Professor Jesse Thaler has been named director of the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS), effective Aug. 1. He succeeds Professor Bolek Wyslouch, who directed LNS for the past decade. Thaler is a theoretical particle physicist who combines techniques from quantum field theory and machine learning to address outstanding questions in fundamental physics. 

“In his research, Jesse has done pioneering work on particle jets at the Large Hadron Collider and is a leader in combining AI and machine learning with fundamental particle physics,” says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics. “The collaborative nature of his research programs will serve the Laboratory for Nuclear Science as science enters a new era of AI-driven discovery.”

Thaler is the William and Emma Rogers Professor of Physics in the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics — a Leinweber Institute (CTP-LI). Since 2020, he has served as inaugural director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions, or IAIFI, which was recently renewed for another five years. Mike Williams, professor of physics, will succeed Thaler as IAIFI director. LNS is also poised to pursue new research projects through the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, which has a focus on AI-enabled scientific discovery.

“In my own field of particle physics, researchers are developing cutting-edge AI algorithms to handle the data deluge from collider experiments and to perform heroic theoretical calculations. This work has direct implications for discovering new physics, but the algorithms themselves turn out to be valuable well beyond our field,” says Thaler. “I’m excited to bring LNS into the next wave of discoveries supported by AI-driven capabilities.”

At IAIFI, Thaler has championed education and research activities at the intersection of physics and AI. With the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, IAIFI leadership created a doctoral program in physics, statistics, and data science. IAIFI also created dedicated postdoctoral fellowships to give early-career researchers the freedom to pursue interdisciplinary work. 

“Giving young scientists space to build connections across domains, universities, and career stages has been transformative within IAIFI,” says Thaler, who hopes to bring this type of framework to LNS. Established in 1946 to support nuclear and particle physics, LNS now encompasses research spanning cosmology, gravity, field theory, and quantum information science.

As head of LNS, Thaler will also oversee his home center of CTP-LI, which last year received a donation from the Leinweber Foundation to establish a network of theoretical physics research institutes. According to the Science Philanthropy Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes philanthropy for science, this constitutes the largest philanthropic commitment ever for this field.

Thaler received his PhD in physics from Harvard University in 2006, and his BS in math/physics from Brown University in 2002. From 2006 to 2009, he was a fellow at the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at the University of California at Berkeley. He joined the MIT faculty in 2010.

Not sure this will have any effect, but I support the effort:

According to Google’s legal filing, Outsider Enterprise operates through Telegram. The group offers phishing-as-a-service to individuals who may not be technically savvy enough to set up fraudulent websites and text campaigns on their own. In its Telegram channels, Outsider Enterprise reportedly provided instructions on how to use Google’s Gemini AI to create websites that imitate those of Google, YouTube, and government agencies such as New York’s E-ZPass. The group offered nearly 300 scam templates...

Here's an inside look at how a climate regulation became a battleground between the U.S. and Europe.

Boiling temperatures taxed regional grids in ways that are rarely seen due in part to data centers and climate change.

Blistering temperatures and widespread power outages led to record rates of emergency-room visits related to heat, CDC data shows.

TeraWulf announced a 20-year lease agreement with Anthropic for a data center site that has drawn pushback.

European steelmakers and industry groups have for months lobbied Brussels to include such a provision in the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act.

The Chinese products’ high convenience for usage, affordable pricing and installation cost savings could structurally benefit key manufacturers in the long run.

An expected power shortage would most likely need to be met with an increase in coal-fired electricity generation, the report said.

Another heat wave in Europe is fueling dangerous conditions for wildfires.

