From AI in the home to robots in the workplace, the presence of AI all around us compels us to question its potential and recognize the risks. What has become clear is that the more we advance AI technology and consider machine ability versus human ability, the more we need to mind the gap.
July/August 2022
Is technology making cities better—or worse? A deep dive into what we stand to lose in the pursuit of efficiency and convenience.
In MIT class, 2.788 Mechanical Engineering and Design of Living Systems students explore how mechanics, structure, and materials intersect with biology by studying butterflies at every stage of their metamorphosis. Associate Professor Ming Guo and Associate Professor Mathias Kolle take a cross-disciplinary approach to introduce students to the engineering behind biological systems.
Money changes everything: But who is the shift toward digital transactions really helping?
Digital technology is poised to change our relationship with money and, for some countries, the ability to manage their economies.
On Sept. 5, 2021, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes, according to the project’s leaders at MIT and startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
A team of MIT researchers have observed that when salty water evaporates from a heated, superhydrophobic surface the crystal structures that form can easily be removed or roll away on their own.
This phenomenon could make it possible to use brackish or salty water, without any pretreatment, rather than relying on freshwater sources, for cooling systems in power plants.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week: what Putin fears, (9:10) Trump at the Republican National Convention and (16:10) France’s university to rival MIT.
Mining minerals found 15,000 feet below sea level could help secure a low-carbon future, but at what cost? Researchers including Thomas Peacock, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, are racing to understand the environmental impact of deep-sea mining.
Boomers Daily 