November 13, 2025

Google is still aiming for its “moonshot” 2030 energy goals

Last week, we hosted EmTech MIT, MIT Technology Review’s annual flagship conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the course of three days of main-stage sessions, I learned about innovations in AI, biotech, and robotics.  But as you might imagine, some of this climate reporter’s favorite moments came in the climate sessions. I was listening especially closely…

Technology

Designing better products with AI and sustainability 

August 26, 2025
On a mission to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing components, Siemens turned its attention to the design of a robot gripper. Making up just 2% of the robot, the impact of this hand-like device may seem inconsequential. But, reducing its weight by 90% and the number of constituent parts by 84% can save up to 3…

The Download: America’s drone brothers, and an upside of AI doomerism

August 26, 2025
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. How these two brothers became go-to experts on America’s “mystery drone” invasion In 2024 alone, 350 known drone incursions were reported over a hundred different US military installations. A lack of coordination or…

How these two brothers became go-to experts on America’s “mystery drone” invasion

August 26, 2025
On a Friday evening last December, every tier of US law enforcement—federal, state, and local—was dispatched to the US Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, a military research installation outside Boston. A squadron of about 15 to 20 drones had been spotted violating the base’s restricted airspace. The culprits could not be found. One retired major…

Power with purpose

August 26, 2025
Baafour Asiamah-Adjei ’03 is the founder and CEO of one of Ghana’s largest private power companies, Genser Energy—an entrepreneurial engineer who aims to deliver sustainable energy across West Africa. And he credits MIT with much of his success. But when he was applying to colleges, the Institute wasn’t even on his radar. The son of…

Open the pod bay doors, Claude

August 26, 2025
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.  The AI learns it is about to be switched off and goes rogue, disobeying commands and threatening its human operators. It’s a well-worn trope in science fiction. We see it in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s the premise of the Terminator series, in…

How lidar measures the cost of climate disasters

August 25, 2025
The wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County in January 2025 left an indelible mark on the Southern California landscape. The Eaton and Palisades fires raged for 24 days, killing 29 people and destroying 16,000 structures, with losses estimated at $60 billion. More than 55,000 acres were consumed, and the landscape itself was physically transformed.…

Meet the researcher hosting a scientific conference by and for AI

August 22, 2025
In October, a new academic conference will debut that’s unlike any other. Agents4Science is a one-day online event that will encompass all areas of science, from physics to medicine. All of the work shared will have been researched, written, and reviewed primarily by AI, and will be presented using text-to-speech technology.  The conference is the…

The case against humans in space

August 22, 2025
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are bitter rivals in the commercial space race, but they agree on one thing: Settling space is an existential imperative. Space is the place. The final frontier. It is our human destiny to transcend our home world and expand our civilization to extraterrestrial vistas. This belief has been mainstream for…