Reducing the use of fossil fuels will have unintended consequences for the power-generation industry and beyond. For example, many industrial chemical processes use fossil-fuel byproducts as precursors to things like asphalt, glycerine, and other important chemicals. One solution to reduce the impact of the loss of fossil fuels on industrial chemical processes is to store […]
Category: Research
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Researchers develop a paper-thin loudspeaker
MIT engineers have developed a paper-thin loudspeaker that can turn any surface into an active audio source. This thin-film loudspeaker produces sound with minimal distortion while using a fraction of the energy required by a traditional loudspeaker. The hand-sized loudspeaker the team demonstrated, which weighs about as much as a dime, can generate high-quality sound […]
A smarter way to develop new drugs
Pharmaceutical companies are using artificial intelligence to streamline the process of discovering new medicines. Machine-learning models can propose new molecules that have specific properties which could fight certain diseases, doing in minutes what might take humans months to achieve manually. But there’s a major hurdle that holds these systems back: The models often suggest new […]
Estimating the informativeness of data
Not all data are created equal. But how much information is any piece of data likely to contain? This question is central to medical testing, designing scientific experiments, and even to everyday human learning and thinking. MIT researchers have developed a new way to solve this problem, opening up new applications in medicine, scientific discovery, […]
Are supply chains stuck in detention?
Research from David Correll, a research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and co-director at the MIT FreightLab, has been getting some attention in Washington recently. Correll’s research focuses on data-driven approaches to understanding U.S. truck drivers’ utilization, retention, and quality of life. His work on how trucker “detention time” — the unpaid […]
An easier way to teach robots new skills
With e-commerce orders pouring in, a warehouse robot picks mugs off a shelf and places them into boxes for shipping. Everything is humming along, until the warehouse processes a change and the robot must now grasp taller, narrower mugs that are stored upside down. Reprogramming that robot involves hand-labeling thousands of images that show it […]
Five MIT PhD students awarded 2022 J-WAFS fellowships for water and food solutions
The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) recently announced the selection of its 2022-23 cohort of graduate fellows. Two students were named Rasikbhai L. Meswani Fellows for Water Solutions and three students were named J-WAFS Graduate Student Fellows. All five fellows will receive full tuition and a stipend for one semester, and […]
What choices does the world need to make to keep global warming below 2 C?
When the 2015 Paris Agreement set a long-term goal of keeping global warming “well below 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, it did not specify how its nearly 200 signatory nations could collectively achieve that goal. Each nation was left to its own devices to reduce […]
At Climate Grand Challenges showcase event, an exploration of how to accelerate breakthrough solutions
On the eve of Earth Day, more than 300 faculty, researchers, students, government officials, and industry leaders gathered in the Samberg Conference Center, along with thousands more who tuned in online, to celebrate MIT’s first-ever Climate Grand Challenges and the five most promising concepts to emerge from the two-year competition. The event began with a […]
Strengthening students’ knowledge and experience in climate and sustainability
Tackling the climate crisis is central to MIT. Critical to this mission is harnessing the innovation, passion, and expertise of MIT’s talented students, from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. To help raise this student involvement to the next level, the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) recently launched a program that will engage MIT […]
A community approach to improving the health of the planet
Earlier this month, MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) hosted a Health of the Planet Showcase. The event was the culmination of a four-year long community initiative to focus on what the mechanical engineering community at MIT can do to solve some of the biggest challenges the planet faces on a local and global scale. […]
What lies beneath
Why do people wear Rolex watches or drive Bentleys, when less expensive goods can perform better? Why does anyone fight the crowds at the Louvre to see the “Mona Lisa” for 30 seconds, when they could view it online for hours? Well, they may be engaging in “costly signaling,” in which people display their wealth […]
Anticipating others’ behavior on the road
Humans may be one of the biggest roadblocks keeping fully autonomous vehicles off city streets. If a robot is going to navigate a vehicle safely through downtown Boston, it must be able to predict what nearby drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians are going to do next. Behavior prediction is a tough problem, however, and current artificial […]
“Spring-loaded” system pops phosphorus into molecular rings
MIT chemists have devised a new chemical reaction that allows them to synthesize a phosphorus-containing ring, using a catalyst to add phosphorus to simple organic compounds called alkenes. Their reaction, which yields a ring containing two carbon atoms and one phosphorus atom, can be performed at normal temperature and pressure, and makes use of a […]
MIT scientists develop low-cost, high-precision fabrication method for thin mirrors and silicon wafers
