Brian Bergstein at The Boston Globe speaks with Bob Mumgaard SM '15, PhD '15, CEO of MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems, about the company’s efforts to advance fusion technologies. “When the federal government said in 2012 that it would cut funding for the experimental fusion reactor on campus, the MIT researchers took that as an opportunity to develop new fusion techniques — which eventually formed the basis of CFS’s plans,” writes Bergstein.
Prof. Armando Solar-Lezama and Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speak with CNBC reporter Trevor Laurence Jockims about the impact of AI in the workforce. “These transitions are about efficiency, but also about trust and transparency: workers will need to trust that companies aren’t simply using AI as a cover for cost-cutting,” says Rus.
Researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible “smart pill” that uses radio frequency to communicate from the stomach when patients have taken their medications. “It may sound simple, but the stakes are high,” reports McKenzie Beard for the New York Post. “Studies show that half of all Americans with chronic conditions don’t take their long-term medications as prescribed.”
Researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible pill that “contains a biodegradable radiofrequency antenna” which can be used to monitor patients’ medication intake, reports Nancy Lapid for Reuters. “After [the antenna] sends out the signal that the pill has been consumed, most components break down in the stomach while a tiny radiofrequency chip passes out of the body through the digestive tract,” explains Lapid.
The Economist chronicles the life and work of Prof. Nuno Loureiro, from his childhood in Portugal where he dreamed of becoming a scientist to his work at MIT as a “fusion pioneer” leading the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “He walked into his classes beaming, ready to cover the blackboard with figures. He joked like a friend, but he worked his students vigorously, advising them that if they were not yet the best, they should strive to be. Failure was not to be feared, because it showed they were trying to tackle the really hard problems.”
Prof. Jonanthan Gruber speaks with Boston 25 reporter Amal Elhelw about increased health insurance premiums. “It’s an enormous emotional toll,” says Gruber. “It’s just not a stress we should put on people in a nation as wealthy as America.”
Researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible pill that can communicate from the stomach and could help monitor patients' medication use, reports Prabhat Ranjan Mishra for Interesting Engineering. “After it sends out the signal that the pill has been consumed, most components break down in the stomach while a tiny RF chip passes out of the body through the digestive tract," writes Mishra.
Prof. Giovanni Traverso and his colleagues have developed a pill that can report when it has been swallowed, which could be used to ensure patients are taking their medicine correctly. “According to the World Health Organization, nearly 50% of patients in need of long-term treatment do not take their medication as prescribed,” reports Inside Precision Medicine. “This new reporting system could be beneficial for a wide range of patient populations.”
Prof. Jonathan How and graduate student Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao speak with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about their latest work developing an aerial microrobot that is “agile enough complete 10 consecutive somersaults in 11 seconds, even when wind disturbances threatened to push it off course.” Hsiao explains that: “This work demonstrates that soft and microrobots, traditionally limited in speed, can now leverage advanced control algorithms to achieve agility approaching that of natural insects and larger robots, opening up new opportunities for multimodal locomotion.”
Early research from MIT scientists suggests that over time a high-fat diet can impact the liver in a way that may raise the risk of cancer. “When the liver repeatedly processes large amounts of fat, its main working cells stop focusing on breaking down nutrients and filtering toxins,” writes Deirdre Bardolf for Fox News. “They revert to a more primitive state to help them endure the strain of a fatty diet, a shift researchers associate with tumorigenesis, the process by which cancer can develop.”
The MIT Museum is hosting its latest After Dark event on January 8 with a new program called “Making Time,” reports Shira Laucharoen for WBUR. The evening’s activities “will explore what it means to slow down,” writes Laucharoen. “Activities include collaborating with others on a rag rug-making project and practicing yoga and meditation with MIT’s Yes Plus Club.”
New York Times reporters Miguel Salazar and Laura Thompson feature “The People Can Fly,” an upcoming book by Prof. Joshua Bennett on their list of “nonfiction everyone will be talking about in 2026. “Bennett explores “what does it mean to be a gifted Black child in a country that treats them as an anomaly,” drawing on “the early archives of figures like James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, and Stevie Wonder – and his own experiences as an academic.”
David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative, writes for Fast Company about the risks associated with introducing driverless vehicles to European cities. “Technological marvels they may be, but robotaxis are still cars and cars are a uniquely inefficient means of moving large numbers of people when space is at a premium,” writes Zipper. “By inviting robotaxis into their narrow, busy streets, European cities risk worsening congestion.”
Prof. John Sterman speaks with Guardian reporters Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman about the climate concerns surrounding increased oil production in Venezuela. “If there are millions of barrels a day of new oil, that will add quite a lot of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and the people of Earth can’t afford that,” says Sterman.
In a roundup of the biggest tech breakthroughs of 2025, Forbes reporter Alex Knapp spotlights how MIT engineers developed magnetic transistors, a “discovery [that] could enable faster and more energy-efficient semiconductors.”