Nano-sized ‘factories’ churn out proteins
Tiny particles could manufacture cancer drugs at tumor sites.
Clean energy could lead to scarce materials
Rising demand for wind turbines and electric vehicles could strain supplies of some rare earth metals.
Study shows unified process of evolution in bacteria and sexual eukaryotes
A single gene mutation can sweep through a population, opening the door for the concept of ‘species’ in bacteria.
How to corner the MEMS market
Government investment in the manufacture of micromachines could pay huge dividends, but in the meantime, MIT researchers are developing new fabrication techniques.
Targeted nanoparticles show success in clinical trials
Tiny particles designed to home in on cancer cells achieve tumor shrinkage at lower doses than traditional chemotherapy.
All in a day’s work: Design and print your own robot
MIT project, funded with $10 million NSF grant, could transform robotic design and production
Seeing the music in nature
From spider webs to tangled proteins, Markus Buehler finds the connections between mathematics, molecules and materials.
Self-sculpting sand
New algorithms could enable heaps of ‘smart sand’ that can assume any shape, allowing spontaneous formation of new tools or duplication of broken mechanical parts.
Buehler to receive Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Materials Research Society
Honored for highly innovative and creative work in computational modeling
Moving microfluidics from the lab bench to the factory floor
The Center for Polymer Microfabrication designs manufacturing processes for a new generation of diagnostic tools.
A new dimension for solar energy
Innovative 3-D designs from an MIT team can more than double the solar power generated from a given area.
Buckle in
Inspired by a toy, the ‘buckliball’ — a collapsible structure fabricated from a single piece of material — represents a new class of 3-D, origami-like structures.