Technologies that depend on lightweight, high-precision optical systems, like space telescopes, X-ray mirrors, and display panels, have developed significantly over the past several decades, but more advanced progress has been limited by seemingly simple challenges. For example, the surfaces of mirrors and plates with microstructures that are necessary in these optical systems can be distorted […]
In the history lab, delving into the South Asian experience at MIT
Researching history in the MIT archives is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, according to junior Jupneet Singh. “You get a name from here, a picture from here” and you begin to piece together stories about people from the past, says Singh, who has been diving into the archives this spring for class 21H.S04 (South […]
A flexible way to grab items with feeling
The notion of a large metallic robot that speaks in monotone and moves in lumbering, deliberate steps is somewhat hard to shake. But practitioners in the field of soft robotics have an entirely different image in mind — autonomous devices composed of compliant parts that are gentle to the touch, more closely resembling human fingers […]
Frequent encounters build familiarity
Do better spatial networks make for better neighbors? There is evidence that they do, according to Paige Bollen, a sixth-year political science graduate student at MIT. The networks Bollen works with are not virtual but physical, part of the built environment in which we are all embedded. Her research on urban spaces suggests that the […]
Joystick-operated robot could help surgeons treat stroke remotely
MIT engineers have developed a telerobotic system to help surgeons quickly and remotely treat patients experiencing a stroke or aneurysm. With a modified joystick, surgeons in one hospital may control a robotic arm at another location to safely operate on a patient during a critical window of time that could save the patient’s life and […]
MIT.nano Immersion Lab Gaming Program awards third annual seed grants
MIT.nano has announced its next round of seed grants to support hardware and software research related to sensors, 3D/4D interaction and analysis, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and gaming. The grants are awarded through the MIT.nano Immersion Lab Gaming Program, a four-year collaboration between MIT.nano and NCSOFT, a digital entertainment company and founding member of […]
Engineered bacteria could help protect “good” gut microbes from antibiotics
Antibiotics are life-saving drugs, but they can also harm the beneficial microbes that live in the human gut. Following antibiotic treatment, some patients are at risk of developing inflammation or opportunistic infections such as Clostridiodes difficile. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics on gut microbes can also contribute to the spread of resistance to the drugs. In […]
MIT announces five flagship projects in first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition
MIT today announced the five flagship projects selected in its first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition. These multiyear projects will define a dynamic research agenda focused on unraveling some of the toughest unsolved climate problems and bringing high-impact, science-based solutions to the world on an accelerated basis. Representing the most promising concepts to emerge from the […]
Leveraging science and technology against the world’s top problems
Looking back on nearly a half-century at MIT, Richard K. Lester, associate provost and Japan Steel Industry Professor, sees a “somewhat eccentric professional trajectory.” But while his path has been irregular, there has been a clearly defined through line, Lester says: the emergence of new science and new technologies, the potential of these developments to shake […]
New tool reveals how immune cells find their targets
The human body has millions of unique B and T cells that roam the body, looking for microbial invaders. These immune cells’ ability to recognize harmful microbes is critical to successfully fighting off infection. MIT biological engineers have now devised an experimental tool that allows them to precisely pick out interactions between a particular immune […]
Finding the questions that guide MIT fusion research
“One of the things I learned was, doing good science isn’t so much about finding the answers as figuring out what the important questions are.” As Martin Greenwald retires from the responsibilities of senior scientist and deputy director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), he reflects on his almost 50 years of […]
Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on using data and science to forecast climate-related risk
Note: This is the final article in a four-part interview series featuring the work of the 27 MIT Climate Grand Challenges finalist teams, which received a total of $2.7 million in startup funding to advance their projects. This month, the Institute will name a subset of the finalists as multiyear flagship projects. Advances in computation, […]
MIT welcomes two from the Heising-Simons Foundation 51 Pegasi b Fellowship for 2022
MIT’s School of Science welcomes postdocs Malena Rice and Eva Scheller, recipients of the 2022 51 Pegasi b Fellowship. The announcement was made March 31 by the Heising-Simons Foundation. The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship, named after the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a sun-like star, was established in 2017 to provide postdocs with the opportunity to […]
Ocean vital signs
Without the ocean, the climate crisis would be even worse than it is. Each year, the ocean absorbs billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere, preventing warming that greenhouse gas would otherwise cause. Scientists estimate about 25 to 30 percent of all carbon released into the atmosphere by both human and natural sources is […]
Does this artificial intelligence think like a human?
