This solar giant is moving manufacturing back to the US

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

The Download: the future of geoengineering, and how to make stronger, lighter materials

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

Why new proposals to restrict geoengineering are misguided

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,

Three things we learned about AI from EmTech Digital London

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week, MIT Technology Review held its inaugural EmTech Digital conference in London. It was a great success! I loved seeing so many of you there asking excellent questions, and it was a

This architect is cutting up materials to make them stronger and lighter

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

A Grammy for Miguel Zenón

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

The Download: saving seals with artificial snow, and AI’s effects on politics

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

These artificial snowdrifts protect seal pups from climate change

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

The Download: Neuralink’s biggest rivals, and the case for phasing out the term “user”

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

Beyond Neuralink: Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces

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