Whenever you see a solar panel, most parts of it probably come from China. The US invented the technology and once dominated its production, but over the past two decades, government subsidies and low costs in China have led most of the solar manufacturing supply chain to be concentrated there. The country will soon be responsible for over 80% of solar manufacturing capacity around the world. But the US government is trying to change that. Through high tariffs on imports and hefty domestic tax credits, it is trying to make the cost of manufacturing solar panels in the US competitive enough for ..read more

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 new proposals to restrict geoengineering are misguided —Daniele Visioni is a climate scientist and assistant professor at Cornell University The public debate over whether we should consider intentionally altering the climate system is heating up, as the dangers of climate instability rise and more groups look to study technologies that could cool the planet. Such interventions, commonly known as solar geoengineering, may include releasing sulf ..read more

The public debate over whether we should consider intentionally altering the climate system is heating up, as the dangers of climate instability rise and more groups look to study technologies that could cool the planet. Such interventions, commonly known as solar geoengineering, may include releasing sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere to cast away more sunlight, or spraying salt particles along coastlines to create denser, more reflective marine clouds.   The growing interest in studying the potential of these tools, particularly through small-scale outdoor experiments, has triggere ..read more

As a child, Emily Baker loved to make paper versions of things: cameras, a spaceship cockpit, buildings for a town in outer space. It was a habit that stuck. Years later, studying architecture in graduate school at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, she was playing around with some paper and scissors. It was 2010, and the school was about to buy a CNC plasma cutter, a computer-controlled machine capable of cutting lines into sheets of steel. As she thought about how she might experiment with it, she made a striking discovery. To develop Spin-Valence, a novel structural system, Emily Bak ..read more

Nobel Prizes and other scientific honors are nearly routine at MIT, but a Grammy Award is something we don’t see every year. That’s what Miguel Zenón, an assistant professor of music and theater arts, has won: El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2, which he recorded with the pianist and composer Luis Perdomo, received the Grammy for best Latin jazz album in February. MAARTEN DE BOER “I’m incredibly happy and honored with this Grammy win,” says Zenón, a renowned saxophonist. “We’ve been making albums for a long time, so it’s extremely rewarding to earn this recognition.” “The Latin American Songbook is s ..read more

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. These artificial snowdrifts protect seal pups from climate change For millennia, during Finland’s blistering winters, wind drove snow into meters-high snowbanks along Lake Saimaa’s shoreline, offering prime real estate from which seals carved cave-like dens to shelter from the elements and raise newborns. But in recent decades, these snowdrifts have failed to form in sufficient numbers, as climate change has brought warming temperatures and rain i ..read more

Just before 10 a.m., hydrobiologist Jari Ilmonen and his team of six step out across a flat, half-mile-wide disk of snow and ice. For half the year this vast clearing is open water, the tip of one arm of the labyrinthine Lake Saimaa, Finland’s biggest lake, which reaches almost to Russia’s western border. As each snow boot lands, there’s a burst of static, like the spine-tingling scrape of a freezer drawer closing. “It’s a poor amount of snow,” complains Ilmonen, who sees less than half the 20 centimeters (eight inches) he’d hope for in mid-January.  To reach their destination, one of the ..read more

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. Beyond Neuralink: Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces In the world of brain-computer interfaces, it can seem as if one company sucks up all the oxygen in the room. Last month, Neuralink posted a video to X showing the first human subject to receive its brain implant, which will be named Telepathy. The recipient, a 29-year-old man who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, played computer chess, moving the cursor around with ..read more

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.  In the world of brain-computer interfaces, it can seem as if one company sucks up all the oxygen in the room. Last month, Neuralink posted a video to X showing the first human subject to receive its brain implant, which will be named Telepathy. The recipient, a 29-year-old man who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, played computer chess, moving the cursor around with his mind. Learning ..read more

The ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence has the potential to dramatically improve our lives—from the way we work to what we do to stay healthy. Yet ensuring that America and other democracies can help shape the trajectory of this technology requires going beyond the tech development taking place at private companies.  Research at universities drove the AI advances that laid the groundwork for the commercial boom we are experiencing today. Importantly, academia also produced the leaders of pioneering AI companies.  But today, large foundational models, or LFMs, lik ..read more