In machine learning, understanding why a model makes certain decisions is often just as important as whether those decisions are correct. For instance, a machine-learning model might correctly predict that a skin lesion is cancerous, but it could have done so using an unrelated blip on a clinical photo. While tools exist to help experts […]
Study reveals the dynamics of human milk production
For the first time, MIT researchers have performed a large-scale, high-resolution study of the cells in breast milk, allowing them to track how these cells change over time in nursing mothers. By analyzing human breast milk produced between three days and nearly two years after childbirth, the researchers were able to identify a variety of […]
System helps severely motor-impaired individuals type more quickly and accurately
In 1995, French fashion magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a seizure while driving a car, which left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome, a neurological disease in which the patient is completely paralyzed and can only move muscles that control the eyes. Bauby, who had signed a book contract shortly before his accident, […]
With new industry, a new era for cities
Kista Science City, just north of Stockholm, is Sweden’s version of Silicon Valley. Anchored by a few big firms and a university, it has become northern Europe’s main high-tech center, with housing mixed in so that people live and work in the same general area. Around the globe, a similar pattern is visible in many […]
Solving the challenges of robotic pizza-making
Imagine a pizza maker working with a ball of dough. She might use a spatula to lift the dough onto a cutting board then use a rolling pin to flatten it into a circle. Easy, right? Not if this pizza maker is a robot. For a robot, working with a deformable object like dough is […]
Fighting discrimination in mortgage lending
Although the U.S. Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits discrimination in mortgage lending, biases still impact many borrowers. One 2021 Journal of Financial Economics study found that borrowers from minority groups were charged interest rates that were nearly 8 percent higher and were rejected for loans 14 percent more often than those from privileged groups. When […]
Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on new pathways to decarbonizing industry
Note: This is the third article in a four-part interview series highlighting the work of the 27 MIT Climate Grand Challenges finalist teams, which received a total of $2.7 million in startup funding to advance their projects. In April, the Institute will name a subset of the finalists as multiyear flagship projects. The industrial sector […]
A tool for predicting the future
Whether someone is trying to predict tomorrow’s weather, forecast future stock prices, identify missed opportunities for sales in retail, or estimate a patient’s risk of developing a disease, they will likely need to interpret time-series data, which are a collection of observations recorded over time. Making predictions using time-series data typically requires several data-processing steps […]
A better way to separate gases
Industrial processes for chemical separations, including natural gas purification and the production of oxygen and nitrogen for medical or industrial uses, are collectively responsible for about 15 percent of the world’s energy use. They also contribute a corresponding amount to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Now, researchers at MIT and Stanford University have developed a […]
Scientists develop the largest, most detailed model of the early universe to date
It all started around 13.8 billion years ago with a big, cosmological “bang” that brought the universe suddenly and spectacularly into existence. Shortly after, the infant universe cooled dramatically and went completely dark. Then, within a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang, the universe woke up, as gravity gathered matter into the first […]
Study finds neurons that encode the outcomes of actions
When we make complex decisions, we have to take many factors into account. Some choices have a high payoff but carry potential risks; others are lower risk but may have a lower reward associated with them. A new study from MIT sheds light on the part of the brain that helps us make these types […]
Study: With masking and distancing in place, NFL stadium openings in 2020 had no impact on local Covid-19 infections
