Search Stories

An albatross glider, designed by MIT engineers, skims the Charles River.

Albatross robot takes flight

Autonomous glider can fly like an albatross, cruise like a sailboat.

May 18, 2018

MIT engineers have developed a new virtual-reality training system for drones that enables a vehicle to “see” a rich, virtual environment while flying in an empty physical space.

Researchers develop virtual-reality testing ground for drones

With new system, drones navigate through an empty room, avoiding crashes while “seeing” a virtual world.

May 17, 2018

A droplet, splashing onto the tip of a very thin rod, produces a rim of fluid that sprays smaller droplets as it expands.

New theory describes intricacies of a splashing droplet

Findings may help track movement of pesticides and biological contaminants.

May 16, 2018

“In China, as you go to tighter and tighter climate policies, you continue to reduce pollutant emissions from coal, whereas the U.S. has already reduced a lot of its air pollution from coal through end-of-pipe technologies,” Karplus says.

Study: Health benefits will offset cost of China’s climate policy

A 4 percent reduction per year in carbon dioxide emissions should net $339 billion in health savings in 2030, researchers estimate.

April 23, 2018

A new manufacturing process produces strips of graphene, at large scale, for use in membrane technologies and other applications.

A graphene roll-out

Scalable manufacturing process spools out strips of graphene for use in ultrathin membranes.

April 17, 2018

A set of flight camera electronics on one of the TESS cameras, developed by the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI), will transmit exoplanet data from the camera to a computer aboard the spacecraft that will process it before transmitting it back to scientists on Earth.

TESS readies for takeoff

Satellite developed by MIT aims to discover thousands of nearby exoplanets, including at least 50 Earth-sized ones.

April 12, 2018

A snapshot of a simulation showing a binary black hole formed in the center of a dense star cluster.

Dense stellar clusters may foster black hole megamergers

Black holes in these environments could combine repeatedly to form objects bigger than anything a single star could produce.

April 10, 2018

Researchers have found that a class of molecules called sulfidic anions may have been abundant in Earth’s lakes and rivers.

Brewing up Earth’s earliest life

Large concentrations of sulfites and bisulfites in shallow lakes may have set the stage for Earth’s first biological molecules.

April 8, 2018

Engineers turn plastic insulator into heat conductor

Technique could prevent overheating of laptops, mobile phones, and other electronics.

March 30, 2018

Ruike Zhao, a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, says kirigami-patterned adhesives may enable a whole swath of products, from everyday medical bandages to wearable and soft electronics.

Paper-folding art inspires better bandages

Cutting kirigami-style slits in stretchy films could make for bandages, heat pads, and wearable electronics that adhere to flexible surfaces.

March 27, 2018

Bottom view of the 19 CUORE towers installed in the cryostat.

Scientists report first results from CUORE neutrino experiment

Data could shed light on why the universe has more matter than antimatter.

March 26, 2018

An illustration depicting a kagome metal — an electrically conducting crystal, made from layers of iron and tin atoms, with each atomic layer arranged in the repeating pattern of a kagome lattice.

Physicists discover new quantum electronic material

With an atomic structure resembling a Japanese basketweaving pattern, “kagome metal” exhibits exotic, quantum behavior.

March 19, 2018

Artist's impression of an inner accretion flow and a jet from a supermassive black hole when it is actively feeding, for example, from a star that it recent tore apart.

Scientists detect radio echoes of a black hole feeding on a star

Signals suggest black hole emits a jet of energy proportional to the stellar material it gobbles up.

March 18, 2018

Researchers at MIT and the Australian National University have found that seismic waves are essentially blind to a very common substance found throughout the Earth's interior: water.

Scientists find seismic imaging is blind to water

Findings may lead scientists to reinterpret seismic maps of the Earth's interior.

March 14, 2018

Lightning laboratory test on model aircraft.

Evading in-flight lightning strikes

MIT study shows electrically charging planes would reduce their risk of being struck by lightning.

March 8, 2018

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology - On Campus and Around the world

Browse By

Topics

Departments

Centers, Labs, & Programs

Schools