Month: February 2021

Back in the 1990s, Lee Hood, a technologist and immunologist famous for co-­inventing the automated DNA sequencer, made a bold prediction. By 2016, he suggested, all Americans would carry a data card  recording their personal genomes and medical histories in vast detail. Upon arriving at a hospital or doctor’s office, they would present it to […]

From “The Potential of Nations,” December 1961: The national potential of a country includes more than its ability to produce raw materials and consumer goods, to provide and maintain public safety, and to protect its population from internal and external enemies. A nation also has a cultural potential when promotion of the sciences and the […]

After months of social distancing, it’s not surprising that many people have felt starved for human companionship. Now a study from MIT has found that to our brains, the longings we feel during isolation are indeed similar to the food cravings we feel when hungry. After subjects endured one day of total isolation, looking at […]

After a worldwide search that turned up 60 candidates, the MIT Media Lab has announced that Dava Newman, SM ’89, SM ’89, PhD ’92, an MIT professor of astronautics, will become its new director on July 1. Newman, whose work has integrated engineering, design, and biomedical research with an eye to improving human performance in […]

Early this winter, I took a long walk in the Salt Lake City park in which I had been arrested for bathing in a river when I was homeless. About 30 minutes into that walk, I stood across from the park’s granite meditation temple, thinking: Three and a half years ago, I slept under that […]

Early in the pandemic, some headlines argued that covid-19 was the great equalizer—because anyone, no matter their circumstance, could catch it. In reality, it was clear that the virus was affecting some groups of Americans in disproportionate, devastating ways.  Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Indigenous communities, and other people of color have been affected the most, […]