What do jumping spiders find sexy? How DIY tech is offering insights into the animal mind.
The raccoon smart box Why are raccoons so good at city living? One theory is that it’s because they’re flexible...
World
The Download: introducing the Food issue
What are we going to eat? It is the eternal question. We humans have been asking ourselves this for as...
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...
GMOs could reboot chestnut trees
“It’s a hard time to be a tree. But there’s some really interesting promise and hope.” It is this genetically...
The Renaissance man from Port Gamble Bay
The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe signed a treaty with the US government in 1855 that ceded the vast majority of...
How MIT’s Rad Lab rescued D-Day
But the dreadful European weather—overcast and stormy, particularly in the late fall, winter, and early spring months—rendered all that firepower...
“I wanted to save lives”
At 14, Bell enrolled in the highly selective Brooklyn Technical High School, where she divided her time between academics and...
Arvola Chan ’74, SM ’76, EE ’78, PhD ’80
“I spent 10 years at MIT, earning four degrees in electrical engineering and computer science,” says Arvola Chan ’74, SM...
Harnessing MIT’s collective power
One of the things I’ve come to value deeply about the MIT community is the near-universal willingness to name a...
Investing in AI to build next-generation infrastructure
This infrastructure gap – the difference between funding and construction – is vast. And while governments and companies everywhere are...
These companies are creating food out of thin air
Lisa Dyson is the founder of one of these startups, Air Protein. When she talks about the inspiration for her...
The Download: food from thin air, and finding new materials
A new crop of biotech startups, armed with carbon-guzzling bacteria and plenty of capital, are promising something that seems too...
Azalea: a science-fiction story
Janet’s voice crackles in Tascha’s ear as they dangle off their rappelling lines, swinging from point to point in their...
The race to find new materials with AI needs more data. Meta is giving massive amounts away for free.
“We’re really firm believers that by contributing to the community and building upon open-source data models, the whole community moves...
The Download: AI for debates, and what to know about the Oropouche virus
—Rich Heley, chief designer of Worldcoin, details the company’s plans to roll out even more eye-scanning orbs to capture people’s...
Oropouche virus is spreading. Here’s what we know.
It may also be causing more severe disease. People with Oropouche fever typically have a sudden fever, aches and pains,...
AI could help people find common ground during deliberations
Participants were divided up into six-person groups, with one participant in each randomly assigned to write statements on behalf of...
Transforming software with generative AI
Where exactly are we on this transformative journey? How are enterprises navigating this new terrain—and what’s still ahead? To investigate...
The Download: farming on Mars, and lab robots
Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled,...
This lab robot mixes chemicals
Imagine having a robot that can collaborate with a human scientist on a chemistry experiment, says Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a chemist,...
