National Science Foundation (NSF)

A new analysis indicates that, without proper planning, there could be short-term bottlenecks in the supplies of some metals, particularly lithium and cobalt, that could cause temporary slowdowns in lithium-ion battery production. This map shows today’s trade flows of key ingredients for battery production, with exports from each country shown in red and imports in green.

Will metal supplies limit battery expansion?

Rise of electric vehicles and grid storage may cause bottlenecks, but no showstoppers, analysis suggests.

October 11, 2017

A new system from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory works by analyzing light at the edge of walls, which is impacted by the reflections of objects around the corner from the camera.

An algorithm for your blind spot

Using smartphone cameras, system for seeing around corners could help with self-driving cars and search-and-rescue.

October 9, 2017

A new paper describes the importance of doing detailed economic analysis and having in-depth conversations with people using the technology that a research project is focused on.

Why researchers should step out of the lab

Project reveals benefits of communicating with industry when conducting research.

October 4, 2017

MIT Vice President for Research Maria Zuber, who chairs the National Science Board, called the Golden Goose Awards “a chance every year to open our minds, shake off any cynicism, and remind ourselves of the enormous and often unpredictable promise of science.”

Maria Zuber: Golden Goose Awards illustrate virtues of basic research

Ceremony honors research that may have once seemed obscure but has had significant social impact.

October 3, 2017

Rainer Weiss at home early this morning, after learning that he has won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics.

MIT physicist Rainer Weiss shares Nobel Prize in physics

LIGO inventor and professor emeritus of physics recognized “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.”

October 3, 2017

Stephanie Bauman, an intern in the Materials Process Center and Center for Materials Science and Engineering's 2017 Summer Scholar program, holds a sample of manganese gallium, a new material known as an antiferromagnet, that can serve as the basis for long lasting, spintronic computer memory devices. She worked in the lab of assistant professor of electrical engineering Luqiao Liu.

Developing new magnetic device materials

Summer Scholar Stephanie Bauman interns in Luqiao Liu lab synthesizing and testing manganese gallium samples for spintronic applications.

October 2, 2017

The Compact Muon Solenoid is a general-purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

First open-access data from large collider confirm subatomic particle patterns

CERN Open Data Portal results reveal predictable patterns from colliding high-energy protons.

September 29, 2017

Computer models of chromosomes and the experimental Hi-C maps shown below them reveal the central role of cohesin in folding the genome into distinct domains (highlighted in blue, green, and pink). When cohesin is depleted experimentally and in simulations, domains unfold and intermix (right).

Researchers identify molecular motor that transforms chromosomes

Experiments confirm hypothesis about how the genome becomes organized into “neighborhoods.”

September 28, 2017

An aerial view of the Virgo site shows the Mode-Cleaner building, the Central building, the 3km-long west arm and the beginning of the north arm. The other buildings include offices, workshops, computer rooms and the control room of the interferometer.

Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger observed by LIGO and Virgo

Finding represents first joint detection of gravitational waves with both detectors.

September 27, 2017

Virion hikers with varying levels of fitness, illustrated here as preparedness, attempt to climb Folded Peak While some virions are too unfit to hit the trail (red), some are sufficiently fit to reach the summit without help from the park chaperones (blue). Other virions (yellow) are able to reach the summit by hijacking the park chaperones, which are also assisting certain host proteins, and so...

Biochemists discover mechanism that helps flu viruses evolve

Influenza viruses can hijack host cellular machinery to help mutated viral proteins fold and function.

September 26, 2017

Researchers found that babies who watched an adult struggle to complete tasks before succeeding tried harder at their own difficult task, compared to babies who saw an adult succeed without effort.

Babies can learn that hard work pays off

Study finds infants try harder after seeing adults struggle to achieve a goal.

September 21, 2017

In this diagram, the atomic lattice of a crystal of barium oxide is depicted, with atoms of oxygen and barium represented by red and gray spheres. A neutral oxygen vacancy, a place where an oxygen atom should appear in the lattice but is instead replaced by two electrons, is represented by the yellow shape, which depicts the charge density of those electrons. At left, the crystal is seen with no e...

New analysis explains role of defects in metal oxides

Harnessing these imperfections could have implications for computer memory and energy conversion.

September 21, 2017

“This is not saying that disaster occurs the next day,” says Professor Daniel Rothman about his new study. “It’s saying that, if left unchecked, the carbon cycle would move into a realm which would be no longer stable, and would behave in a way that would be difficult to predict. In the geologic past, this type of behavior is associated with mass extinction.”

Mathematics predicts a sixth mass extinction

By 2100, oceans may hold enough carbon to launch mass extermination of species in future millennia.

September 20, 2017

MIT researchers have found that languages tend to divide the "warm" part of the color spectrum into more color words than the "cooler" regions, which makes communication of warmer colors more consistent. From left to right, this chart shows the order of most to least efficiently communicated colors, in English, Spanish, and Tsimane' languages.

Analyzing the language of color

Cognitive scientists find that people can more easily communicate warmer colors than cool ones.

September 18, 2017

This schematic shows a microfluidic device that uses sound waves to separate exosomes (pink spheres) from other components of blood.

Blood testing via sound waves may replace some tissue biopsies

Microfluidic device uses acoustics to quickly analyze blood for signatures of cancer and other diseases.