I have heard stories of more aggressive interrogation of electronic devices at US border crossings. I know a lot about securing computers, but very little about securing phones.

Are there easy ways to delete data—files, photos, etc.—on phones so it can’t be recovered? Does resetting a phone to factory defaults erase data, or is it still recoverable? That is, does the reset erase the old encryption key, or just sever the password that access that key? When the phone is rebooted, are deleted files still available?

We need answers for both iPhones and Android phones. And it’s not just the US; the world is going to become a more dangerous place to oppose state power...

The legislative blitz by Berkshire Hathaway, which owns utilities through subsidiary PacifiCorp, has caught other industries off guard.

Li-Cycle indicated it won't be able to meet the financial conditions required to access the $475 million federal loan, which it needs to build a New York factory.

The National Institutes of Health said it pulled the policy because of language on diversity and inclusion.

Top lawmakers assailed the administration for blocking FEMA aid and for its plans to shrink the agency.

Environmentalists accused Gov. Kathy Hochul of delaying regulations called for in the 2019 climate law.

The electric vehicle industry is trying to break through the political divide.

The European Commission wants to keep a 90 percent emissions-cutting target but change how countries calculate their progress.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced Friday he had approved a new policy by the FAIR Plan to cover multimillion-dollar properties, eight months after he first announced the deal.

AB 1111 would push back the state’s ban on fossil fuel bus purchases to 2045.

California Energy Commission staff recommended upholding local officials' rejection on environmental and zoning grounds.

How far would you go for a good meal? For some of the ocean’s top predators, maintaining a decent diet requires some surprisingly long-distance dives.

MIT oceanographers have found that big fish like tuna and swordfish get a large fraction of their food from the ocean’s twilight zone — a cold and dark layer of the ocean about half a mile below the surface, where sunlight rarely penetrates. Tuna and swordfish have been known to take extreme plunges, but it was unclear whether these deep dives were for food, and to what extent the fishes’ diet depends on prey in the twilight zone.

In a study published recently in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, the MIT student-led team reports that the twilight zone is a major food destination for three predatory fish — bigeye tuna, yellowfin tuna, and swordfish. While the three species swim primarily in the shallow open ocean, the scientists found these fish are sourcing between 50 and 60 percent of their diet from the twilight zone.

The findings suggest that tuna and swordfish rely more heavily on the twilight zone than scientists had assumed. This implies that any change to the twilight zone’s food web, such as through increased fishing, could negatively impact fisheries of more shallow tuna and swordfish.

“There is increasing interest in commercial fishing in the ocean’s twilight zone,” says Ciara Willis, the study’s lead author, who was a PhD student in the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program when conducting the research and is now a postdoc at WHOI. “If we start heavily fishing that layer of the ocean, our study suggests that could have profound implications for tuna and swordfish, which are very reliant on the twilight zone and are highly valuable existing fisheries.”

The study’s co-authors include Kayla Gardener of MIT-WHOI, and WHOI researchers Martin Arostegui, Camrin Braun, Leah Hougton, Joel Llopiz, Annette Govindarajan, and Simon Thorrold, along with Walt Golet at the University of Maine.

Deep-ocean buffet

The ocean’s twilight zone is a vast and dim layer that lies between the sunlit surface waters and the ocean’s permanently dark, midnight zone. Also known as the midwater, or mesopelagic layer, the twilight zone stretches between 200 and 1,000 meters below the ocean’s surface and is home to a huge variety of organisms that have adapted to live in the darkness.

“This is a really understudied region of the ocean, and it’s filled with all these fantastic, weird animals,” Willis says.

In fact, it’s estimated that the biomass of fish in the twilight zone is somewhere close to 10 billion tons, much of which is concentrated in layers at certain depths. By comparison, the marine life that lives closer to the surface, Willis says, is “a thin soup,” which is slim pickings for large predators.

“It’s important for predators in the open ocean to find concentrated layers of food. And I think that’s what drives them to be interested in the ocean’s twilight zone,” Willis says. “We call it the ‘deep ocean buffet.’”

And much of this buffet is on the move. Many kinds of fish, squid, and other deep-sea organisms in the twilight zone will swim up to the surface each night to find food. This twilight community will descend back into darkness at dawn to avoid detection.