The buildings were built to keep warm in cold winters, not stay cool in prolonged periods of high temperatures.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02703-z

Seals in changing seas dive longer

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02701-1

Roots respond to phosphorus limitation

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02704-y

Female climate leadership

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02702-0

Shifts in experiencing downpours

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02707-9

Carbon accounting shapes how climate responsibility is allocated, and expanding existing frameworks could provide a stronger basis for effective and equitable climate action.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02588-y

The rapid electrification of Nepal’s automobile sector in just five years shows how a robust mix of policies and incentives can catapult climate action.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02685-y

Here the authors show that a common interpretation of the Paris Agreement’s ‘well below 2° C’ target is changing with time, which could lead to higher overall warming. They propose that using median temperatures instead of probability ranges is more robust.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02668-z

Unlike previous work showing that people underestimate others’ support for climate action, this study finds systematic pluralistic ignorance in both directions: frequent attitudes and actual behaviours are underestimated but rare ones are overestimated. This can be explained by general cognitive processes.

As advanced medical technology gets closer to hitting consumer markets, the need for guardrails on protected usage should increase. What might begin as a neural implant to aid in communication could become a device used to police one’s innermost thoughts.

Intrigued by the far-reaching benefits and risks of neural implants, Rachel Sava, a PhD candidate in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, explores how a life-changing medical device can become a tool for surveillance by corporations and government entities in her winning submission, “Superintelligence, Superintimate,” for the fourth annual Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize. 

Sava’s concept was inspired by an internship at IBM, where she worked on a project with the PACE Center in London. “A mentor on the project was Kevin Brown, who had himself designed one of the earliest brain decoders — an EEG-based system he built for a colleague who had suffered a stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome,” she says. “It was this patient population for whom the body has become an unreliable vehicle for the mind that motivated my writing about neuroprostheses some six years later.”

Sava explains that research and applications right now are at a “watershed moment in neurotechnology.” Using examples like companies taking advantage of neural implants to monitor mental productivity, or authorities policing a population for “thought crimes,” Sava said that as this tech hits consumer markets, there is a genuine fear that what starts as a revolutionary medical device could transition into more dystopian usages.

Presented by the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-campus initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, in collaboration with the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and with support from MAC3 Philanthropies, the competition invited MIT students to identify, in 3,000 words or fewer, which sector stands to gain the highest net positive impact from artificial intelligence. Students were encouraged to explore realistic technological deployments while considering potential risks and ethical concerns. All submissions were eligible for cash awards with the grand prize set at $10,000.

During a live awards ceremony hosted by Caspar Hare, former associate dean of SERC and professor of philosophy, who founded the prize in 2023, three finalists each gave a 20-minute presentation on their concepts and took questions from a panel of judges and audience members.

“SERC and the donors who make this prize possible year after year are asking us, the next generation of scientists: ‘what world do you want to see?’ I think it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself the same,” Sava said. “And if, as it did for me, the sentiment grows bright enough to motivate further action — then it’s worth giving yourself permission to explore it as deeply as you do your other academic work.”

Each year, the Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize asks students to look beyond technological advancement and consider the societal benefits and costs of their work from the outset. From its inception, the competition has consistently attracted undergraduate and graduate students from across a wide range of disciplines.

“This year’s submissions were amazing and included essays on brain-computer interfaces, AI and religion, AI for scientific discovery, finding efficiencies in the power grid, and many more,” says Brian Hedden, co-associate dean of SERC and a professor of philosophy, who holds an MIT Schwarzman College of Computing shared position with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “They showed the breadth and depth of thinking going on at MIT on the social and ethics impacts of technologies.”

Nikos Trichakis, co-associate dean of SERC and the J.C. Penney Professor of Management, adds “what is most striking about these essays is the breadth of imagination they display: the students move fluidly across medicine, neurotechnology, law, ethics, and public institutions, while keeping human agency at the center. Their work is creative, rigorous, and deeply thoughtful, showing a remarkable ability to envision not only what AI can do, but what it should do.”

In addition to awarding Sava the $10,000 grand prize, the judges recognized two runners-up with $5,000 each: Cordiana Cozier, a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry, for her paper on the use of AI as a cognitive buffer for public defenders; and Strahinja Janjusevic, a graduate student in the Technology and Policy Program in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, for his submission on agency and ownership in the field of neural-controlled prosthetics. The judges also named four honorable mentions, each of whom received a $500 cash prize.