Engineering household robots to have a little common sense
With help from a large language model, MIT engineers enabled robots to self-correct after missteps and carry on with their chores.
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Study: Life’s building blocks are surprisingly stable in Venus-like conditions
Results suggest the clouds of Venus could be hospitable for some forms of life.
Pushing material boundaries for better electronics
Associate Professor Jeehwan Kim is exploring systems that could take over where silicon leaves off.
Study determines the original orientations of rocks drilled on Mars
The “oriented” samples, the first of their kind from any planet, could shed light on Mars’ ancient magnetic field.
Electrons become fractions of themselves in graphene, study finds
An exotic electronic state observed by MIT physicists could enable more robust forms of quantum computing.
MIT researchers remotely map crops, field by field
The team used machine learning to analyze satellite and roadside images of areas where small farms predominate and agricultural data are sparse.
This ultrasound sticker senses changing stiffness of deep internal organs
The sticky, wearable sensor could help identify early signs of acute liver failure.
MIT physicists capture the first sounds of heat “sloshing” in a superfluid
The results will expand scientists’ understanding of heat flow in superconductors and neutron stars.
Benchtop test quickly identifies extremely impact-resistant materials
High-speed experiments can help identify lightweight, protective “metamaterials” for spacecraft, vehicles, helmets, or other objects.
Astronomers spot 18 black holes gobbling up nearby stars
The detections more than double the number of known tidal disruption events in the nearby universe.
Study: Stars travel more slowly at Milky Way’s edge
The findings suggest our galaxy’s core may contain less dark matter than previously estimated.
New tool predicts flood risk from hurricanes in a warming climate
Using New York as a test case, the model predicts flooding at the level experienced during Hurricane Sandy will occur roughly every 30 years by the end of this century.
New model predicts how shoe properties affect a runner’s performance
Developed by MIT engineers, the model could be a tool for designers looking to innovate in sneaker design.
Stripes in a flowing liquid crystal suggest a route to “chiral” fluids
Study finds chiral structures, with mirror-image configurations, can emerge from nonchiral systems, suggesting new ways to engineer these materials.
A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds
A low carbon abundance in planetary atmospheres, which the James Webb Space Telescope can detect, could be a signature of habitability.