Scientists have observed that many large predatory fish will make regular dives into the twilight zone, presumably to feast on the deep-sea bounty. For instance, bigeye tuna spend much of their day making multiple short, quick plunges into the twilight zone, while yellowfin tuna dive down every few days to weeks. Swordfish, in contrast, appear to follow the daily twilight migration, feeding on the community as it rises and falls each day.

“We’ve known for a long time that these fish and many other predators feed on twilight zone prey,” Willis says. “But the extent to which they rely on this deep-sea food web for their forage has been unclear.”

Twilight signal

For years, scientists and fishers have found remnants of fish from the twilight zone in the stomach contents of larger, surface-based predators. This suggests that predator fish do indeed feed on twilight food, such as lanternfish, certain types of squid, and long, snake-like fish called barracudina. But, as Willis notes, stomach contents give just a “snapshot” of what a fish ate that day.

She and her colleagues wanted to know how big a role twilight food plays in the general diet of predator fish. For their new study, the team collaborated with fishermen in New Jersey and Florida, who fish for a living in the open ocean. They supplied the team with small tissue samples of their commercial catch, including samples of bigeye tuna, yellowfin tuna, and swordfish.

Willis and her advisor, Senior Scientist Simon Thorrold, brought the samples back to Thorrold’s lab at WHOI and analyzed the fish bits for essential amino acids — the key building blocks of proteins. Essential amino acids are only made by primary producers, or members of the base of the food web, such as phytoplankton, microbes, and fungi. Each of these producers makes essential amino acids with a slightly different carbon isotope configuration that then is conserved as the producers are consumed on up their respective food chains.

“One of the hypotheses we had was that we’d be able to distinguish the carbon isotopic signature of the shallow ocean, which would logically be more phytoplankton-based, versus the deep ocean, which is more microbially based,” Willis says.

The researchers figured that if a fish sample had one carbon isotopic make-up over another, it would be a sign that that fish feeds more on food from the deep, rather than shallow waters.

“We can use this [carbon isotope signature] to infer a lot about what food webs they’ve been feeding in, over the last five to eight months,” Willis says.

The team looked at carbon isotopes in tissue samples from over 120 samples including bigeye tuna, yellowfin tuna, and swordfish. They found that individuals from all three species contained a substantial amount of carbon derived from sources in the twilight zone. The researchers estimate that, on average, food from the twilight zone makes up 50 to 60 percent of the diet of the three predator species, with some slight variations among species.

“We saw the bigeye tuna were far and away the most consistent in where they got their food from. They didn’t vary much from individual to individual,” Willis says. “Whereas the swordfish and yellowfin tuna were more variable. That means if you start having big-scale fishing in the twilight zone, the bigeye tuna might be the ones who are most at risk from food web effects.”

The researchers note there has been increased interest in commercially fishing the twilight zone. While many fish in that region are not edible for humans, they are starting to be harvested as fishmeal and fish oil products. In ongoing work, Willis and her colleagues are evaluating the potential impacts to tuna fisheries if the twilight zone becomes a target for large-scale fishing.

“If predatory fish like tunas have 50 percent reliance on twilight zone food webs, and we start heavily fishing that region, that could lead to uncertainty around the profitability of tuna fisheries,” Willis says. “So we need to be very cautious about impacts on the twilight zone and the larger ocean ecosystem.”

This work was part of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ocean Twilight Zone Project, funded as part of the Audacious Project housed at TED. Willis was additionally supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the MIT Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability.

Next time you’re watching football you might be looking at an important feat of engineering from an MIT alumnus.

For the last year, former MIT middle linebacker and mechanical engineer Kodiak Brush ’17 has been leading the development of football helmets for the California-based sports equipment manufacturer LIGHT Helmets. In December, Brush notched a major achievement in that work: LIGHT Helmets’ new Apache helmet line was ranked the highest-performing helmet ever in safety tests by Virginia Tech’s renowned helmet-testing lab.

The ranking bolsters LIGHT Helmets’ innovative effort to make football helmets lighter and safer.

“We’re trying to lower the overall amount of energy going into each impact by lowering the weight of the helmet,” Brush says. “It’s a balancing act trying to have a complete, polished product with all the bells and whistles while at the same time keeping the mass of the helmet as low as possible.”

No helmet ensures total safety, and the NFL carries out helmet tests of its own, but for Brush, who played football for most of his life, the latest results were a rewarding milestone.

