million years ago, they had no warning and no way to defend themselves. We know how that turned out. Humans are, understandably, keen to avoid the same fate. Later this year, NASA will launch a…

Deliberate internet shutdowns enacted by governments around the world are increasing in frequency and sophistication, according to a recent report. The study, published by Google’s Jigsaw project with the digital rights nonprofit Access Now and the censorship measurement company Censored Planet, says internet shutdowns are growing “exponentially”: out of nearly 850 shutdowns documented over the…

The new Netflix docuseries about SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission can’t help but feel unfinished, precisely because the mission will not even launch until September 15 (from Kennedy Space Center in Florida). Inspiration4 is set to be the first all-civilian mission into orbit—meaning there won’t be trained astronauts who hail from a national astronaut corps. We’re talking…

A materials company in Alameda, California, has spent the last decade working to boost the energy stored in lithium-ion batteries, an advance that could enable smaller gadgets and electric vehicles with far greater range. Sila has developed silicon-based particles that can replace the graphite in anodes and hold more of the lithium ions that carry…

By the time Joe Rogan mentioned ivermectin as one ingredient in an experimental cocktail he was taking to treat his covid infection, the drug was a meme. In the days and weeks leading up to the hugely popular podcaster’s revelation, the drug had already become a flashpoint in the covid culture wars. Ivermectin isn’t some…

Hosted at an unprecedented time due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics (branded as Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, and officially called Games of the XXXII Olympiad) will be remembered for not just the extraordinary performances of the athletes, but also for being one of the most technologically advanced Games ever hosted. Cloud…

Cyberattacks know no geographical boundaries. In the past two years alone, the University Hospital Brno in the Czech Republic suffered a cyberattack during the covid-19 pandemic, forcing the medical facility to reroute patients and postpone surgery; South Africa’s major electricity supplier, City Power, fell victim to a ransomware attack, leaving many of Johannesburg’s residents without…

On the best of days, securing the networks, devices, and data of NTUC Enterprise is no easy task. The Singapore-based cooperative consists of nine business units, from food services to insurance, and serves more than 2 million customers in nearly 1,000 locations. When the 2020 coronavirus pandemic hit, it forced many of NTUC’s employees to…

The key to a successful cybersecurity strategy is knowing what you need to protect. Here’s the proof: half of companies surveyed by MIT Technology Review Insights and Palo Alto Networks have experienced a cyberattack originally from an unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed digital asset, and another 19% expect to experience one eventually. Without a full…

Three weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg was chatting with host Gayle King on the television show CBS This Morning. Instead of sitting in a studio or using a videoconferencing app, however, the two of them were talking to each other in virtual reality. Zuckerberg was on prime time to introduce Horizons Workroom, a Facebook app that…

Alan Woodward lives out in the countryside, in rural southwest England. He jokes there are more four-legged than two-legged beings in the neighborhood. He’s a professor of computer science at the University of Surrey, and his work revolves heavily around cybersecurity, communications, and forensic computing. He needs good internet—and yet he’s never had much luck…

Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in a theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used…

Floods killed at least two dozen people as Hurricane Ida swept through New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania on the night of September 1. This devastation is on top of the 13 who died and the million who lost power when the storm hit Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama last weekend. As the storm moved up…

NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully gathered a bit of rock and soil from Mars, which marks the first time a sample has ever been recovered on the planet. What happened: The rover drilled into a boulder called Rochette near Jezero Crater, successfully cutting out a finger-size core of rock and placing it in a titanium…

Global warming is underscoring the point, again and again and again, that the infrastructure in the US was built for the climate conditions of the past. Hurricane Ida, turbocharged by unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, plunged New Orleans into darkness after reportedly knocking out all eight of the transmission lines into the…

A year ago, vaccines to tackle the covid pandemic still seemed like a far-off idea. Today, though, doses have been delivered to almost 40% of the world’s people—and some are being asked to prove they’re among them, leading to the rise of so-called vaccine passports. The details of these credentials vary from place to place,…

By early August, dreams of hot vax summer had faded as the delta variant drove a surge in US covid cases. Just when many thought it couldn’t get worse, outlets reported a new strain they called “delta plus.” That name turned out to be misleading—delta hadn’t become extra threatening, and variants of the virus will…

As the Taliban swept through Afghanistan in mid-August, declaring the end of two decades of war, reports quickly circulated that they had also captured US military biometric devices used to collect data such as iris scans, fingerprints, and facial images. Some feared that the machines, known as HIIDE, could be used to help identify Afghans…

As covid-19 continues to evolve in the US, researchers are now developing the next generation of therapeutics, including a new approach that could help reduce the time it takes to recover from the disease. While existing treatments include antivirals, antibodies, and steroids, scientists in the US and Europe are now focusing on creating decoys of…

Like many students, Liri has had several part-time jobs. A 23-year-old in Israel, she does waitressing and bartending gigs in Tel Aviv, where she goes to university. She also sells cars, works in retail, and conducts job interviews and onboarding sessions for new employees as a corporate HR rep. In Germany. Liri can juggle so…

