Fiorenzo Omenetto is a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University and the director of Silklab. Fiorenzo’s problem is this: How do you turn a material people have been using for thousands of years into useful, cutting edge tools that improve everything from vaccine delivery to food waste?
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The Secrets of Silk
Fiorenzo Omenetto is a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University and the director of Silklab. Fiorenzo’s problem is this: How do you turn a material people have been using for thousands of years into…
Infiltrating an International Ransomware Gang
A few years ago, a ransomware gang called LockBit rose from obscurity to extort over $100 million from organizations around the world. A security strategist named Jon DiMaggio wanted to understand how the organization worked.…
Preparing for the Future of War
Christopher Kirchhoff helped launch a Defense Department office that aimed to bring Silicon Valley technology to the US military. Christopher’s problem is this: How can the giant bureaucracy that is the US military keep up…
Stopping HIV Without a Vaccine
Jared Baeten is senior vice president in virology at Gilead Sciences. Jared’s problem is this: In a world without a vaccine, how do you make a medicine that people will actually take to help prevent…
Harnessing the Heat Deep Beneath Our Feet
Carlos Araque is the co-founder and CEO of Quaise Energy. Carlos’ problem is this: How do you make drilling for geothermal energy as routine, widespread, and profitable as drilling for oil or gas? The answer…
The Brain Implant That Could Change Medicine
Ben Rapoport is the co-founder and CSO of Precision Neuroscience. Ben’s problem is this: Can you build a device that allows a paralyzed person to use a computer with only their thoughts – without damaging…
Building a Mass Market Robot
Jeff Cardenas is the co-founder and CEO of Apptronik. Jeff’s problem is this: Can you make a safe, reliable humanoid robot – for less than $50,000? In the short term, Apptronik’s robots will work in…
Solving Solar’s Biggest Problem
We need better, cheaper ways to store solar and wind energy when it’s dark out and the wind isn’t blowing. One option: Compressing air in underground caverns when energy is abundant, then blowing it back…
How Bubbles Power Breakthroughs
There are moments in history when people make huge technological advances all of a sudden. Think of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, or, more recently, generative AI. But what do these moments have in…
Teaching AI to Build Stuff in the Physical World
AI works well in the virtual world. That’s partly because the internet provides so much data to train AI models. But there’s no analogous data set for the physical world – and as a result,…