K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center will prioritize innovations for resource-constrained communities
Collaborative hub founded by philanthropist Lisa Yang will catalyze academic innovation and result in real-world, global impact.
Building a better indoor herb garden
Randall Briggs ’09, SM ’18 created the GardenByte indoor herb garden to grow crops three times faster than they would outdoors.
Accelerated climate action needed to sharply reduce current risks to life and life-support systems
2023 Global Change Outlook from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change quantifies benefits of policies that cap global warming at 1.5 C.
Unlocking the secrets of natural materials
Professor Benedetto Marelli develops silk-based technologies with uses “from lab to fork,” including helping crops grow and preserving perishable foods.
Microbes could help reduce the need for chemical fertilizers
New coating protects nitrogen-fixing bacteria from heat and humidity, which could allow them to be deployed for large-scale agricultural use.
Smart irrigation technology covers “more crop per drop”
Placing solutions in the cloud but learning with boots on the ground, GEAR Lab researchers build low-cost, solar-powered irrigation tools to make precision agriculture more accessible.
Ancient Amazonians intentionally created fertile “dark earth”
The rich soil holds thousands of tons of carbon, sequestered over centuries by indigenous practices, a new study suggests.
How to tackle the global deforestation crisis
Vital forest is cleared every day, with major climate effects. Satellites have revolutionized measurement of the problem, but what can we do about it?
How forests can cut carbon, restore ecosystems, and create jobs
A new analysis describes steps planners can take to make forests more effective “natural climate solutions.”
Addressing food insecurity in arid regions with an open-source evaporative cooling chamber design
Less expensive than refrigerated cold rooms, this cooling chamber offers accessible cold storage for smallholder farmers.
Q&A: Gabriela Sá Pessoa on Brazilian politics, human rights in the Amazon, and AI
The Brazilian social justice reporter is a fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies.
Six ways MIT is taking action on climate
A variety of recent events highlighted efforts by faculty, staff, and students to make a difference today.
3 Questions: Can disused croplands help mitigate climate change?
Assistant Professor César Terrer and recent visiting student Stephen Bell describe how agricultural lands that are no longer productive could play an important role in carbon sequestration.
J-WAFS announces 2023 seed grant recipients
Fifteen principal investigators from across MIT will conduct early work to solve issues ranging from water contamination to aquaculture monitoring and management.
Finding “hot spots” where compounding environmental and economic risks converge
A new computational tool empowers decision-makers to target interventions.