“It’s really cool to work in the football helmet space after playing the sport for so long,” Brush says. “We did this with a fraction of the research and development budget of our competitors. It’s a great feeling to have worked on something that could help so many people.”

From the field to the lab

Brush spent his playing career at middle linebacker, a position often considered the quarterback of the defense. In that role, he got accustomed to helping teammates understand their assignments on the field and making sure everyone was in the right position. At MIT, he quickly realized his role would be different.

“In high school, I was constantly reminding teammates what their job was and helping linemen when they lined up in the wrong spot,” Brush says. “At MIT, I didn’t need to do that at all. Everyone knew exactly what their job was. It was really cool playing football with such an intelligent group.”

Throughout his football career, Brush says concussions hung over the sport. He was only formally diagnosed with one concussion, but he notes how difficult it can be to accurately diagnose concussions during games.

“We did baseline tests before the season so we could take tests after a suspected concussion to see if our cognitively ability was degraded,” Brush explains. “But as a player, you want to get back out there and keep helping your team, so players often try to downplay injuries. The doctors do their best.”

Brush worked as an accident reconstruction expert immediately after graduation before joining a product design firm. It was through that position that he first began working with LIGHT Helmets through a consulting project. He started full time with LIGHT last year.

Since then, Brush has managed research and development along with the production of new helmet lines, working closely with LIGHT’s technology partner, KOLLIDE.

“I’m currently the only engineer at LIGHT, so I wear a lot of different hats,” Brush says.

A safer helmet

Brush led the development of LIGHT’s Apache helmet. His approach harkened back to his favorite class at MIT, 2.009 (Product Engineering Process). In the process of building prototypes, students in that class are often tasked with taking apart other products to study how they’re made. For Apache, Brush started by disassembling competing helmets to try to understand how they work, where they’re limited, and where each ounce of weight comes from.

“That helped us make decisions around what we wanted to incorporate into our helmets and what we thought was unnecessary,” Brush says.

LIGHT’s Apache helmets use an impact-modified nylon shell and a 3D-printed thermoplastic polyurethane liner. The liner can compress up to 80 percent of its thickness under full compression compared to traditional foam, which Brush says may compress 20 to 30 percent at most. The liner is made up of 20 different cylindrical pods, each of which has variable stiffness depending on the location in the helmet.

Brush says the shell is more flexible than traditional helmets, which is part of a broader trend among companies focusing on concussion avoidance.

“The idea with the flexible shell is we’re now able to squish both the inside and outside of the helmet, which lets you extend the length of the impact and lower the severity of the hit,” Brush says.

A winning formula

Brush says the company’s performance in Virginia Tech’s tests has garnered a lot of excitement in the industry. The Apache helmet is available for use across high school, college, and professional levels, and the company is currently developing a youth version.

“Last year, we sold about 5,000 helmets, but we’re anticipating tenfold growth this year,” Brush says. “Dealers see the opportunity to sell the number-one-rated helmet at the price of a lot of much lower-rated helmets.”

Other helmets from LIGHT are already being used at the highest levels, with players from 30 of the 32 NFL teams choosing a LIGHT Helmet when they suit up, the company says. That traction has changed Brush’s relationship with football.

For instance, he only used to watch NFL games on Sundays occasionally. But now that his helmets are on TV, he finds himself rooting for the players and teams wearing them.

Regardless of who he roots for, when football becomes safer, everyone wins.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 01 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02296-z

The terrestrial carbon flux—sources and sinks—under land-use change (LUC) is difficult to quantify. Here, using a LUC dataset drawing on remote sensing and forest inventory data, the authors show that in China the carbon sink from LUC (such as afforestation) may be underestimated.

Frederick “Fred” Davis Greene II, professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Chemistry who was accomplished in the field of physical organic chemistry and free radicals, passed away peacefully after a brief illness, surrounded by his family, on Saturday, March 22. He had been a member of the MIT community for over 70 years.

“Greene’s dedication to teaching, mentorship, and the field of physical organic chemistry is notable,” said Professor Troy Van Voorhis, head of the Department of Chemistry, upon learning of Greene’s passing. “He was also a constant source of joy to those who interacted with him, and his commitment to students and education was legendary. He will be sorely missed.”

