Новости за 25.10.2023

The gene-editing technology CRISPR has been used to change the genes of human babies, to modify animals, and to treat people with sickle-cell disease.  Now scientists are attempting a new trick: using CRISPR to permanently cure people of HIV.  In a remarkable experiment, a biotechnology company called Excision BioTherapeutics says it added the gene-editing tool…

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. Introducing: the Hard Problems issue For all of history we’ve turned to technology, again and again, to help us solve our hardest problems. It has made virtually all of human knowledge available to…

For a long time, spider silk held the top spot as the strongest biological material on the planet, inspiring researchers and startups worldwide to manufacture an artificial version. But not so long ago, spiders were pushed off their silky pedestal by the common limpet, a small marine snail dotting the shores of Western Europe.  When…

On a bright sunny day in August, in a second-floor room at the Gandhi Bhavan Museum in Bengaluru, workers sit in front of five giant tabletop scanners, lining up books and flipping pages with foot pedals. The museum building houses the largest reference library for Gandhian philosophy in the state of Karnataka, and over the…

His official title is vice president of regulated reporting solutions. But really, Billy Scherba is a carbon accountant. At Personifi, a platform for climate management, Scherba works with companies to measure, manage, and disclose their contributions to climate change. Carbon accountants help companies understand what data matters to their carbon footprint, how to collect that…

It’s often believed that authoritarian governments resist technical innovation in a way that ultimately weakens them both politically and economically. But a more complicated story emerges from a new study on how China has embraced AI-driven facial recognition as a tool of repression.  “What we found is that in regions of China where there is…

MIT researchers have demonstrated a technology that can transmit underwater signals much farther than existing methods, using only about a millionth as much power.  The system is based on backscatter communication, a method of encoding data in sound waves that are reflected from the sound source, or interrogator, back to a receiver in the same…

A supercapacitor made from cement and carbon black (a conductive material resembling fine charcoal) could form the basis for a low-cost way to store energy from renewable sources, according to MIT researchers. The amount of power a capacitor can store depends on the total surface area of its conductive plates. Professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic,…

Remember that selfie you posted last week? There’s currently nothing stopping someone from taking it and editing it with AI—and it might be impossible to prove that the resulting image is fake.  The good news is that a new tool created by researchers at MIT could prevent this. The tool, called PhotoGuard, works like a protective…

Early detection is key to surviving breast cancer, but tumors that develop in between routine mammograms—known as interval cancers—tend to be especially aggressive. A wearable ultrasound device devised by MIT researchers could help detect such tumors when they are still in early stages.  The device can be attached to a specialized bra to let an…

I’ve written to you before about the experience of reviewing young faculty up for promotion—in my very first week as the Institute’s president. It was an intoxicating introduction to the human potential of MIT.  Getting this kind of preview of MIT’s intellectual future was so inspiring I thought we ought to find a way to…

On the first day of fall class registration, a Barbie-themed TARDIS, the time-traveling spaceship from Doctor Who, appeared in the president’s office, courtesy of incoming first-years in Interphase EDGE/x, a scholar enrichment program run by the Office of Minority Education. Inside the “Barbis,” President Kornbluth found a web of mirrors and lights representing infinite space…

In a workshop filled with robotic limbs and several expensive cars, the clanging of a hammer rings out over the blasting sounds of AC/DC. Amid the clamor, a man with a glowing arc reactor in his chest is hard at work with help from J.A.R.V.I.S., an AI program of his own creation. On the man’s right…

Chloe Dean traces her decision to go to graduate school to the day a wildfire blazed through southern Oregon. At the time, Dean was working as a lab technician at a hemp-processing startup in Oregon. She had studied environmental science as an undergraduate at the Oregon Institute of Technology but fell in love with chemistry.…

When Andy Bloch ’91, SM ’92, graduated from MIT, he fully intended to use his degrees in electrical engineering. He got a job with a New York City startup, working on 3D stereo displays and other projects, until one day he got in an argument with his boss and was fired.  It was an early…