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Kyle “KJ” Muldoon Jr. was born with a rare genetic disorder that left his body unable to remove toxic ammonia from his blood. He was lethargic and at risk of developing neurological disorders. The condition can be fatal. KJ joined a waiting list for a liver transplant. Then Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Kiran Musunuru at the […]
Base-edited baby: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026 Read More »
Generative AI’s ability to write software code has quickly created one of the technology’s first real use cases for business. Professional software engineers and novices alike are using AI coding assistants to produce, test, edit, and debug code, reducing the amount of time it takes to complete the often tedious steps required to finish projects.
Generative coding: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026 Read More »
Chatbots are skilled at crafting sophisticated dialogue and mimicking empathetic behavior. They never get tired of chatting. It’s no wonder, then, that so many people now use them for companionship—forging friendships or even romantic relationships. According to a study from the nonprofit Common Sense Media, 72% of US teenagers have used AI for companionship. Although
AI companions: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026 Read More »
Hundreds of millions of people now use chatbots every day. And yet the large language models that drive them are so complicated that nobody really understands what they are, how they work, or exactly what they can and can’t do—not even the people who build them. Weird, right? It’s also a problem. Without a clear
Mechanistic interpretability: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026 Read More »
In sprawling stretches of farmland and industrial parks, supersized buildings packed with racks of computers are springing up to fuel the AI race. These engineering marvels are a new species of infrastructure: supercomputers designed to train and run large language models at mind-bending scale, complete with their own specialized chips, cooling systems, and even energy
Hyperscale AI data centers: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026 Read More »
How large is a large language model? Think about it this way. In the center of San Francisco there’s a hill called Twin Peaks from which you can view nearly the entire city. Picture all of it—every block and intersection, every neighborhood and park, as far as you can see—covered in sheets of paper. Now
Meet the new biologists treating LLMs like aliens Read More »
Here at MIT Technology Review we’ve been writing about the gene-editing technology CRISPR since 2013, calling it the biggest biotech breakthrough of the century. Yet so far, there’s been only one gene-editing drug approved. It’s been used commercially on only about 40 patients, all with sickle-cell disease. It’s becoming clear that the impact of CRISPR
A new CRISPR startup is betting regulators will ease up on gene-editing Read More »
The new year has barely begun, but the first days of 2026 have brought big news for health. On Monday, the US’s federal health agency upended its recommendations for routine childhood vaccinations—a move that health associations worry puts children at unnecessary risk of preventable disease. There was more news from the federal government on Wednesday,
America’s new dietary guidelines ignore decades of scientific research Read More »
For offshore wind power in the US, the new year is bringing new legal battles. On December 22, the Trump administration announced it would pause the leases of five wind farms currently under construction off the US East Coast. Developers were ordered to stop work immediately. The cited reason? National security, specifically concerns that turbines
What new legal challenges mean for the future of US offshore wind Read More »
Nandan Nilekani can’t stop trying to push India into the future. He started nearly 30 years ago, masterminding an ongoing experiment in technological state capacity that started with Aadhaar—the world’s largest digital identity system. Aadhaar means “foundation” in Hindi, and on that bedrock Nilekani and people working with him went on to build a sprawling
The man who made India digital isn’t done yet Read More »
