Ancient Amazonians intentionally created fertile “dark earth”

A new study suggests patches of fertile soil in the Amazon, known as dark earth, were intentionally produced by ancient Amazonians as a way to improve the soil and sustain large and complex societies. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

The secret to good schools: Try, try again

In his book “Iterate,” MIT Associate Professor Justin Reich contends the key to improvement in schools is modest-sized, incremental changes that can be repeatedly refined. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Mariama N'Diaye's design-led approach to governance

MIT Morningside Academy for Design Fellow combines her expertise in urban planning and business administration to tackle complex social issues within government systems. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

2023-2024 Accenture Fellows advance technology at the crossroads of business and society

The MIT School of Engineering and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology announce that Yiyue Luo, Zanele Munyikwa, Michelle Vaccaro, Chonghuan Wang, and Aaron Michael West Jr. are the 2023-24 graduate fellows. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Four Lincoln Laboratory technologies win five 2023 R&D 100 awards

MIT Lincoln Laboratory technologies received five awards from R&D World for 2023. The awards recognize this year's 100 most innovative products that have been transitioned to use or introduced to the marketplace. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

How to tackle the global deforestation crisis

New research examines the “revolution” in the study of deforestation brought about by satellites, and analyzing which kinds of policies might limit climate-altering deforestation. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

How to keep people out of the emergency room

Help for immigrants in arranging primary care visits leads to substantial drop in ER visits and costs, a new study shows. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

An implantable device could enable injection-free control of diabetes

MIT engineers designed an implantable device that carries hundreds of thousands of islet cells along with its own on-board oxygen factory to keep the cells healthy. Such a device could help Type 1 diabetes patients eliminate the need for insulin injections. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

MIT scholars awarded seed grants to probe the social implications of generative AI

Following MIT President Sally Kornbluth’s call for proposals, 27 teams of MIT scholars have been selected to develop research papers analyzing the impact of generative AI on education, companionship, music, and more. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Mechanical engineering with a twist: Pursuing a passion for robotics with customized major

At MIT, Sharmi Shah combined her interest in mechanical engineering with a passion for robotics with Course 2-A/6, a customizable degree path that combines mechanical engineering with computer science and electrical engineering. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Mikhail Ivanov wins 2024 New Horizons in Physics Breakthrough Prize

MIT assistant professor of physics shares award for understanding the large-scale structure of the universe. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

MIT’s dynaMIT club sparks interest in STEM for middle schoolers

MIT students in the club dynaMIT teach STEM principles to under-resourced middle school students from the Boston area for free. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

MIT.nano Family Day invites those at home to come to work

Staff share nano experience — and ice cream — with their families. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

MIT named No. 2 university by U.S. News for 2023-24

MIT has placed second in U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings of the nation’s best colleges and universities for 2023-24. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Tracking US progress on the path to a decarbonized economy

MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Rhodium Group have launched the Clean Investment Monitor, a database to monitor investments in clean technologies and infrastructure in the United States. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

AI-driven tool makes it easy to personalize 3D-printable models

With Style2Fab, developed at MIT, makers can rapidly customize models of 3D-printable objects, such as assistive devices, without hampering their functionality. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Study explains why certain immunotherapies don’t always work as predicted

An MIT study reveals a possible explanation for why checkpoint blockade inhibitors don’t work well for some patients whose tumors have a high mutational burden. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

A pose-mapping technique could remotely evaluate patients with cerebral palsy

A machine-learning system remotely analyzes videos of people with motor or neurological disorders, and assesses their movement in real-time. The technology could reduce the need doctor visits for patients with cerebral palsy and other disorders. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Desirée Plata appointed co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium

Plata’s expertise in academics and industry will help advance the mission of the consortium and propel implementable climate solutions forward. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

MIT Sloan Dean Emeritus Bill Pounds, an expert in corporate governance and operations management, dies at 95

MIT Sloan Dean Emeritus William Pounds died Aug. 23 at the age of 95. An expert in corporate governance and operations management, he championed a generation of MIT Sloan faculty members. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Pixel-by-pixel analysis yields insights into lithium-ion batteries

By mining X-ray images, MIT researchers have made significant new discoveries about the reactivity of lithium iron phosphate, a material used in batteries for electric cars and in other rechargeable batteries. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Helping computer vision and language models understand what they see

A new synthetic dataset and fine-tuning technique can be used to help machine-learning models understand the concepts in a scene, such as the positional relationships between objects, rather than just learning the object names. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Startups generate inspiration and applause at Demo Day 2023

Demo Day 2024, the capstone event for MIT’s delta v accelerator, gave students a chance to celebrate startup milestones they achieved over the summer. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

AI model speeds up high-resolution computer vision

A machine-learning model for high-resolution computer vision could enable computationally intensive vision applications, such as autonomous driving or medical image segmentation, on edge devices. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Jackson Jewett wants to design buildings that use less concrete

MIT PhD student Jackson Jewett is working to shrink the construction industry’s huge carbon footprint through algorithms for designing large structures using less material. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