As with most everything in the world, football looked very different in 2020. As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, many National Football League (NFL) games were played in empty stadiums, while other stadiums opened to fans at significantly reduced capacity, with strict safety protocols in place. At the time it was unclear what impact such large […]
Building bridges, not silos
The MIT campus is built to connect people. Some structures, like the Stata Center, the Sloan building, or the Media Lab building, offer large lobbies, flexible labs, and common spaces to enhance collaboration. MIT’s Infinite Corridor — which is one-sixth of a mile long — mixes thousands of people together daily. Aerial walkways connect campus […]
A simple diagnostic tool for gastrointestinal disorders
As food moves through the digestive tract, contracting muscles along the tract keep things flowing smoothly. Loss of this motility can lead to acid reflux, failure of food to move out of the stomach, or constipation. Dysmotility disorders are usually diagnosed with a catheter containing pressure transducers, which can sense contractions of the GI tract. […]
Ride-hailing without the traffic snarls?
In theory, competition among ride-hailing companies should be a good thing, providing more options for consumers. In practice, having too many ride-hailing vehicles adds to urban congestion. How can cities balance these factors? A new study co-authored by MIT researchers, in collaboration with the Institute for Informatics and Telematics of the National Research Council of […]
Making quantum circuits more robust
Quantum computing continues to advance at a rapid pace, but one challenge that holds the field back is mitigating the noise that plagues quantum machines. This leads to much higher error rates compared to classical computers. This noise is often caused by imperfect control signals, interference from the environment, and unwanted interactions between qubits, which […]
Could we make cars out of petroleum residue?
As the world struggles to improve the efficiency of cars and other vehicles in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions and improve the range of electric vehicles, the search is on for ever-lighter materials that are strong enough to be used in the bodies of cars. Lightweight materials made from carbon fiber, similar to the […]
Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on accelerating reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions
This is the second article in a four-part interview series highlighting the work of the 27 MIT Climate Grand Challenges finalists, which received a total of $2.7 million in startup funding to advance their projects. In April, the Institute will name a subset of the finalists as multiyear flagship projects. Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel […]
Physicists find direct evidence of strong electron correlation in a 2D material for the first time
In recent years, physicists have discovered materials that are able to switch their electrical character from a metal to an insulator, and even to a superconductor, which is a material in a friction-free state that allows electrons to flow with zero resistance. These materials, which include “magic-angle” graphene and other synthesized two-dimensional materials, can shift […]
A fabric that “hears” your heartbeat
Having trouble hearing? Just turn up your shirt. That’s the idea behind a new “acoustic fabric” developed by engineers at MIT and collaborators at Rhode Island School of Design. The team has designed a fabric that works like a microphone, converting sound first into mechanical vibrations, then into electrical signals, similarly to how our ears […]
A possible new Covid-19 vaccine could be accessible for more of the world
While many people in wealthier countries have been vaccinated against Covid-19, there is still a need for vaccination in much of the world. A new vaccine developed at MIT and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center may aid in those efforts, offering an inexpensive, easy-to-store, and effective alternative to RNA vaccines. In a new paper, the […]
Look! Up in the sky! Is it a planet? Nope, just a star
The first worlds beyond our solar system were discovered three decades ago. Since then, close to 5,000 exoplanets have been confirmed in our galaxy. Astronomers have detected another 5,000 planetary candidates — objects that might be planets but have yet to be confirmed. Now, the list of planets has shrunk by at least three. In […]