School of Engineering

MIT biological engineers have devised a memory storage system illustrated here as a DNA-embedded meter that is recording the activity of a signaling pathway in a human cell.

Recording analog memories in human cells

Engineers program human cells to store complex histories in their DNA.

August 18, 2016

New MIT heads of house for fall 2016: (clockwise from top left) Nuria Jane and Alberto Rodriguez; Pablo Jarillo-Herrero (who will co-lead with Empar Rollano-Hijarrubia, not pictured); Laurie Lynn and Jared Berezin (with Shakedown); and Kristen Covino.

New heads of house join undergraduate and graduate communities to start the fall semester

Areas of expertise include robotics, writing, physics, jewelry-making, and breakfast cereal.

August 18, 2016

The Hydroswarm team in Building 24: (left to right) Jon Burton, Sampriti Bhattacharyya — holding their prototype submersible robot — Brindha Kanniah, Adam Gawle, and Patrick Flynn.

Summer in the Sandbox

Students in a new innovation program are using the summer, their new connections, and their funding to move their ideas forward.

August 17, 2016

SolidEnergy Systems' battery (far right) is twice as energy-dense, yet just as safe and long-lasting as the lithium ion batteries used in consumer electronics. The battery uses a lithium metal foil for an anode, which can hold more ions and is several times thinner and lighter than traditional lithium metal, graphite, carbon, or silicon anodes. A novel electrolyte also keeps the battery from heati...

Doubling battery power of consumer electronics

New lithium metal batteries could make smartphones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long.

August 16, 2016

Duane Boning named head of Leaders for Global Operations program

Boning succeeds David Simchi-Levi as engineering faculty director of master’s program.

August 16, 2016

Summer Scholar Grant Smith looks into a sputter deposition chamber, where he makes ultrathin films — from 2 to 10 nanometers thick — of magnetic materials suitable for spin-based electronics such as those used in computer memory systems.

Booting up spin-based device studies

Summer Scholar Grant Smith works to establish parameters for making ferromagnetic thin films in the Luqiao Liu lab.

August 15, 2016

Nighttime image of New York City, with the red showing a large population density. “The adoption potential of electric vehicles is remarkably similar across cities, from dense urban areas like New York, to sprawling cities like Houston. This goes against the view that electric vehicles — at least affordable ones, which have limited range — only really work in dense urban centers,” says Jes...

Can today’s EVs make a dent in climate change?

Electric vehicles can meet drivers’ needs enough to replace nearly 90 percent of vehicles now on the road.

August 15, 2016

Membrane structures in plant xylem from different species are being investigated for use in water filtration.

J-WAFS Solutions program awards $750,000 in commercialization grants

Four new projects and one renewal receive $150,000 in funding for 2016-2017.

August 12, 2016

Researchers designed and tested several types of optical sensors that could be placed at the tip of an epidural needle and determined that the best is one that relies on Raman spectroscopy. This technique, which uses light to measure energy shifts in molecular vibrations, offers detailed information about the chemical composition of tissue.

Needles that hit the right mark

New sensor could help anesthesiologists place needles for epidurals and other medical procedures.

August 11, 2016

The Jolt Sensor, a wearable sensor for athletes, detects and gathers data on head impacts in real time.

When to get your head out of the game

Wearable sensor for athletes detects potential head injuries, gathers data on hard hits.

August 11, 2016

Simulations written in Simit, a new programming language, were dozens or even hundreds of times as fast as those written in existing simulation languages. But they required only one-tenth as much code as meticulously hand-optimized simulations that could achieve similar execution speeds.

User-friendly language for programming efficient simulations

New language can speed up computer simulations 200-fold or reduce the code they require by 90 percent.

August 10, 2016

Students from MIT and Hong Kong attended the MIT Kickstart Showcase.

Building out a global classroom

Students from MIT and Hong Kong collaborate to bring their entrepreneurial ideas to fruition during MIT Kickstart.

August 9, 2016

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Indiana University at Bloomington describe a new system that permits database queries for genome-wide association studies but reduces the chances of privacy compromises to almost zero.

Protecting privacy in genomic databases

System helps ensure databases used in medical research will not leak patients’ personal information.

August 9, 2016

In an invited report and presentation at the White House ahead of the Paris climate negotiations, Jessika Trancik of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society described an analysis that she and her colleagues at MIT and Tsinghua University performed, including results that demonstrate a mutually reinforcing cycle between emissions-reduction policies and technology development.

Reducing emissions, improving technology: A mutually reinforcing cycle

An MIT study on the connection between technology development and emissions-reduction policies informs Paris climate negotiations.

August 8, 2016

MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering graduate student Peter Su shows Summer Scholar Ashley Del Valle Morales how to operate a laser and detector system she will use during her summer project under Senior Research Scientist Anuradha Agarwal.

Chemical sensing at telecom wavelengths

Summer Scholar Ashley Del Valle Morales probes new a silicon carbide system in the MIT Microphotonics Center.