School of Science

Cartoon stoplight with red "on" light illuminated. Green "off" light is dark.

A day in the life of a synapse reveals new facets of the adult brain

February 4, 2016

MIT assistant professor of physics Liang Fu seeks to identify new materials that can process and store quantum information robustly.

Faculty highlight: Liang Fu

MIT theoretical physicist’s research bridges abstract math and exotic computing materials.

February 3, 2016

Dispatches from the Paris climate talks

MIT attendees of COP21 share experiences, perspectives on outcomes

February 2, 2016

“If (mixotrophs) weren’t in the oceans, we’re suggesting atmospheric carbon dioxide might be higher, because there would less of the large, carbon rich particles formed which efficiently transfer carbon to depth,” Mick Follows says.

Living a “mixotrophic” lifestyle

Some tiny plankton may have big effect on ocean’s carbon storage.

February 1, 2016

Marcia McNutt, editor-in-chief of the journal Science

Symposium calls for science-based climate action

Experts examine how MIT can be most effective in addressing climate-change issues.

January 29, 2016

“We wanted to find the link,” Gloria Choi says. “How do you go all the way from the immune system in the mother to the child’s brain?”

How severe maternal inflammation can lead to autism-like behavior

Immune molecules in infected mothers tied to brain and behavior abnormalities in offspring.

January 28, 2016

Edward Boyden wins BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award

Three neuroscientists share biomedicine prize for development of optogenetics

January 27, 2016

This diagram demonstrates the simplified results that can be obtained by using quantum analysis on enormous, complex sets of data. Shown here are the connections between different regions of the brain in a control subject (left) and a subject under the influence of the psychedelic compound psilocybin (right). This demonstrates a dramatic increase in connectivity, which explains some of the drug’...

A new quantum approach to big data

System for handling massive digital datasets could make impossibly complex problems solvable.

January 25, 2016

“We can, through engineering, convert this organism’s parasitic lifestyle into a more symbiotic relationship,” Jacquin Niles says about the malaria parasite.

Engineering foe into friend

Bose Grant awardee Jacquin Niles aims to repurpose the malaria parasite for drug delivery.

January 22, 2016

In this image, the middle "explosion" is a cloud of hot electrons, inside graphene, that bounce off one another as they reach equilibrium and spread out. The red spheres are those electrons that are energetic enough to escape the hot cloud in less than 30 femtoseconds and generate an electric current. MIT researchers have developed a technique to access and control these ultrafast processes.

Physicists control electrons at femtosecond timescales

Results may help improve efficiency of solar cells, energy-harvesting devices.

January 22, 2016

Aerosols can lower surface temperatures either directly, by reflecting sunlight skyward, or indirectly, by increasing the reflectivity of clouds.

How aerosols drive the rain

Study finds human-made aerosols exert strong influence on the geography of precipitation.

January 21, 2016

MIT researchers scanned the brains of children who were not depressed but had a parent who had suffered from the disorder. Such children are three times more likely to become depressed later in life, usually between the ages of 15 and 30.

Diagnosing depression before it starts

Brain scans may identify children who are vulnerable to depression, before symptoms appear.

January 21, 2016

Two professors to join the School of Science faculty this spring

January 20, 2016

MIT neuroscientists discovered that the protein CPG2 connects the cytoskeleton (represented by the scaffold of the bridge) and the endocytic machinery (represented by the cars) during the reabsorption of glutamate receptors. Each "car" on the “bridge" carries a vesicle containing glutamate receptors.

How neurons lose their connections

Scientists identify protein that allows brain cells to dampen their sensitivity.

January 14, 2016

The regulation of the enzyme ribonucleotide reductase allows for just the right levels of deoxynucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to be produced in the cell.

Supply chain

Chemists discover how a single enzyme maintains a cell’s pool of DNA building blocks.

January 12, 2016

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