Greene, a native of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, was born on July 7, 1927 to parents Phillips Foster Greene and Ruth Altman Greene. He spent his early years in China, where his father was a medical missionary with Yale-In-China. Greene and his family moved to the Philippines just ahead of the Japanese invasion prior to World War Il, and then back to the French Concession of Shanghai, and to the United States in 1940. He joined the U.S. Navy in December 1944, and afterwards earned his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1949 and a PhD from Harvard University in 1952. Following a year at the University of California at Los Angeles as a research associate, he was appointed a professor of chemistry at MIT by then-Department Head Arthur C. Cope in 1953. Greene retired in 1995.

Greene’s research focused on peroxide decompositions and free radical chemistry, and he reported the remarkable bimolecular reaction between certain diacyl peroxides and electron-rich olefins and aromatics. He was also interested in small-ring heterocycles, e.g., the three-membered ring 2,3-diaziridinones. His research also covered strained olefins, the Greene-Viavattene diene, and 9, 9', 10, 10'-tetradehydrodianthracene.

Greene was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965 and received an honorary doctorate from Amherst College for his research in free radicals. He served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society from 1962 to 1988. He was awarded a special fellowship form the National Science Foundation and spent a year at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, and was a member of the Chemical Society of London.

Greene and Professor James Moore of the University of Philadelphia worked closely with Greene’s wife, Theodora “Theo” W. Greene, in the conversion of her PhD thesis, which was overseen by Professor Elias J. Corey of Harvard University, into her book “Greene’s Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis.” The book became an indispensable reference for any practicing synthetic organic or medicinal chemist and is now in its fifth edition. Theo, who predeceased Fred in July 2005, was a tremendous partner to Greene, both personally and professionally. A careful researcher in her own right, she served as associate editor of the Journal of Organic Chemistry for many years.

Fred Greene was recently featured in a series of videos featuring Professor Emeritus Dietmar Seyferth (who passed away in 2020) that was spearheaded by Professor Rick Danheiser. The videos cover a range of topics, including Seyferth and Greene’s memories during the 1950s to mid-1970s of their fellow faculty members, how they came to be hired, the construction of various lab spaces, developments in teaching and research, the evolution of the department’s graduate program, and much more. 

Danheiser notes that it was a privilege to share responsibility for the undergraduate class 5.43 (Advanced Organic Chemistry) with Greene. “Fred Greene was a fantastic teacher and inspired several generations of MIT undergraduate and graduate students with his superb lectures,” Danheiser recalls. The course they shared was Danheiser’s first teaching assignment at MIT, and he states that Greene’s “counsel and mentoring was invaluable to me.”

The Department of Chemistry recognized Greene’s contributions to its academic program by naming the annual student teaching award the “Frederick D. Greene Teaching Award.” This award recognizes outstanding contributions in teaching in chemistry by undergraduates. Since 1993 the award has been given to 46 students.

Dabney White Dixon PhD ’76 was one of many students with whom Greene formed a lifelong friendship and mentorship. Dixon shares, “Fred Greene was an outstanding scientist — intelligent, ethical, and compassionate in every aspect of his life. He possessed an exceptional breadth of knowledge in organic chemistry, particularly in mechanistic organic chemistry, as evidenced by his long tenure as editor of the Journal of Organic Chemistry (1962 to 1988). Weekly, large numbers of manuscripts flowed through his office. He had an acute sense of fairness in evaluating submissions and was helpful to those submitting manuscripts. His ability to navigate conflicting scientific viewpoints was especially evident during the heated debates over non-classical carbonium ions in the 1970s.

“Perhaps Fred’s greatest contribution to science was his mentorship. At a time when women were rare in chemistry PhD programs, Fred’s mentorship was particularly meaningful. I was the first woman in my scientific genealogical lineage since the 1500s, and his guidance gave me the confidence to overcome challenges. He and Theo provided a supportive and joyful environment, helping me forge a career in academia where I have since mentored 13 PhD students — an even mix of men and women — a testament to the social progress in science that Fred helped foster.

“Fred’s meticulous attention to detail was legendary. He insisted that every new molecule be fully characterized spectroscopically before he would examine the data. Through this, his students learned the importance of thoroughness, accuracy, and organization. He was also an exceptional judge of character, entrusting students with as much responsibility as they could handle. His honesty was unwavering — he openly acknowledged mistakes, setting a powerful example for his students.