MIT engineers design more powerful RNA vaccines

By adding synergistic self-adjuvanting properties to Covid-19 RNA vaccines, MIT researchers showed they could significantly boost the immune response generated in mice. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

How to prevent biofilms in space

In experiments aboard the International Space Station, a surface treatment developed by MIT engineers prevented the growth of microbial biofims. These films can damage equipment and potentially cause illness. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Researchers have discovered ancient Roman concrete-manufacturing strategies that incorporated self-healing. Applying this knowledge toward modern cement production, they hope to improve the material’s environmental impact. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 1 year ago

Building the Self-Flying Future

MIT alumnus Leon Villegas builds on his journey from Mexico to MIT's Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program as an operations leader in guiding the production of the new Generation 6 autonomous eVTOL air taxi at Wisk Aero. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Microparticles can beat rhythmically generating electric current to Power Robots

Taking advantage of a phenomenon known as emergent behavior, MIT engineers have designed simple microparticles that can collectively generate complex behavior. Working together, the microparticles can generate a beating clock that oscillates at a very low frequency. These oscilla … | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Engineers develop a new kind of shape-memory material

MIT engineers created shape-memory materials made of ceramic rather than of traditional metal. The development opens a new range of applications, especially for actuators in high-temperature settings. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Why Europe is so vulnerable to heat waves

MIT News spoke with Professor Elfatih Eltahir and Alexandre Tuel PhD ’20 about this summer’s drought and record temperatures in Europe and whether this is a harbinger of things to come as the Earth’s climate warms. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

MIT: Simulating neutron behavior in nuclear reactors

MIT graduate student Amelia Trainer’s work in modeling and simulating complicated neutron behavior in reactors is fundamental to understanding how nuclear reactors operate and helps forecast the behavior of reactors. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

MIT events illuminate critical need for menstruation science

The MIT Center for Gynepathology Research hosted a rally, networking reception, film screening, and expert panel discussion on women’s reproductive health, with particular attention on endometriosis. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Scientists chart how exercise affects the body

MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers mapped out many of the cells, genes, and cellular pathways that are modified by exercise or a high-fat diet. They hope their findings will help guide the design of drugs that might mimic some beneficial effects of exercise. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Learning on the edge

A new technique enables on-device training of machine-learning models on edge devices like microcontrollers, which have very limited memory. This could allow edge devices to continually learn from new data, eliminating data privacy issues, while enabling user customization. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

MIT engineers build a battery-free, wireless underwater camera

MIT researchers built a battery-free, wireless underwater camera, powered by sound waves, that can take high-quality, color images, even in dark environments. It transmits image data through the open water to a receiver that reconstructs the color image. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

A simple way to significantly increase lifetimes of fuel cells and other devices

In research that could jumpstart work on technologies including fuel cells, key to storing solar and wind energy, MIT researchers have found a relatively simple way to increase the lifetimes of these devices: changing the “pH” of the system. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Dopamine primes the brain for enhanced vigilance (2018)

MIT neuroscientists discovered a circuit in the brain’s prefrontal cortex that they believe controls diversion of attention away from everyday pursuits to potential threats, potentially affecting anxiety. They also found dopamine is key to this process. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Engineers fabricate a chip-free, wireless electronic “skin”

MIT engineers fabricated a chip-free, wireless electronic “skin.” The device senses and wirelessly transmits signals related to pulse, sweat, and ultraviolet exposure, without bulky chips or batteries. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya’s new book is a contemplative look at solving a midlife crisis. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Extracting Audio from Visual Information

Algorithm recovers speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag filmed through soundproof glass. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

A new method boosts wind farms’ energy output, without new equipment

MIT engineers have developed a method to increase wind farms’ energy output. Whereas individual turbines are typically controlled separately, the new approach models the wind flow of the entire collection of turbines and optimizes the control of individual units. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

New test may predict Covid-19 immunity

MIT researchers developed a test that may predict an individual’s immune response to SARS-CoV-2. Their test, which uses the same type of lateral flow technology as most Covid-19 antigen tests, measures neutralizing antibodies that target the SARS-CoV-2 virus in blood. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

New programmable materials can sense their own movements

MIT researchers have developed a technique to 3D-print materials with customizable mechanical properties that can also sense how they are moving and interacting with their environment. Their method only requires one printing material and a single run on a 3D printer. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Making hydropower plants more sustainable

Natel Energy, founded by sibling MIT alumni, is deploying hydropower plants with new, fish-safe turbines and other features designed to mimic natural conditions to improve sustainability of the industry. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

Researchers discover major roadblock in alleviating network congestion

MIT researchers discovered that congestion control algorithms designed to ensure multiple users sending data over a network do so fairly are actually unable to avoid situations where some users are hogging all the bandwidth. | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago

New algorithm aces university math course questions

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere developed a machine-learning model that can answer university-level mathematics problems with 100 percent accuracy. The model can also grade questions and generate new questions that college students found to be indistinguishable from those crea … | Continue reading


@news.mit.edu | 2 years ago