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 city. That and other damage to the power system left...

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 the receptors the virus normally binds to,...

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 many jobs, in multiple countries, because she has hired out her...

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 the most comprehensive hacks of a country in history....

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 DT Index, launched in 2020...

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 and saw a space station hanging in the sky. I decided to fly up there using some...

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, depression, and dyslexia. In 2019 he was...

October / November 1976 From “Pharmacology and the Brain”: Since ancient times, drugs have been used to restore mental health or explore the mind. It was said that the Homeric physician Polydama presented Menelaos and Helen with “a drug against sorrow and anger, a drug to survive despair” on their way home to Troy. The number of mind-bending drugs available today is countless. Some...

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…

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 the level of individual...

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 it be empirically tested?...

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 the uninitiated: a photograph of a dress appeared on the internet, and people...

These cross-sections of a human brain were used for teaching. The collection had been neglected for decades when photographer Adam Voorhes first visited, in 2011. These images are taken from a book he published about the brains, coauthored with Alex Hannaford. ADAM VOORHES & ROBIN FINLAY The University of Texas has one of the world’s largest collections of preserved abnormal human...

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 understanding, no appreciation, no probing of great mysteries. Which is what this issue is all...

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,…

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. The report is the outcome of a study requested...

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 buses and cars and planes, and for some reason they ‘grow out of it.’ I never did.” Now,...

On February 11, I got a call from MIT’s executive director of Institute events and protocol, Gayle Gallagher. President Reif had just announced that MIT would again be conducting commencement online—and to open the ceremony, we needed a compelling piece of music that would evoke renewal as we began to emerge from the pandemic.  After nearly a year of socially distanced teaching,...

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 quickly found a home in the Metallurgy Department (now Materials...

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 that first love: aerospace,” she says. Dawson’s path took her from MIT to NASA, then...

A record-breaking total of more than 5,000 alumni and friends attended this year’s MIT Tech Reunions, held online June 4–6. There were special events for reunion-year classes, and the entire MIT community was invited to watch the online Tech Night at Pops, learn from faculty during Technology Day, and take virtual campus tours. Symphony Hall…