“Shortly before the pandemic, I had the privilege of meeting Fred with two of his scientific ‘granddaughters’ — Elizabeth Draganova, then a postdoc at Tufts (now an assistant professor at Emory), and Cyrianne Keutcha, then a graduate student at Harvard (now a postdoc at Yale). As we discussed our work, it was striking how much science had evolved — from IR and NMR of small-ring heterocycles to surface plasmon resonance and cryo-electron microscopy of large biochemical systems. Yet, Fred’s intellectual curiosity remained as sharp as ever. His commitment to excellence, attention to detail, and passion for uncovering chemical mechanisms lived on in his scientific descendants.

“He leaves a scientific legacy of chemists who internalized his lessons on integrity, kindness, and rigorous analysis, carrying them forward to their own students and research. His impact on the field of chemistry — and on the lives of those fortunate enough to have known him — will endure.”

Carl Renner PhD ’74 felt fortunate and privileged to be a doctoral student in the Greene group from 1969 to 1973, and also his teaching assistant for his 5.43 course. Renner recalls, “He possessed a curious mind of remarkable clarity and discipline. He prepared his lectures meticulously and loved his students. He was extremely generous with his time and knowledge. I never heard him complain or say anything unkind. Everyone he encountered came away better for it.”

Gary Breton PhD ’91 credits the development of his interest in physical organic chemistry to his time spent in Greene’s class. Breton says, “During my time in the graduate chemistry program at MIT (1987-91) I had the privilege of learning from some of the world’s greatest minds in chemistry, including Dr. Fred Greene. At that time, all incoming graduate students in organic chemistry were assigned in small groups to a seminar-type course that met each week to work on the elucidation of reaction mechanisms, and I was assigned to Dr. Greene’s class. It was here that not only did Dr. Greene afford me a confidence in how to approach reaction mechanisms, but he also ignited my fascination with physical organic chemistry. I was only too happy to join his research group, and begin a love/hate relationship with reactive nitrogen-containing heterocycles that continues to this day in my own research lab as a chemistry professor. 

“Anyone that knew Dr. Greene quickly recognized that he was highly intelligent and exceptionally knowledgeable about all things organic, but under his mentorship I also saw his creativity and cleverness. Beyond that, and even more importantly, I witnessed his kindness and generosity, and his subtle sense of humor. Dr. Greene’s enduring legacy is the large number of undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs whose lives he touched over his many years. He will be greatly missed.”

John Dolhun PhD ’73 recalls Greene’s love for learning, and that he “was one of the kindest persons that I have known.” Dolhun shares, “I met Fred Greene when I was a graduate student. His organic chemistry course was one of the most popular, and he was a top choice for many students’ thesis committees. When I returned to MIT in 2008 and reconnected with him, he was still endlessly curious — always learning, asking questions. A few years ago, he visited me and we had lunch. Back at the chemistry building, I reached for the elevator button and he said, ‘I always walk up the five flights of stairs.’ So, I walked up with him. Fred knew how to keep both mind and body in shape. He was truly a beacon of light in the department.”

Liz McGrath, retired chemistry staff member, warmly recalls the regular coffees and conversations she shared with Fred over two decades at the Institute. She shares, “Fred, who was already emeritus by the time of my arrival, imparted to me a deep interest in the history of MIT Chemistry’s events and colorful faculty. He had a phenomenal memory, which made his telling of the history so rich in its content. He was a true gentleman and sweet and kind to boot. ... I will remember him with much fondness.”

Greene is survived by his children, Alan, Carol, Elizabeth, and Phillips; nine grandchildren; and six great grandchildren. A memorial service will be held on April 5 at 11 a.m. at the First Congregational Church in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Pattie Maes, the Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and head of the Fluid Interfaces research group within the MIT Media Lab, has been awarded the 2025 ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award. She will accept the award at CHI 2025 in Yokohama, Japan this April.

The Lifetime Research Award is given to individuals whose research in human-computer interaction (HCI) is considered both fundamental and influential to the field. Recipients are selected based on their cumulative contributions, influence on the work of others, new research developments, and being an active participant in the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) community.

Her nomination recognizes her advocacy to place human agency at the center of HCI and artificial intelligence research. Rather than AI replacing human capabilities, Maes has advocated for ways in which human capabilities can be supported or enhanced by the integration of AI.