Since becoming president of Belarus in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko has built Europe’s most repressive police state and ruthlessly used his power to stay in office as a dictator. Now hackers are trying to turn the extensive surveillance state against Lukashenko to end his reign—and to do it, they claim to have pulled off one of…

In 2016, Dell Technologies commissioned our first Digital Transformation Index (DT Index) study to assess the digital maturity of businesses around the globe. We have since commissioned the study every two years to track businesses’ digital maturity. Sam Grocott is Senior Vice President of Business Unit Marketing at Dell Technologies. Our third installment of the…

When I was 19—long before I ever thought I would land a career writing about space—I dreamed I was standing on the surface of Mars, looking over a rusted desert dotted with rocks, stuck in a perpetual lukewarm dusk, transfixed by the desolation. After soaking everything in for what seemed like hours, I looked up…

Inside the three-pound lumps of mostly fat and water inside our heads we can, in a very real sense, find the root of everything we know and ever will know. Sure, the universe gave rise to our brains. But what good is the cosmos without brains and, more specifically, minds? Without them, there’d be no…

Panpsychism is the belief that consciousness is found throughout the universe—not only in people and animals, but also in trees, plants, and bacteria. Panpsychists hold that some aspect of mind is present even in elementary particles. The idea that consciousness is widespread is attractive to many for intellectual and, perhaps, also emotional reasons. But can…

In September 2011, a group of neuroscientists and nanoscientists gathered at a picturesque estate in the English countryside for a symposium meant to bring their two fields together. At the meeting, Columbia University neurobiologist Rafael Yuste and Harvard geneticist George Church made a not-so-modest proposal: to map the activity of the entire human brain at…

When you and I look at the same object we assume that we’ll both see the same color. Whatever our identities or ideologies, we believe our realities meet at the most basic level of perception. But in 2015, a viral internet phenomenon tore this assumption asunder. The incident was known simply as “The Dress.” For…

Nathan McGee was only four years old when he experienced the trauma that would eventually lead him to MDMA therapy almost four decades later. It’s still too painful to go into the details. In the intervening years, he played what he calls “diagnosis bingo.” Doctors variously told Nathan he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety,…

Jefferson Test / AI subject: Robert / Date: 07.12.2098 Session #54 Interviewer: Hi, Robert. Tell me about your dream again. Subject: I was confused. It made me feel happy, but also scared. I didn’t know I could do that. Interviewer: Why do you think it made you feel that way? Subject: Having feelings, any feelings,…

DREAM VENDING MACHINE I feed it coins and watch the spring coil back,the clunk of a vacuum-packed, foil-wrappeddream dropping into the tray. It dispenses all kinds of dreams—bad dreams, good dreams,short nightmares to stave off worse ones, recurring dreams with a teacake marshmallow center.Hardboiled caramel dreams to tuck in your cheek,a bag of orange dreams…

President Biden’s early climate efforts prioritized popular actions: rejoining the Paris agreement, purchasing clean energy and vehicles, and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. But the administration’s strategies to drive the nation toward net-zero emissions also lean heavily, if less obviously, on a touchier area: capturing or removing huge amounts of the carbon dioxide driving global warming.…

A 90-page report published Tuesday by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) details how federal agencies currently use, and plan to expand their use of, facial recognition systems. Ten of 24 agencies surveyed plan to broaden their use of the technology by 2023. Ten agencies are also investing in research and development for the technology.…

Reshmaan Hussam ’09, PhD ’15, once dreamed of becoming a “psychohistorian” like the protagonist in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels who combines sociology, history, and statistics to save the world. Maybe, she thought, such a psychohistorian would be able to make sense of the stark and unnerving contrasts that marked her childhood living in suburban Virginia…

As a boy, Eric Plosky ’99, MCP ’00, rode the New York subway with his grandmother to every city attraction on the map. “Whenever anyone asks me how I got into transportation, I always ask them, ‘How did you get out of it?’” he says. “Every little kid seems to love trains and subways and…

Abbie (Carlstein) Gregg ’74 remembers giving up on wearing lab gloves during her undergraduate research at MIT. There weren’t any small enough to fit her, at a time when undergraduate men outnumbered women on campus 15 to 1. Even so, it was the first time she’d met other women interested in engineering and technology—and she…

Continuing an annual tradition, Technology Day offered alumni an inside view of MIT’s role in solving global challenges. The online symposium focused on online learning, cancer research, computing, and climate change. The first three topics were covered in updates from Curt Newton, director of MIT OpenCourseWare; Matthew Vander Heiden, director of the Koch Institute for…

Linda (Getch) Dawson ’71 grew up during the height of the space race between the US and the USSR. She recalls driving with her family to an observatory to hear the beeping of the Soviet satellite Sputnik as it passed overhead. “It’s funny how your path takes different turns, but I always came back to…