Introducing: the Engineering issue of MIT Technology Review. It’s about challenges big and small—like tunneling beneath the seafloor or replicating volcanic cooling—and how engineers are taking on these tasks with ambitious solutions.

The common cold is no match for modern technology, as Stripe and Anthropic back a $500-million nonprofit to fight respiratory viruses. But can they succeed where medicine has failed?

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was deemed the most dangerous in history, only to be dismissed rapidly. The hunt reveals the high-stakes race between global scientists.

The issue also covers a mix of tech news from AI flaws and drone swarms to Meta’s prediction markets app and SpaceX’s Starfall test flight. In the world of tech, nothing is predictable.