Pioneering the concept of software agents in the 1990s, Maes’ work has always been situated at the intersection of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence and has helped lay the foundations for today’s online experience. Her article “Social information filtering: algorithms for automating 'word of mouth'” from CHI 95, co-authored with graduate student Upendra Shardanand, is the second-most-cited paper from ACM SIGCHI.  

Beyond her contributions in desktop-based interaction, she has an extensive body of work in the area of  novel wearable devices that enhance the human experience, for example by supporting memory, learning, decision-making, or health. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Maes has explored accessible and ethical designs while stressing the need for a human-centered approach.

“As a senior faculty member, Pattie is an integral member of the Media Lab, MIT, and larger HCI communities,” says Media Lab Director Dava Newman. “Her contributions to several different fields, alongside her unwavering commitment to enhancing the human experience in her work, is exemplary of not only the Media Lab’s interdisciplinary spirit, but also our core mission: to create transformative technologies and systems that enable people to reimagine and redesign their lives. We all celebrate this well-deserved recognition for Pattie!”

Maes is the second MIT professor to receive this honor, joining her Media Lab colleague Hiroshi Ishii, the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and head of the Tangible Media research group.

“I am honored to be recognized by the ACM community, especially given that it can be difficult sometimes for researchers doing highly interdisciplinary research to be appreciated, even though some of the most impactful innovations often emerge from that style of research,” Maes comments.

Two appeals courts have recently rejected efforts by private parties to use copyright to restrict access to the laws that most directly affect ordinary citizens: regulations that ensure our homes, workplaces, devices, and many other products, are safe and fit for purpose. Apparently hoping the third time will be the charm, a standards organization is asking the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to break ranks and hold that a private party that helps develop a law also gets to own that law. In an amicus brief filed with co-counsel Abigail Burton and Samuel Silver of Welsh & Recker, P.C., on behalf of multiple entities— including Watch Duty, iFixit, Public.Resource.Org, and multiple library associations—EFF urged the court to instead join the judicial consensus and recognize that no one owns the law.

EFF urged the court to join the judicial consensus and recognize that no one owns the law.

This case concerns UpCodes, a company that has created a database of building codes—like the National Electrical Code—that includes codes incorporated by reference into law. ASTM, a private organization that coordinated the development of some of those codes, insists that it retains copyright in them even after they have been adopted into law, and therefore has the right to control how the public accesses and shares them. Fortunately, neither the Constitution nor the Copyright Act support that theory. Faced with similar claims, some courts, including the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, have held that the codes lose copyright protection when they are incorporated into law. Others, like the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case EFF defended on behalf of Public.Resource.Org, have held that, whether or not the legal status of the standards changes once they are incorporated into law, making them fully accessible and usable online is a lawful fair use. A federal court in Pennsylvania followed the latter path in this case, finding that UpCodes’ database was a protected fair use.

The Third Circuit should affirm the ruling, preferably on the alternative ground that standards incorporated into law are necessarily promoted to the public domain. The internet has democratized access to law, making it easier than ever for the public —from journalists to organizers to safety professionals to ordinary concerned citizens —to understand, comment on, and share the myriad regulations that bind us. That work is particularly essential where those regulations are crafted by private parties and made mandatory by regulators with limited public oversight and increasingly limited staffing. Copyright law should not be read to impede it.

The Supreme Court has explained that “every citizen is presumed to know the law, and it needs no argument to show that all should have free access” to it. Apparently, it needs some argument after all, but it is past time for the debate to end.

Related Cases: Freeing the Law with Public.Resource.Org

On March 25, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT launched the global Alliance for Data, Evaluation, and Policy Training (ADEPT) with Community Jameel at an event in São Paulo, Brazil. 

ADEPT is a network of universities, governments, and other members united by a shared vision: To empower the next generation of policymakers, decision-makers, and researchers with the tools to innovate, test, and scale the most effective social policies and programs. These programs have the potential to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

Too often, policy decisions in governments and other organizations are driven by ideology or guesswork. This can result in ineffective and inefficient policies and programs that don’t always serve their intended populations. ADEPT will bring a scientific perspective to policymaking, focusing on topics like statistical analysis, data science, and rigorous impact evaluation. 

Together with J-PAL, members will create innovative pathways for learners that include virtual and in-person courses, develop new academic programs on policy evaluation and data analysis, and cultivate a network of evidence-informed policy professionals to drive change globally. 

