Science

Why happiness is not the best indicator of well-being

Achieving values and pursuing growth is the real secret to a fulfilled life.

Jason Crawford

How Arc Institute is bringing science into the century of biology

Stephen Johnson

A vibrant graphic illustration featuring a large leafy plant with integrated plant sensors, comic-style speech bubbles containing exclamation marks, and a round bubble depicting ants, set against a blue textured background.

Agriculture

Plant sensors could act as an early warning system for farmers

Using sensors made from carbon nanotubes, researchers discovered signals that help plants respond to stresses like heat, light, or attack.

Anne Trafton | MIT News Office

Sustainability

A green trifecta: how a concrete alternative can cut emissions, resource use, and waste

Building materials and construction generate about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. What if there was an alternative?

Aliakbar Gholampour

Sustainability

Seabin: How these “floating garbage bins” can help clean up our waters

Each floating garbage bin is capable of capturing 90,000 plastic bags every year for less than $1 a day, just by being in the water.

Pooja Chhabria | World Economic Forum

Oceans

Playing sea soundscapes can summon thousands of baby oysters – and help regrow oyster reefs

Researchers amplified the natural sounds of the sea through underwater speakers to draw baby oysters to swim to the location.

Sean Connell and Lachlan McLeod and Brittany Williams and Dominic McAfee

Planet Earth

Discovery finds the Earth’s core is constantly changing the length our day

The length of our day changes slightly over a six-year period. This recent discovery has perplexed scientists for about a decade.

Elizabeth Fernandez

Food

Lab-grown meat clears major FDA hurdle

Startup UPSIDE Foods’ lab-grown chicken has passed a key FDA checkpoint, putting cultured meat one step closer to sale in the US.

Kristin Houser

Archaeology

Our ancestors first developed humanlike brains 1.7 million years ago

Using computed tomography, a team of researchers generated images of what the brains of early Homo species likely looked like.

Stephen Johnson

Neuroscience

Brain implant translates neural activity into letters, letting a paralyzed man “speak”

A new device allowed a paralyzed patient to "speak," spelling out full sentences in real-time with an error rate of about 8%.

Mo Costandi

Engineering

A new material called a mechanical neural network can learn and change its physical properties

The new material’s architecture is based on that of an artificial neural network – layers of interconnected nodes that can learn to do tasks.

Ryan H. Lee

Psychology

“Freakonomics” study offers simple strategy for making tough decisions

People who chose change over inaction, regardless of the decision, self-reported being better off and happier after six months.

Stephen Johnson

CRISPR

7 ways CRISPR is shaping the future of food

Using the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR, researchers are altering crops and animals to add desirable traits and remove undesirable ones.

Kristin Houser

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