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

A close up of a dandelion with water droplets.

Physics

Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?”

The weirdness of quantum superposition means the same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results.

Marcelo Gleiser

a hand holding a plate with a lab-grown cotton plant in it.

Sustainability

Lab-grown cotton is on its way to consumers

Cellular agriculture startup Galy has signed a deal that will make its lab-grown cotton available to consumers for the first time.

Kristin Houser

An image of an atomic bomb exploding over the ocean, inspired by HG Wells.

Books

How an H.G. Wells sci-fi novel predicted Oppenheimer and atomic bombs

The “atomic bombs” in H.G. Wells’ 1914 novel The World Set Free influenced a pioneer of real-world nuclear weapons: physicist Leó Szilárd.

Émile P. Torres

Biology

Quantum biology: Your nose and house plants are experts at particle physics

Quantum processes, normally associated with the very small or very cold, have been found to occur in biological systems. This was unexpected.

Elizabeth Fernandez

a close-up of a colony of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus

Animals

“Zombie” cells are the key to a tiny sea creature’s full-body regeneration

A tiny sea creature’s regenerative abilities add to the growing evidence that senescent cells aren’t always detrimental.

Kristin Houser

A monkey sitting on a branch in the forest.

Memory

One shot of the klotho protein boosted memory in old monkeys

A single shot of klotho, a protein linked to longevity, improved the working memory of older rhesus macaques.

Kristin Houser

a 3D-model of a Fanzor protein based gene-editing system

CRISPR

First CRISPR-like system discovered in animals

A CRISPR-like gene-editing system found in animals and other complex organisms has been used to edit human cells for the first time.

Kristin Houser

a person in blue gloves is manipulating a small organ in a petri dish

Healthcare

Cryogenically frozen organs successfully transplanted into rats for the first time

Thanks to a new "nanowarming" technique, scientists have successfully transplanted cryogenically frozen organs into rats for the first time.

Kristin Houser

Planet Earth

A comet impact 13,000 years ago might have wiped out megafauna

Researchers note a "synchronicity" of geochemical signals suggesting that fragments of a comet struck Earth approximately 13,000 years ago.

Stephen Johnson

Physics

Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality

In the quantum world, the observer determines the physical nature of what is being observed. The notion of an objective reality is lost.

Marcelo Gleiser

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