At the launch event at Insper, a Brazilian higher education institution, MIT economists Esther Duflo, co-founder of J-PAL, and Sara Fisher Ellison, faculty director of ADEPT, spoke about the importance of building a community aligned in support of evidence-informed policymaking. 

“Our aim is to create a vision-driven network of institutions around the world able to equip far more people in far more places with the skills and ambition for evidence-informed policymaking,” said Duflo. “We are excited to welcome Insper to the movement and create new opportunities for learners in Brazil.”

Members of the alliance will also have access to the MITx MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP), which offers online courses taught by MIT Department of Economics faculty through MIT’s Office of Open Learning. The program offers graduate-level courses that combine the tools of economics and policy design with a strong foundation in economic and mathematical principles.

Early members of the alliance include Insper, a leading research and training institution in Brazil; the National School of Statistics and Applied Economics of Abidjan in collaboration with the Cote d’Ivorian government; the Paris School of Economics; and Princeton University. 

“This unprecedented initiative in Latin America reinforces Insper’s commitment to academic excellence and the internationalization of teaching, providing Brazilian students with access to a globally renowned program,” says Cristine Pinto, Insper’s director of research. “Promoting large-scale impact through research and data analysis is a core objective of Insper, and shared by J-PAL and the expansion of ADEPT.”

Learners who obtain the DEDP MicroMasters credential through ADEPT can accelerate their pursuit of a master’s degree by applying to participating universities, including Insper and MIT, opening doors for learners who may not otherwise have access to leading economics programs.

By empowering learners with the tools and ambition to create meaningful change, ADEPT seeks to accelerate data-driven decision-making at every step of the policymaking process. Ultimately, the hope is that ADEPT’s impact will be felt not only by alliance members and their individual learners, but by millions of people reached by better policies and programs worldwide.

EFF has created a traveling exhibit, “Border Surveillance: Places, People, and Technology,” which will make its debut at the Angel Island Immigration Station historical site this spring.

The exhibition on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay will run from April 2, 2025 through May 28, 2025. We would especially like to thank the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and Angel Island State Park for their collaboration. You can learn more about the exhibit’s hours of operation and how to visit it here. 

For the last several years, EFF has been amassing data and images detailing the massive increase in surveillance technology infrastructure at the U.S.-Mexico border. EFF staff members have made a series of trips along the U.S.-Mexico border, from the California coast to the tip of Texas, to learn from communities on both sides of the border; interview journalists, aid workers, and activists; and map and document border surveillance technology. We created the most complete open-source and publicly-available map of border surveillance infrastructure. We tracked how the border has been used as a laboratory to test new surveillance technologies. We went to court to protect the privacy of digital information for people at the border. We even released a folder of more than 65 open-licensed images of border surveillance technology so that reporters, activists, and scholars can use alternative and open sources of visual information to inform discourse.

Now, we are hoping this traveling exhibit will be a way for us to share some of that information with the public. Think of it as Border Surveillance 101. 

We could not ask for a more poignant or significant place to launch this exhibit than at the historic Angel Island Immigration Station. Between 1910 and 1940, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, primarily from Asia, hoping to enter the United States through the San Francisco Bay were detained at Angel Island. After the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented Chinese laborers from moving to the United States, immigrants were held on Angel Island for days, months, or in some cases, even years, while they awaited permission to enter the country. Unlike New York City’s Ellis Island, which became a monument to welcoming immigrants,  Angel Island became a symbol of exclusion. The walls of the buildings where people awaited rulings on their immigration proceedings to this day,bear inscriptions and carved graffiti that show the depths of their uncertainty, alienation, fear—and hope. 

We hope that by juxtaposing the human consequences of historic exclusion with today’s high-tech, digital surveillance under which hopeful immigrants, asylum seekers, and borderlands residents live, we will invite viewers to think about what side of history they want to be on. 

If your institution—be it a museum, library, school or community center—is interested in hosting the exhibit in the future, please reach out to Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia at matthew@eff.org. 

Programing

In addition to the physical exhibit that you can visit on Angel Island, EFF will host two events to further explore surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico border. On April 3, 2025 from 1-2pm PDT, EFF will be joined by journalists, activists, and researchers that operate on both sides of the border, for a livestream event titled “Life and Migration Under Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”

For people in the Bay Area, EFF will host an in-person event in San Francisco titled “Tracking and Documenting Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border” on April 9th, 6-8pm hosted by the Internet Archive. Please check our events page for more information to RSVP.  

