Improving understanding with language
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When she was a child, MIT senior Olivia Honeycutt would spend summers on her grandparents’ farm in rural Alabama outside Birmingham. The practical and cultural differences between farm and city life became more pronounced by comparison. “Life and the way we lived it slowed down on the farm,” she says. “It was a nice change […]
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Beacon Biosignals is mapping the brain during sleep
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The human brain remains one of the most fascinating and perplexing mysteries in medicine. Scientists still struggle to match neurological activity with brain function and detect problems early, slowing efforts to treat neurological disorders and other diseases. Beacon Biosignals is working to make sense of the brain by monitoring its activity while people sleep. The […]
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Santa Marta: Key outcomes from first summit on ‘transitioning away’ from fossil fuels
Countries attending a first-of-its-kind summit have walked away with plans to develop national roadmaps away from fossil fuels, along with new tools to address harmful subsidies and carbon-intensive trade. The first conference on “transitioning away” from fossil fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia, from 24-29 April saw 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s […]
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Making the case for curiosity-driven science
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“The thing that really struck me when I came to MIT and strikes me every single day is the stuff that’s going on here is amazing. The science, the engineering… every day I hear something that makes my jaw drop,” remarked President Sally Kornbluth during a live discussion with Lizzie O’Leary of Slate’s “What Next: […]
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China Briefing 30 April 2026: Fossil fuel ‘strict controls’ | El Niño approaches | Why cleantech exports have surged
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing. China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here. Key developments New documents ramp up pressure on coal ‘STRICTLY CONTROL’ FOSSIL FUELS: On 22 April, China issued a set of “guiding opinions” on energy conservation and carbon […]
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Dealing with the waste from old wind turbines
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Decommissioning old wind turbines generates thousands of tons of new waste. If we don’t create incentives and regulations that force the responsible handling of decommissioned wind turbine parts, especially blades, we will have an enormous waste problem. (Words: Norwegian University of Science and Technology). By 2040, up to 20,000 wind turbine blades could be landfilled […]
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Is the UK ready for large-scale electrificationan?
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Griff Thomas is Executive Director of Energy Transition and External Affairs at United Infrastructure and Managing Director at GTEC Training. Griff Thomas considers whether the UK has the grid capacity, infrastructure planning and skilled workforce needed to support a more electrified energy system. The question of whether the UK is ready for a highly electrified […]
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Solving the “Whac-a-mole dilemma”: A smarter way to debias AI vision models
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In today’s hospitals and clinics, a dermatologist may use an artificial intelligence model for classifying skin lesions to assess if the lesion is at risk of developing into a cancer or if it is benign. But if the model is biased toward certain skin tones, it could fail to identify a high-risk patient. Perhaps one […]
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Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
Computer models that use artificial intelligence (AI) cannot forecast record-breaking weather as well as traditional climate models, according to a new study. It is well established that AI climate models have surpassed traditional, physics-based climate models for some aspects of weather forecasting. However, new research published in Science Advances finds that AI models still “underperform” […]
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The MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab launches to shape the future of AI and quantum computing
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The following is a joint announcement by the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and IBM. IBM and MIT today announced the launch of the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab, advancing their long-standing collaboration to shape the next era of computing. The new lab expands its scope to include quantum computing, alongside foundational artificial intelligence research, with […]
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Could energy harvesting reduce the battery waste burden?
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Battery dependence could become a sustainability and maintenance liability for large-scale IoT deployment. Ambient energy harvesting may offer an alternative way to power sensors and small connected devices, explain Dr Lethy Krishnan, of the University of St Andrews, and Clara Ko, Head of Technical Sales, Linkam Scientific Instruments Billions of batteries end up in landfill […]
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Enabling privacy-preserving AI training on everyday devices
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A new method developed by MIT researchers can accelerate a privacy-preserving artificial intelligence training method by about 81 percent. This advance could enable a wider array of resource-constrained edge devices, like sensors and smartwatches, to deploy more accurate AI models while keeping user data secure. The MIT researchers boosted the efficiency of a technique known […]
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World ‘will not see significant return to coal’ in 2026 – despite Iran crisis
A much-discussed “return to coal” by some countries in the wake of the Iran war is likely to be far more limited than thought, amounting to a global rise of no more than 1.8% in coal power output this year. The new analysis by thinktank Ember, shared exclusively with Carbon Brief, is a “worst-case” scenario […]
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Text Summarization with Scikit-LLM
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Live monitoring helps Scottish Water avoid over-pumping at St Andrews station
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Pumps and associated equipment inside the dry well at St Nicholas Sewage Pumping Station in St Andrews. Real-time monitoring helped Scottish Water manage an unexpected maintenance problem at a strategic sewage pumping station in St Andrews, avoiding the need for temporary over-pumping and reducing environmental risk, according to technology supplier Xylem. Mark McCullagh, Xylem’s Scotland […]
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Pilot facility converts hard-to-recycle waste plastic to aviation fuel
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The Clean Planet team with with (second from left) Matthew Jee, Programme Manager for the UK SAF Clearing House. Clean Planet Technologies has opened what it describes as the world’s first pilot facility dedicated to converting hard-to-recycle waste plastics into sustainable aviation fuel. The Sustainability Innovation Centre, based at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent, will […]
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Oregon project aims to become world’s first superhot geothermal plant
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An illustration of the Project Obsidian power plant under development in Oregon (image credit: Quaise Energy) US geothermal technology startup Quaise Energy says its Project Obsidian in Oregon could deliver 50MW of always-on renewable power from superhot geothermal wells by 2030, in what the company describes as the world’s first power plant built around superhot […]
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A faster way to estimate AI power consumption
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Due to the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, it is estimated that data centers will consume up to 12 percent of total U.S. electricity by 2028, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Improving data center energy efficiency is one way scientists are striving to make AI more sustainable. Toward that goal, researchers from MIT and […]