Smart irrigation technology covers “more crop per drop”
Placing solutions in the cloud but learning with boots on the ground, GEAR Lab researchers build low-cost, solar-powered irrigation tools to make precision agriculture more accessible.
Four from MIT awarded National Medals of Technology, Science
James Fujimoto, Eric Swanson, and David Huang are recognized for their technique to rapidly detect diseases of the eye; Subra Suresh is honored for his commitment to research and collaboration across borders.
Bringing the environment to the forefront of engineering
Desirée Plata is on a lifelong mission to make sustainability a bigger factor in design decisions.
Opening pathways for future supply chain leaders
Maria Jesus Saenz of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics is dedicated to advancing future leaders, and to supporting women, in supply chain management.
Wobbly gel mat trains muscle cells to work together
The vibrating platform could be useful for growing artificial muscles to power soft robots and testing therapies for neuromuscular diseases.
Teaching students about photonics to build up the US workforce
The Spark Photonics Foundation works with educators to get K-12 and college students interested in STEM fields, including advanced manufacturing and semiconductors.
Soft optical fibers block pain while moving and stretching with the body
The fibers could help with testing treatments for nerve-related pain.
To excel at engineering design, generative AI must learn to innovate, study finds
AI models that prioritize similarity falter when asked to design something completely new.
3 Questions: What should scientists and the public know about nuclear waste?
Professor Haruko Wainwright describes a new effort to communicate information about managing and disposing of spent fuel from nuclear reactors.
A new way to integrate data with physical objects
StructCode, developed by MIT CSAIL researchers, encodes machine-readable data in laser-cut objects by modifying their fabrication features.
MIT receives major National Science Foundation grant for quantum science
Center for Ultracold Atoms gets funding boost to “punch through tough scientific barriers and see what's on the other side.”
Edward Crawley: A career of education, service, and exploration
The MIT professor reflects on five decades of impactful work in aerospace engineering and education, at the Institute and beyond.
Germicidal UV lights could be producing indoor air pollutants, study finds
While useful for killing pathogens including SARS-CoV-2, the lights may cause unwanted chemical reactions and should be used with ventilation, researchers say.
New technique helps robots pack objects into a tight space
Researchers coaxed a family of generative AI models to work together to solve multistep robot manipulation problems.
Ariel Furst and Fan Wang receive 2023 National Institutes of Health awards
The awards support creative, innovative research with a broad impact.