MIT and GE Vernova today announced the creation of the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance to help develop and scale sustainable energy systems across the globe.

The alliance launches a five-year collaboration between MIT and GE Vernova, a global energy company that spun off from General Electric’s energy business in 2024. The endeavor will encompass research, education, and career opportunities for students, faculty, and staff across MIT’s five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. It will focus on three main themes: decarbonization, electrification, and renewables acceleration.

“This alliance will provide MIT students and researchers with a tremendous opportunity to work on energy solutions that could have real-world impact,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer and dean of the School of Engineering. “GE Vernova brings domain knowledge and expertise deploying these at scale. When our researchers develop new innovative technologies, GE Vernova is strongly positioned to bring them to global markets.”

Through the alliance, GE Vernova is sponsoring research projects at MIT and providing philanthropic support for MIT research fellowships. The company will also engage with MIT’s community through participation in corporate membership programs and professional education.

“It’s a privilege to combine forces with MIT’s world-class faculty and students as we work together to realize an optimistic, innovation-driven approach to solving the world’s most pressing challenges,” says Scott Strazik, GE Vernova CEO. “Through this alliance, we are proud to be able to help drive new technologies while at the same time inspire future leaders to play a meaningful role in deploying technology to improve the planet at companies like GE Vernova.”

“This alliance embodies the spirit of the MIT Climate Project — combining cutting-edge research, a shared drive to tackle today’s toughest energy challenges, and a deep sense of optimism about what we can achieve together,” says Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT. “With the combined strengths of MIT and GE Vernova, we have a unique opportunity to make transformative progress in the flagship areas of electrification, decarbonization, and renewables acceleration.”

The alliance, comprising a $50 million commitment, will operate within MIT’s Office of Innovation and Strategy. It will fund approximately 12 annual research projects relating to the three themes, as well as three master’s student projects in MIT’s Technology and Policy Program. The research projects will address challenges like developing and storing clean energy, as well as the creation of robust system architectures that help sustainable energy sources like solar, wind, advanced nuclear reactors, green hydrogen, and more compete with carbon-emitting sources.

The projects will be selected by a joint steering committee composed of representatives from MIT and GE Vernova, following an annual Institute-wide call for proposals.

The collaboration will also create approximately eight endowed GE Vernova research fellowships for MIT students, to be selected by faculty and beginning in the fall. There will also be 10 student internships that will span GE Vernova’s global operations, and GE Vernova will also sponsor programming through MIT’s New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET), which equips students with career-oriented experiential opportunities. Additionally, the alliance will create professional education programming for GE Vernova employees.

“The internships and fellowships will be designed to bring students into our ecosystem,” says GE Vernova Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Roger Martella. “Students will walk our factory floor, come to our labs, be a part of our management teams, and see how we operate as business leaders. They’ll get a sense for how what they’re learning in the classroom is being applied in the real world.”

Philanthropic support from GE Vernova will also support projects in MIT’s Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), which launched last fall to elevate human-centered research and teaching. The projects will allow faculty to explore how areas like energy and cybersecurity influence human behavior and experiences.

In connection with the alliance, GE Vernova is expected to join several MIT consortia and membership programs, helping foster collaborations and dialogue between industry experts and researchers and educators across campus.

With operations across more than 100 countries, GE Vernova designs, manufactures, and services technologies to generate, transfer, and store electricity with a mission to decarbonize the world. The company is headquartered in Kendall Square, right down the road from MIT, which its leaders say is not a coincidence.

“We’re really good at taking proven technologies and commercializing them and scaling them up through our labs,” Martella says. “MIT excels at coming up with those ideas and being a sort of time machine that thinks outside the box to create the future. That’s why this such a great fit: We both have a commitment to research, innovation, and technology.”

The alliance is the latest in MIT’s rapidly growing portfolio of research and innovation initiatives around sustainable energy systems, which also includes the Climate Project at MIT. Separate from, but complementary to, the MIT-GE Vernova Alliance, the Climate Project is a campus-wide effort to develop technological, behavioral, and policy solutions to some of the toughest problems impeding an effective global climate response.