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From Muthoni Ngatia's (top left) journey to becoming an economist, to the impressive collaboration that helped create Echo Show 10, to the award-winning work of the Middle Mile team, these stories are the ones readers gravitated to most often (so far).
Glynis Condon

The top stories of the first half of 2021

These 12 stories are the ones that really resonated with the Amazon Science audience in the first six months of this year.

If these stories intrigue you, be sure to see the latest papers published by Amazon scientists, take a look at the deep dives into science on our blog, and visit our conferences and events section to learn where Amazon researchers will be presenting.

The 12 most popular stories of 2021 (so far)

How acoustic event detection helps Alexa Guard understand what might warrant an alert — and what just might be a microwave beeping.
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Credit: AboutAmazon.com
The Middle Mile team manages complexity and scale in making routing decisions across the company’s expansive transportation network.
A grid of 12 women scientists who were asked what three steps we can take as a society to forge a more gender-equal science community
Credit: Glynis Condon
International Women's Day was March 8 with the theme: #ChooseToChallenge. We spoke to scientists at Amazon to get their perspective.
How a team of designers, scientists, developers, and engineers worked together to create a truly unique device in Echo Show 10.
Muthonia Ngatia
Courtesy of Muthoni Ngatia
The Amazon economist says lessons from her mother taught her a lot about how the world works, and why economics plays such a vital role.

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Credit: F4D Studio
While these systems look like other robot arms, they embed advanced technologies that will shape Amazon's robot fleet for years to come.

Their doctoral degrees help these product managers bridge the gap between business and science.

Abdigani Diriye is seen giving a talk in front of a map of the African continent
Credit: Bret Hartman / TED
The Amazon research manager was included on a list of individuals 40 and younger who are projected to play a leading role in Africa’s economic future.

“Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the Alexa team has shown incredible adaptability and grit, delivering scientific results that are already making a difference for our customers and will have long-lasting effects,” Rohit Prasad.
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Credit: Todd Cheney
Amazon vice president Stefano Soatto writes about the work his team is doing to making AI more "graceful", including publishing papers on backward-compatible updates to ML models and more.
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Credit: Gregory Trott/AP
In its collaboration with the NFL, AWS contributes cloud computing technology, machine learning services, business intelligence services — and, sometimes, the expertise of its scientists.
A picture of Aleksander Kubica
Credit: Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
How an Amazon quantum computing scientist won the first-ever quantum chess tournament.

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