ElectroVoxels are self-reconfiguring robot blocks, developed at MIT using embedded electromagnets to test applications for space exploration. | Continue reading
MIT and IBM researchers develop a new deep learning methodology that simulates counterfactual, time-varying and dynamic treatment strategies for critically ill patients, allowing doctors to choose the best course of action. | Continue reading
MIT researchers have found that, if a certain type of machine learning model is trained using an unbalanced dataset, the bias that it learns is impossible to fix after the fact. They developed a technique that induces fairness directly into the model, no matter how unbalanced the … | Continue reading
MIT researchers developed a desalination system that is more efficient and less expensive than previous methods. In addition to providing fresh water, the process could be used to treat contaminated wastewater or generate steam for sterilizing medical instruments, all without req … | Continue reading
The millionth sale of “Introduction to Algorithms” prompts a Q&A with two of its authors, Charles Leiserson and Tom Cormen, to look back at the creation and legacy of the bestselling foundational textbook, now in its fourth edition. | Continue reading
MIT researchers developed a technique that effectively protects computer programs’ secret information from memory-timing side channel attacks, while enabling faster computation than other security schemes. | Continue reading
MIT astronomers have obtained the clearest view yet of the perpetual dark side of an exoplanet that is “tidally locked” to its star. The planet is WASP-121b, a massive gas giant nearly twice the size of Jupiter. | Continue reading
MIT researchers created a technique that can automatically describe the roles of individual neurons in a neural network with natural language, helping machine learning practitioners better understand how their model will behave in the real world. | Continue reading
Researchers at MIT CSAIL developed a new programming language specifically for high-performance computing. With the prototype, says PhD student Amanda Liu, “speed and correctness do not have to compete ... they can go together, hand-in-hand.” | Continue reading
A new woody composite engineered by an MIT team is tough as bone and hard as aluminum, and might pave way for naturally derived plastics. | Continue reading
MIT Professor Rosalind Picard and MGH clinical psychologist Paola Pedrelli are using machine learning and wearable sensors to detect major depressive disorder symptoms in patients. | Continue reading
InfraredTags are invisible tags that can be embedded within the interior of objects fabricated on standard 3D printers. These tags, developed by Mustafa Doga Dogan, Stefanie Mueller, and colleagues at MIT CSAIL, could provide metadata for physical objects the way it is now availa … | Continue reading
In collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, MIT experts have begun designing and testing a technical framework through which Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) research can be performed in the U.S. | Continue reading
MIT PhD student Nina Andrejevic is training her machine-learning models to hunt for new and useful traits in materials. With her twin sister Jovana, she has developed a method for testing material samples to predict the presence of topological characteristics that is faster and m … | Continue reading
MIT chemical engineers have created a new material that is stronger than steel, as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities. | Continue reading
MIT Associate Professor Marzyeh Ghassemi offers a cautionary note about the prospects for AI in medicine: “If used carefully, this technology could improve performance in health care and potentially reduce inequities. But if we’re not actually careful, technology could worsen car … | Continue reading
MIT physicists have discovered a new quantum bit, or “qubit,” in the form of vibrating pairs of atoms known as fermions. The new qubit appears to be extremely robust, able to maintain superposition between two vibrational states, even in the midst of environmental noise, for up t … | Continue reading
Feature-attribution methods are used to determine if a neural network is working correctly when completing a task like image classification. MIT researchers developed a way to evaluate whether these feature-attribution methods are correctly identifying the features of an image th … | Continue reading
SketchAdapt, program-writing artificial intelligence system, learns how to compose short, high-level programs, while letting a second set of algorithms find the right sub-programs to fill in the details. | Continue reading
MIT scientists built a 3D atlas of the ocean’s oxygen-starved waters that could help predict oceanic response to climate change. | Continue reading
New sulfur-based processing methods developed by MIT researchers could help ease looming shortages of the essential metals that power everything from phones to automotive batteries. | Continue reading
Dead-end Discovery is a new learning model can identify high-risk treatments in urgent situations, and in some cases alert doctors when a patient is approaching a medical dead-end that will likely result in their death. | Continue reading
MIT alumni Marcos Berrios, Christina Birch, and Christopher Williams were introduced Monday as members of NASA’s 2021 astronaut class. | Continue reading
A new AI-powered, virtual platform called ThreeDWorld (TDW) uses real-world physics to simulate a rich and interactive audio-visual environment, enabling human and robotic learning, training, and experimental studies. | Continue reading
