Search Stories

Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere watched a black hole’s corona disappear, then reappear, for first time. A colliding star may have triggered the drastic transformation.

In a first, astronomers watch a black hole’s corona disappear, then reappear

A colliding star may have triggered the drastic transformation.

July 15, 2020

MIT researchers have developed a representation of spatial perception for robots that is modeled after the way humans perceive and navigate the world. The key component of the team’s new model is Kimera, an open-source library that the team previously developed to simultaneously construct a 3D geometric model of an environment. Kimera builds a dense 3D semantic mesh of an environment and can tra...

“Alexa, go to the kitchen and fetch me a snack”

New model aims to give robots human-like perception of their physical environments.

July 15, 2020

An MIT-designed miniature “squeezer” reduces quantum noise in lasers at room temperature. The marble-sized system could enable better laser precision for quantum computing and gravitational-wave detection. This illustration shows an artist’s interpretation of the system.

Portable system boosts laser precision, at room temperature

“Light squeezer” reduces quantum noise in lasers, could enhance quantum computing and gravitational-wave detection.

July 7, 2020

MIT physicists have observed that LIGO’s 40-kilogram mirrors can move in response to tiny quantum effects. In this photo, a LIGO optics technician inspects one of LIGO’s mirrors.

Quantum fluctuations can jiggle objects on the human scale

Study shows LIGO’s 40-kilogram mirrors can move in response to tiny quantum effects, revealing the “spooky popcorn of the universe.”

July 1, 2020

In our solar system, the “ice giants” Neptune and Uranus are far less dense than rocky Venus and Earth. But astrophysicists on NASA’s TESS mission have now found an exoplanet, TOI-849b, that appears to be 40 times more massive than Earth, yet just as dense. This illustration depicts the exoplanet, UCF-1.01. Like TOI-849b, this exoplanet also orbits close to a star and is like “hot Neptune....

TESS mission discovers massive ice giant

Neptune-sized planet may be remnant core of a much larger planet.

July 1, 2020

“This is like a painless Band-Aid for internal organs,” says Xuanhe Zhao, professor in the departments of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering at MIT. “You put the adhesive on, and if for any reason you want to take it off, you can do so on demand, without pain.”

Super-strong surgical tape detaches on demand

Removable adhesive could make it easier for surgeons to close up internal wounds.

June 22, 2020

CHIME, pictured here, consists of four large antennas, each about the size and shape of a snowboarding half-pipe, and is designed with no moving parts. Rather than swiveling to focus on different parts of the sky, CHIME stares fixedly at the entire sky, looking for fast radio burst sources across the universe.

Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

Signal from 500 million light years away is the first periodic pattern of radio bursts detected.

June 17, 2020

A surging glacier in the St. Elias Mountains, Canada.

Tiny sand grains trigger massive glacial surges

New model answers longstanding question of how these sudden flows happen; may expand understanding of Antarctic ice sheets.

June 12, 2020

A close-up view of a new neuromorphic “brain-on-a-chip” that includes tens of thousands of memristors, or memory transistors.

Engineers put tens of thousands of artificial brain synapses on a single chip

The design could advance the development of small, portable AI devices.

June 8, 2020

Researchers at MIT, the University of Oklahoma, and elsewhere, with the help of citizen scientists, have identified a brown dwarf with a disk that is the youngest of its kind within about 100 parsecs of Earth. The brown dwarf, named W1200-7845 and depicted in this image, appears to have the kind of disk that could form planets.

Citizen scientists spot closest young brown dwarf disk yet

Discovery made through the Disk Detective project could help the search for new planets.

June 2, 2020

MIT researchers find that extratropical storm tracks — the blue regions of storminess in the Earth's middle latitudes — would change significantly with solar geoengineering efforts.

Study: Reflecting sunlight to cool the planet will cause other global changes

Solar geoengineering proposals will weaken extratropical storm tracks in both hemispheres, scientists find.

June 2, 2020

A machine-learning technique developed at MIT combs through global ocean data to find commonalities between marine locations, based on interactions between phytoplankton species. Using this approach, researchers have determined that the ocean can be split into over 100 types of “provinces,” and 12 “megaprovinces,” that are distinct in their ecological makeup.

Machine learning helps map global ocean communities

An MIT-developed technique could aid in tracking the ocean’s health and productivity.

May 29, 2020

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have combined the power of a super collider with techniques of laser spectroscopy to precisely measure a short-lived radioactive molecule, radium monofluoride, for the first time.

Physicists measure a short-lived radioactive molecule for first time

Molecules containing heavy and deformed radioactive nuclei may help scientists to measure symmetry-violating phenomena and identify signs of dark matter.

May 27, 2020

Search-and-rescue algorithm identifies hidden “traps” in ocean waters

Method may help quickly identify regions where objects — and missing people — may have converged.

May 26, 2020

Researchseminars.org serves as a sort of crowdsourced Ticketmaster for science talks. Instead of featuring upcoming shows and concerts, the new site lists more than 1,000 free, upcoming seminars hosted online by more than 115 institutions around the world.

A Ticketmaster for science seminars

Despite physical isolation, MIT mathematicians build one-stop portal to online talks around the world.