December 18, 2024

The Download: AI tracking birds, and a pig kidney transplant

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 is changing how we study bird migration In a warming world, migratory birds face many existential threats. Scientists rely on a combination of methods to track the timing and location of their…

We finally have a definition for open-source AI

August 22, 2024
Open-source AI is everywhere right now. The problem is, no one agrees on what it actually is. Now we may finally have an answer. The Open Source Initiative (OSI), the self-appointed arbiters of what it means to be open source, has released a new definition, which it hopes will help lawmakers develop regulations to protect…

Beyond gene-edited babies: the possible paths for tinkering with human evolution

August 22, 2024
In 2016, I attended a large meeting of journalists in Washington, DC. The keynote speaker was Jennifer Doudna, who just a few years before had co-invented CRISPR, a revolutionary method of changing genes that was sweeping across biology labs because it was so easy to use. With its discovery, Doudna explained, humanity had achieved the…

Want to understand the future of technology? Take a look at this one obscure metal.

August 22, 2024
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. On a sunny morning in late spring, I found myself carefully examining an array of somewhat unassuming-looking rocks at the American Museum of Natural History.  I’ve gotten to see some cutting-edge technologies…