Four years ago, we founded a new kind of scientific organization to build fundamental technologies and accelerate discovery. Almost a dozen launches later, we have an idea of what works—and what doesn ...

A year after he left office, President Biden’s industrial policy is widely considered a failure. But the tools his administration developed are still in play and have defied a long-standing consensus ...

As robot-human interactions become more commonplace in urban spaces, policymakers can use a diagnostic to find the best existing tools for governance and determine when new ones are needed.

Decades-old research about how and why people share rumors is even more relevant in a world with social media. Around the time the US government was testing nuclear bombs on Bikini Atoll in the spring ...

Patterns are emerging in the various efforts to regulate artificial intelligence around the globe. Understanding these evolving AI norms could help govern this technology intelligently. Artificial ...

American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s (1868–1921) research laid the foundation for modern astronomy’s understanding of the structure and size of the universe. After graduating from Radcliffe ...

The controversy around a ban on “mirror life” should lead to a more nuanced public conversation about how to manage the benefits and risks of precursor biotechnologies. About five years ago, the five ...

Fall 2026 ...

After the firing of the National Science Board, legislators have an opportunity to establish a new balance between democratic accountability and protection from partisan meddling. A little more than a ...

For ethical and environmental reasons, raising octopuses in captivity for food is a bad idea. Octopuses stand out among invertebrates for their complex behavior. They are capable of problem-solving, ...

Showing which proposals do and don’t receive federal funding can improve research and advance open science. In 2022, as part of an ongoing assignment from Congress, the National Academies of Sciences, ...

Computer scientists should build devices to enhance and empower—not replace—humans. In early 1997, before Alexa and Siri were conceived, I engaged in several public debates with MIT Media Lab ...