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Grizzly bears have made such a comeback across eastern Montana that in 2017, the state hired its first-ever prairie-based grizzly manager: wildlife biologist Wesley Sarmento. For some seven years, Sarmento worked to keep both the bears, which are still listed as threatened under the Endangered Speci
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. You have no choice in reading this article—maybe How do humans make decisions? The question has been on Uri Maoz’s mind since he read an article in his early twen
If you’re following AI news, you’re probably getting whiplash. AI is a gold rush. AI is a bubble. AI is taking your job. AI can’t even read a clock. The 2026 AI Index from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, AI’s annual report card, comes out today and cuts th
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. In an industry that doesn’t stand still, Stanford’s AI Index, an annual roundup of key results and trends, is a chance to take a breath. (It’s a marathon, not a s
I. We had crash-landed on the planet. We were far from home. The spaceship could not be repaired, and the rescue beacon had failed. Besides me, only the astrogator, part of the captain, and the ship’s AI mind were left. Outside, the atmosphere registered as hostile to most organisms. We huddled in t
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. Constellations —Constellations is a short story by Jeff VanderMeer, the author of the critically acclaimed, bestselling Southern Reach series. A spacecraft has cr
Is it the Department of Defense or the Department of War? The Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America? A vaccine—or an “individualized neoantigen treatment”? That’s the Trump-era vocabulary paradox facing Moderna, the covid-19 shot maker whose plans for next-generation mRNA vaccines against flus and e
When I started digging into desalination technology for a new story, I couldn’t help but obsess over the numbers. I’d known on some level that desalination—pulling salt out of seawater to produce fresh water—was an increasingly important technology, especially in water-stressed regions including the
A rare warm spell in January melted enough snow to uncover Cornell University’s newest athletic field, built for field hockey. Months before, it was a meadow teeming with birds and bugs; now it’s more than an acre of synthetic turf roughly the color of the felt on a pool table, almost digital in its
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. Is fake grass a bad idea? The AstroTurf wars are far from over. In 2001, Americans installed just over 7 million square meters of synthetic turf. By 2024, that nu
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. The one piece of data that could actually shed light on your job and AI Within Silicon Valley’s orbit, an AI-fueled jobs apocalypse is spoken about as a given. No
Unlike static, rules-based systems, AI agents can learn, adapt, and optimize processes dynamically. As they interact with data, systems, people, and other agents in real time, AI agents can execute entire workflows autonomously. But unlocking their potential requires redesigning processes around age
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. As the conflict in Iran has escalated, a crucial resource is under fire: the desalination technology that supplies water
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. Desalination plants in the Middle East are increasingly vulnerable As the conflict in Iran has escalated, a crucial resource is under fire: the desalinization tec
We evolved for a linear world. If you walk for an hour, you cover a certain distance. Walk for two hours and you cover double that distance. This intuition served us well on the savannah. But it catastrophically fails when confronting AI and the core exponential trends at its heart. From the time I
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Within Silicon Valley’s orbit, an AI-fueled jobs apocalypse is spoken about as a given. The mood is so grim that a societal impacts researcher at Anthropic, respo
For years Mike McClary sold the Guardian LTE Flashlight, a heavy-duty black model, online through his small outdoor brand. The product, designed for brightness and durability, became one of his most popular items ever. Even after he stopped offering it around 2017, customers kept sending him emails
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. In January, Elon Musk’s SpaceX filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission to launch up to one mil
As the war in Iran continues to engulf the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, one of the most visible global economic ripple effects has been fossil-fuel prices. In particular, you can’t get away from news about the price of gasoline, which just topped an average of $4 a gallon in th
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. Fuel prices are soaring. Plastic could be next. As the war in Iran continues, one of the most visible global economic ripple effects has been fossil-fuel prices.