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
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
MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya’s new book is a contemplative look at solving a midlife crisis. | Continue reading
Algorithm recovers speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag filmed through soundproof glass. | Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
A new computer vision system watches the 3D printing process and adjusts velocity and printing path to avoid errors. Training the system in simulation, researchers from MIT and elsewhere avoid the costly trial-and-error associated with setting 3D printing parameters for new mater … | Continue reading
MIT engineers designed an adhesive patch that produces ultrasound images of the body. The stamp-sized device sticks to skin and can provide continuous ultrasound imaging of internal organs for 48 hours. | Continue reading
A new study finds clear empirical evidence that Wikipedia influences judges’ application of the law. The study was led by Neil Thompson of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). | Continue reading
FuseBot is a new MIT robotic system that fuses visual information and radio-frequency signals to efficiently find hidden items buried under a pile of objects, whether or not the targeted item has an RFID tag. | Continue reading
Astronomers detected a persistent radio signal from a far-off galaxy that appears to flash with surprising regularity. Named FRB 20191221A, this fast radio burst, or FRB, is currently the longest-lasting FRB, with the clearest periodic pattern, detected to date. | Continue reading
MIT researchers developed a geometric deep learning model that is more accurate and over 1,000 times faster at finding potential drug-like molecules than the fastest state-of-the-art computational models, reducing the chances and costs of failures in an industry where 90 percent … | Continue reading
Computer scientists created a new programming language called Exo for writing high-performance code on hardware accelerators to help with limitations on hardware innovation. | Continue reading
Physicists have observed electron whirlpools for first time. Theorists have long predicted electrons should exhibit this hallmark of fluid flow; the findings could inform the design of more efficient electronics. | Continue reading
Insulator or superconductor? MIT physicists find graphene is both, at a "magic angle." | Continue reading
MIT physicsts identified new multilayered configurations of graphene that can be twisted and stacked to elicit robust superconductivity at low temperatures. The study establishes these configurations as the first known “family” of multilayer magic-angle superconductors. | Continue reading
Christoph Paus, the MIT physicist who co-led efforts to detect the Higgs boson, looks back on 10 years since the discovery and ahead to the next 10 years of particle physics research. | Continue reading
MIT engineers have flown the first silent, fuel-free “ion plane.” The light aircraft is the first plane to fly with no propellers, turbine blades, or other moving parts. | Continue reading
MIT researchers have created a taxonomy and outlined steps that developers can take to design features in machine-learning models that are easier for decision-makers to understand. | Continue reading
MIT spinout Quaise Energy is working to create geothermal wells made from the world’s deepest holes in order to repurpose coal and gas plants. | Continue reading
MIT neuroscientists identified three circuits in the thalamus that influence the development of motor and nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. And by manipulating these circuits, they could reverse Parkinson’s symptoms in mice. | Continue reading
MIT researchers developed a method to enable quantum sensors to detect any arbitrary frequency, with no loss of their ability to measure nanometer-scale features. Quantum sensors detect the most minute variations in magnetic or electrical fields, but until now they have only been … | Continue reading
For nearly two decades, researchers have been warning that Moore’s Law, the famous prediction that the number of transistors that can be packed onto a microchip will double every year or two, is slowing down. In a new working paper, MIT researchers quantify the impacts these expo … | Continue reading
MIT researchers find artificial intelligence can pick out racial identity from medical images — even when no clear indication of race is present. | Continue reading
The MIT alumni-founded Overjet uses artificial intelligence to analyze and annotate dental X-rays to help dentists improve care. | Continue reading
MIT and Mass General neuroscience researchers found that in both healthy people and aphasia patients, speakers trade off lexical complexity and syntactical complexity. | Continue reading
MIT CSAIL researchers developed a novel method to "see through" objects in a scene, and exploit the projection for 3D reconstruction and reasoning. | Continue reading
An MIT-led team built a computer model that can rapidly scan the entire genome of cancer cells and identify mutations that occur more frequently than expected, suggesting that they are driving tumor growth. | Continue reading
Research by MIT’s Emil Verner shows that rising debt helped fuel right-wing populist gains in Hungarian politics. | Continue reading
A new MIT sensor can distinguish between viral and bacterial pneumonia infections. This could help doctors choose the appropriate treatment and avoid prescribing antibiotics when they won’t help. | Continue reading
MIT engineers built a LEGO-like artificial intelligence chip, with a view toward sustainable, modular electronics. The chip can be reconfigured, with layers that can be swapped out or stacked on, such as to add new sensors or updated processors. | Continue reading
A new CRISPR-based map ties every human gene to its function using a tool called Perturb-seq. The work was led by Jonathan Weissman and colleagues at MIT and the Whitehead Institute, and is free for other scientists to use. | Continue reading
MIT researchers analyzed a powerful machine-learning-assisted cyberattack and uncovered a security vulnerability that an attacker can exploit to predict the website a user is browsing with almost perfect accuracy. Then, they developed two mitigation strategies that dramatically r … | Continue reading
MIT researchers identified components of mucus that can interact with the fungus Candida albicans and prevent it from causing infection. These glycans molecules are a major constituent of mucins, the gel-forming polymers that make up mucus. | Continue reading
International trade exacerbates domestic income inequality, according to new research using Ecuador as a case study and co-authored by MIT economists. | Continue reading
A new technique can dramatically accelerate programs known as shell scripts, through a process called parallelization, while ensuring the programs return accurate results. The work comes from an international team led by researchers in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Inte … | Continue reading
A machine learning model called VALHALLA uses a trained neural network to understand and digest a source sentence in one language, hallucinate an image of what that sentence describes, and translate into a target language. The work was led by researchers from MIT, IBM, and UC San … | Continue reading
MIT researchers find that one key role of the neuromodulator noradrenaline, produced by the locus coeruleus, is to help the brain learn from surprising outcomes. | Continue reading
MIT’s futuristic space architecture project TESSERAE has flown on the first fully private mission to International Space Station. Ariel Ekblaw discusses how TESSERAE fared, and what the future of space habitats might hold. | Continue reading
Renowned mathematician and quantum computing pioneer Peter W. Shor PhD ’85 has been named the recipient of MIT’s 2022-2023 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, the highest honor the Institute faculty can bestow upon one of its members each academic year. | Continue reading
MIT researchers created a mathematical framework to formally quantify and evaluate the understandability of explanations that seek to describe the behavior of a machine-learning model. | Continue reading
MIT astronomers discovered eight new echoing black hole binaries in our galaxy, enabling them to piece together a general picture of how a black hole evolves during an outburst. | Continue reading
The mammalian brain stores a single memory across a widely distributed, functionally connected complex spanning many brain regions, rather than in just one or even a few places. | Continue reading
Graduate students are helping to infuse ethical computing content into MIT’s largest machine learning course, as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing initiative. | Continue reading