A new analysis by MIT researchers could help architects and builders reduce the carbon footprint of truss structures, the crisscrossing struts that bolster bridges, towers, and buildings. | Continue reading
MIT researchers developed a machine learning model that understands the underlying relationships between objects in a scene and can generate accurate images of scenes from text descriptions. | Continue reading
MIT physicists have confirmed that as atoms are chilled and squeezed to extremes, their ability to scatter light is suppressed, making them less visible. The findings show the Pauli exclusion principle, or Pauli blocking, applies not just to electrons but also to atoms. | Continue reading
Human neurons have a lower density of ion channels than expected, compared to neurons of other mammals, according to a new study. The researchers hypothesize that a lower channel density may have helped the human brain evolve to operate more efficiently. | Continue reading
Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact nuclear fusion reactor that could be realized in as little as a decade. Such a reactor could serve as a nearly inexhaustible energy resource. | Continue reading
MIT researchers have developed a control framework that enables robots to understand what it means to help or hinder one another and incorporate social reasoning into the tasks they are accomplishing. | Continue reading
Roboat, a full-scale, fully autonomous robotic boat developed at MIT, is launching along the canals of Amsterdam. The work comes from researchers in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Senseable City Laboratory, together with Amsterdam In … | Continue reading
MIT research suggests the underlying function of “next-word prediction” computational models closely resembles the function of language-processing centers in the human brain. | Continue reading
MIT researchers conducted a study with blind and sighted readers to determine the most useful descriptive alternative text to include with a chart. They developed a four-level framework that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a chart caption, whether it is generated by … | Continue reading
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a novel control system that enables the MIT mini cheetah robot to traverse discontinuous terrain effectively, in real-time without requiring the terrain to be pre-mapped. | Continue reading
An MIT study suggests our brains are not optimized to calculate the shortest possible route when navigating on foot. Instead, pedestrians use vector-based navigation, choosing “pointiest” paths that point most directly toward their destination, even if the routes are longer. | Continue reading
A new kind of fiber can be made into clothing that senses how much it is being stretched or compressed, and then provides tactile feedback in the form of pressure, lateral stretch, or vibration. Such fabrics could be used in garments that help train singers or athletes to better … | Continue reading
A brief history of the famous 1969 Margaret Hamilton photo featuring the Apollo software she and her team developed for NASA, sending humans to the moon. Article includes rarely-seen outtakes of Hamilton and her code from the MIT Museum. | Continue reading
MIT computer scientists have crunched data from 57 textbooks and more than 1,110 research papers to trace the history of how quickly algorithms got better. | Continue reading
A deep learning model predicts high-resolution automobile crash risk maps that describe the expected number of crashes and identify high-risk areas. The work was led by scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Qatar Center for … | Continue reading
MIT researchers have demonstrated that a special class of deep learning neural networks is able to learn the true cause-and-effect structure of a navigation task during training. | Continue reading
The unique mineral composition of the 2,050-year-old Roman tomb of Caecilia Metella could point the way toward more resilient and sustainable modern concrete structures. | Continue reading
Images from the Perseverance rover confirm that Jezero crater is an ancient Martian lake, MIT researchers report. The team also detected signs of flash flooding strong enough to carry large boulders downstream into the ancient delta. | Continue reading
The use of blockchain technology as a communication tool for a team of robots could provide security and safeguard against deception, according to a study by researchers at MIT and Polytechnic University of Madrid. The research may also have applications in cities where multirobo … | Continue reading
Researchers from MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories have developed a fully flexible device made of the 2-D material molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) that converts energy from Wi-Fi signals into electricity to power electronics, wearables, internet-of-things technologies, and t … | Continue reading
MIT scientists estimate that oxygenic photosynthesis — the ability to turn light and water into energy, releasing oxygen— first evolved on Earth between 3.4 and 2.9 billion years ago. | Continue reading
MIT engineers developed a technique that, for the first time, allows them to measure the generation rate and half-life of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in mice. | Continue reading
An MIT CSAIL-led group is drawing on an underused resource — the vast body of radiology reports that accompany medical images, written by radiologists in routine clinical practice — in order to improve the interpretive abilities of machine learning algorithms. | Continue reading
The economic crisis has revived an old philosophical idea about risk and uncertainty. But what is it, exactly? | Continue reading