Taking a new look at subway map design
CSAIL researchers are using a computational model that better understands peripheral vision to test the usability of MBTA subway maps.
CEE announces new leadership appointments
Elfatih Eltahir is associate department head, Philip Gschwend is director of Parsons Lab and Daniele Veneziano leads Pierce Lab
Surprisingly simple scheme for self-assembling robots
Small cubes with no exterior moving parts can propel themselves forward, jump on top of each other, and snap together to form arbitrary shapes.
Droplets get a charge out of jumping
Condensation on a metal plate leads to formation of droplets that carry electric charge, could improve power-plant efficiency.
Under the sea
MIT senior Grace Young’s love of marine robotics will lead her to spend up to a month underwater this semester, collecting data and teaching classes over Skype to help save the oceans.
Probing the surface of pyrite
Common mineral gets first detailed examination of its surface electronic properties, thanks to team of MIT researchers.
Switchable magnetic pillars
Graduate student Nicolas Aimon develops pulsed laser deposition techniques for mixed multiferroic oxide films.
Building disaster-relief phone apps on the fly
Researchers combine powerful new Web standards with the intuitive, graphical MIT App Inventor to aid relief workers with little programming expertise.
Faculty highlight: Caroline Ross
New techniques for combining complex oxide thin films promise electrical control of magnetic properties for data storage and computing.
3 Questions: Scott Kemp on North Korea’s nuclear program
New study suggests that the secretive rogue state may have found a way to circumvent international controls on nuclear materials.
New approach to global health challenges
MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science brings many tools to the quest for new disease treatments and diagnostic devices.
How to make ceramics that bend without breaking
New materials developed at MIT could lead to actuators on a chip and self-deploying medical devices.