Suggestions or feedback?

Browse By

Topics

View All →

Explore:

Departments

View All →

Explore:

Centers, Labs, & Programs

View All →

Explore:

Schools

View all news coverage of MIT in the media →

Listen to audio content from MIT News →

Close

Topic

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Download RSS feed: News Articles / In the Media / Audio

Climate change makes summer weather stormier yet more stagnant

Study finds rising temperatures feed more energy to thunderstorms, less to general circulation.

February 18, 2019

An exoskeleton-consuming gene found in bacteria sheds light on the first arthropods to walk the Earth.

New technique pinpoints milestones in the evolution of bacteria

Results show bacterial genomes provide “shadow history” of animal evolution.

February 7, 2019

An MIT-led research team has developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin.

New pill can deliver insulin

Capsule that releases insulin in the stomach could replace injections for patients with type 1 diabetes.

February 7, 2019

Solar cells made of perovskite have great promise, in part because they can easily be made on flexible substrates, like this experimental cell.

Unleashing perovskites’ potential for solar cells

New results show how varying the recipe could bring these materials closer to commercialization.

February 7, 2019

MIT researchers found that when they halted cell division in human fibroblast cells, they became abnormally large and then entered a non-dividing state known as senescence (right panel). Untreated, normal-sized fibroblasts are shown at left.

Biologists answer fundamental question about cell size

The need to produce just the right amount of protein is behind the striking uniformity of sizes.

February 7, 2019

The ingestible hydrogel device as a small pill can swell to a large soft sphere, and deswell to a floppy membrane.

Ingestible, expanding pill monitors the stomach for up to a month

Soft, squishy device could potentially track ulcers, cancers, and other GI conditions over the long term.

January 30, 2019

$Experiments on ultra-thin copper-oxide ceramic superconductors performed by MIT researchers showed an unexpected disorderly, or “glassy,” arrangement of electrons, known as a “Wigner glass.” At left, “Fourier space,” or momentum space, shows the diffraction data that proved the tendency of the charge ripples to align in any direction, while the image at right displays the random placem...$

Surprising electronic disorder in a copper oxide-based ceramic

MIT researchers use resonant X-ray scattering measurements to reveal unexpected “Wigner glass” in desirable superconducting material.

January 28, 2019

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have designed the first fully flexible, battery-free “rectenna” — a device that converts energy from Wi-Fi signals into electricity — that could be used to power flexible and wearable electronics, medical devices, and sensors for the “internet of things.”

Converting Wi-Fi signals to electricity with new 2-D materials

Device made from flexible, inexpensive materials could power large-area electronics, wearables, medical devices, and more.

January 28, 2019

This image, taken through an optical microscope, shows a cross-section of the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure that lies atop the tiny hairs that line the inner ear.

Mechanism helps explain the ear’s exquisite sensitivity

A critical gel-like structure in the inner ear moves according to a sound’s frequency, researchers find.

January 16, 2019

This illustration shows the 12 different forms that six-atom vacancy defects in graphene can have, as determined by the researchers. The pie chart shows the relative abundances that are predicted for each of these different forms.

Researchers catalog defects that give 2-D materials amazing properties

Theoretical analysis distinguishes observed “holes” from the huge list of hypothetically possible ones.

January 14, 2019

A microfluidic technique quickly sorts bacteria based on their capability to generate electricity.

Technique identifies electricity-producing bacteria

Microbes screened with a new microfluidic process might be used in power generation or environmental cleanup.

January 11, 2019

MIT and Arizona State University researchers have created a computer program that can translate drawings of arbitrary shapes into two-dimensional structures made of DNA.

DNA design that anyone can do

Computer program can translate a free-form 2-D drawing into a DNA structure.

January 3, 2019

A new analysis of African dust reveals the Sahara swung between green and desert conditions every 20,000 years, in sync with changes in the Earth’s tilt.

A “pacemaker” for North African climate

Study shows the Sahara swung between lush and desert conditions every 20,000 years, in sync with monsoon activity.

January 2, 2019

A new study projects that compared to today’s climate, the annual number of days in which maximum and mean temperatures exceed 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the U.S. Northeast will increase toward the middle of the century, and even more so toward the end of the century.

Modeling climate risk where it hits home

A new MIT-led study projects a dramatic increase in annual high-heat days in the U.S. Northeast by the century’s end.

December 20, 2018

Researchers found that a type of nerve cell found in the gut of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans is specialized to detect when bacteria are ingested.

Gut-brain connection signals worms to alter behavior while eating

Study may lead to a better understanding of the digestive tract’s nervous system.

December 20, 2018