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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: worms fight pollution, and geoengineering faces reality

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake throu...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: your stake in OpenAI, and the Treasury’s AI warning

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Your family’s $300 stake in OpenAI Sam Altman’s proposal that Americans should share in the wealth created by AI is back in the spotlight, with report...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The foundational elements of AI architecture that IT leaders need to scale

With the rapid progress of AI capabilities and the move to agentic systems, organizations are expanding their use cases as the technology continues to grow. That constant evolution also introduces risk, leaving IT leaders to wonder which investments will prove valuable even six months into the futur...

MIT Technology Review Insights 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution

Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake through a bed of dark, wet wood chips on his family’s land in Hickman, a tiny town in the state’s agricultural heartland. He reaches down with both hands and pulls up a clump of muck, turning it over to reveal a half-dozen squi...

James Temple 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Your family’s $300 stake in OpenAI

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s oft-discussed promise that Americans will share in the wealth AI creates was in the news again last week. On Thursday, the Financial Times...

James O'Donnell 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: South Korea’s hottest bachelors, and advancing eye transplants

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in a m...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers

Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in Sunoo, a matchmaking company based in Seoul, a year ago. In a move typical of anxious South Korean parents, his mother signed him up, hoping to find a good wife for her son. Lately, says Baek (who asked to...

Michelle Kim 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

 A device that revives eyeballs from dead donors could make eye transplants possible

It’s not easy to transplant a whole human eye. The surgery is difficult. And the eyes themselves start to degenerate as soon as they’ve left the body. When surgeons attempted it a few years ago, the newly-transplanted eye wasn’t able to see. But researchers believe they might have a solution: a devi...

Jessica Hamzelou 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: a smoking “endgame” and a new Elizabeth Bear story

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The UK’s generational tobacco ban might not work. I’m supporting it anyway. —Jessica Hamzelou As the parent of two little girls, I often think about h...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The UK’s generational tobacco ban might not work. I’m supporting it anyway.

As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking. That was not the prevaili...

Jessica Hamzelou 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Achieving operational excellence with AI

Frameworks like Lean Six Sigma and business process management (BPM) first gained traction because they promised clarity in the chaos—a structured way to bring order to messy, sprawling operations. Lean Six Sigma emphasized statistical rigor and quality control; BPM created end-to-end maps of how wo...

MIT Technology Review Insights 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Teaching AI to run with the turbines

Artificial intelligence may have captured the public imagination through chatbots and image generators, but some of its most consequential use cases are unfolding far from consumer-facing tools. In industries where physical infrastructure, operational continuity, and safety are paramount, AI is beco...

MIT Technology Review Insights 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: a startup has a solution for AI’s groupthink problem

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. LLMs are stuck in a groupthink groove. This startup is trying to get them out. Open up your chatbot of choice—Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini—and type “Give m...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Why California’s carbon manure math doesn’t add up

Something stinks in California’s climate policies. Years ago, the state set up a system that pays cattle farmers across the country to turn the methane emitted from cattle manure into natural gas, encouraging the dairy sector to produce a gas we burn instead of one that just pollutes the air. It’s b...

James Temple 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

LLMs are stuck in a groupthink groove. This startup is trying to get them out.

Let’s start with a game. Open up your chatbot of choice—Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini—and type “Give me a random number between 1 and 10.” You’re going to get 7. Almost always. Now type “Another” and you’ll get 3 or 4. Type “Another” again and you’ll get 8 or 9. That won’t work every time—but if it…

Will Douglas Heaven 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: Anthropic launches Claude Science, and California’s carbon manure math

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Claude Science is Anthropic’s newest flagship product At an event for pharmaceutical executives, biotech founders, and researchers yesterday, Anthropi...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Claude Science is Anthropic’s newest flagship product

At an event for pharmaceutical executives, biotech founders, and researchers on Tuesday, Anthropic announced Claude Science, a major new product intended to support scientific research in the same way that Claude Code supports software engineering. Like Claude Code, Claude Science can autonomously c...

Grace Huckins 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Roundtables: Longevity’s Next Frontier: “Reprogramming” Your Body

Listen to the session or watch below Billions of dollars are flooding into efforts to reverse aging as scientists explore ways to return cells to a younger state. But how far off are these experimental treatments? Will they really work? Watch a conversation exploring longevity’s new focus. Spe...

MIT Technology Review 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: AI “coworkers” and stratospheric internet

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI agents are not your “coworkers” Imagine coming in to work to learn that a new underling will report to you. The worker is not a person but an AI to...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Agriculture is ready for AI, but its data isn’t

Artificial intelligence is transforming what is possible in agriculture, but industry leaders should be wary of investing in AI without first laying the groundwork.  The use cases are promising, especially for an industry navigating volatile fertilizer costs, unpredictable weather, and margins...

Carole Hill, Manish Sood 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Building tech in the world’s secret R&D hub

Apple. Anthropic. Disney Research. Google. Meta. Microsoft. NVIDIA. OpenAI. Few places outside Silicon Valley can claim R&D hubs from all of these companies. Fewer still are concentrated in a city of just over 400,000 people—roughly half the size of San Francisco. Over the past two decades, howe...

Greater Zurich Area 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

AI agents are not your “coworkers”

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Imagine coming in to work to learn that a new underling will report to you. The worker is not a person but an AI tool—one that your company nonetheless calls Alex...

James O'Donnell 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

Agent confidence on the technical frontier

Enterprise investment in AI is booming. Gartner is calling 2026 an “inflection year” for organizations to align their AI projects with strategic business objectives. As the pressure to prove ROI mounts, executives and technology leaders are looking to agentic AI to drive the measurable financial out...

MIT Technology Review Insights 1 month ago

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MIT Technology Review · Science

The Download: metric weaknesses and AI elephant warnings

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The inevitable weakness of metrics There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal. There are even more that it can obscure or corrupt. Like a l...

Thomas Macaulay 1 month ago

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