MIT Technology Review
Brain-computer interface: Elon Musk’s Neuralink venture hopes to dramatically increase communication. What’s he up to?
Elon Musk claimed that sticking electrodes in people’s heads is going to lead to a huge increase in the rate ...
Interactive AI: What’s next after ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots?
DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman wants to build a chatbot that does a whole lot more than chat. In a recent ...
Reaching transcendence: Virtual Reality (VR) works as well as LSD or psilocybin to dissolve sense of individualism
On key metrics, a VR experience elicited a response indistinguishable from subjects who took medium doses of LSD or magic ...
Reducing pollution, treating cancer, boosting gut health? How genetically-modified microbes can transform our world
Microbes are ancient—they were evolving on the planet for millions of years before humans came along. So it’s no surprise ...
Next up on the gene-edited pig heart transplant list? Babies
The company eGenesis has started transplanting gene-edited pigs’ hearts into infant baboons—and humans may be next ...
Dissecting claims that lab-grown meat can meaningfully help address climate change
One of the major drivers for businesses focusing on cultivated (or lab-grown, or cultured) meat is its potential for cleaning ...
Inhalable CRISPR-based treatment for cystic fibrosis, lung disease on the horizon
A nanoparticle developed by MIT chemical engineer Daniel Anderson and colleagues can deliver messenger RNA encoding CRISPR gene-editing proteins to ...
Scientific 180? One tech multi-millionaire’s journey from evidence-based advocate to COVID misinformation missionary
After boosting unproven covid drugs and campaigning against vaccines, Steve Kirsch was abandoned by his team of scientific advisers ...
Viewpoint: Cultured meat mixed with plant-based protein might be good for the environment but it still can’t match the taste of a quality regular hamburger
I stared down the lineup of sliders, each on a separate bamboo plate. On the far left was a plant-based ...
Indoor plants do not improve air quality very much. Startup Neoplants has a genetic fix
Neoplants’s marquee product, announced late last year, is the Neo P1, the first houseplant genetically engineered to remediate indoor air ...
‘This is simply mind-blowing’: Monkeys implanted with synthetic embryos made from stem cells
Embryos made from stem cells, rather than an egg and sperm, appear to generate a short-lived pregnancy-like response in monkeys ...
Gene editing medicine is accelerating: More than 200 people worldwide have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies
More than 200 people have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies. But at a global genome-editing summit, exciting trial results ...
‘Three-parent baby’ mitochondrial replacement therapy was developed to prevent fatal illnesses — but the the technique might not work as expected
Mitochondria are little “energy factories” that float around in the cytoplasm of our cells. While most of our DNA is ...
‘College prep might start in a test tube’: Should we test embryos for genetic markers related to intelligence? A plurality of Americans say ‘yes’
Imagine that you were provided no-cost fertility treatment and also offered a free DNA test to gauge which of those ...
CRISPR could protect crops from pest infestations without chemicals but innovation slowed by current regulations
Less than a decade after it was first identified in California, an invasive insect called the glassy-winged sharpshooter had turned ...
Could a vaccine permanently protect us from heart disease? CRISPR gene editing poised to provide healthcare solutions for most everyone
Last year, Verve Therapeutics started the first human trial of a CRISPR treatment that could benefit most people—a signal that ...
Next-gen food: Pigs, fish and other CRISPR gene edited animals will be be bigger and healthier
Of course, farmers have used selective breeding to try to make animals big, muscular, docile, and easy to rear for ...
‘A hotbed of hype and self-experimentation’: Meet the ultra-rich innovators who want to live forever
Hope, hype, and self-experimentation collided at an exclusive conference for ultra-rich investors who want to extend their lives past 100 ...
Post-mortem reproduction: Can your eggs or sperm be used after you die — and who should get to decide?
We can now use cells from dead people to create new life. But who gets to decide? This is why ...
Why sustainably-produced lab-grown meat might be a pipe dream
The first lab-grown burger cost around $330,000 to make in 2013. Prices have dropped since then, but not to the ...
Manipulating nature: Should rats implanted with human brain cells be treated differently than unaltered test rodents?
A few months after they’d been implanted, the human cells made up around a sixth of the rats’ brains and ...
Carbon removal breakthrough: Genetic tools that have created climate resilient crops could capture carbon dioxide as well
To understand just how powerful genetic tools can be in agriculture, take a look at [Pamela Ronald, a plant geneticist ...
Fertility clinic is unavailable or too expensive? One woman’s experience using a ‘global fertility courier’ to find affordable, quality reproductive care
Like me, my eggs were flying economy class. We—my dog Stewie and I—were in seat 8D, while 12 of my ...
On the edge of science and ethics: This startup wants to create human embryos to harvest tissue for transplants
In a search for novel forms of longevity medicine, a biotech company based in Israel says it intends to create ...
Global food consumption is rising, along with the need for carbon-emitting nitrogen fertilizer. Here’s what scientists are doing to address this fast-approaching crisis
Growing and producing food, fiber, and biofuels generates about one-quarter of all human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions. At the same time, yields ...
How one CRISPR-tweaked gene could permanently lower cholesterol
A volunteer in New Zealand has become the first person to undergo DNA editing in order to lower their blood ...
CRISPR crops: Can carbon-sucking gene edited crops help address climate change? Jennifer Doudna thinks so
The Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), a research group in Berkeley, California, founded by CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna, has announced a new program to ...
Eggs can be harvested from trans men’s ovaries even after hormone replacement therapy, helping them have biological children
Ovaries contain hundreds of thousands of underdeveloped eggs, held in a kind of suspended animation. Each month, one matures and ...