Search Stories

To evaluate infants’ intuition regarding what other people value, researchers showed them videos in which an agent (red bouncing ball) decides whether it’s worth the effort to leap over an obstacle to reach a goal (blue cartoon character).

How badly do you want something? Babies can tell

Ten-month-old infants determine the value of a goal from how hard someone works to achieve it.

November 23, 2017

Ryan Williams, who joined the MIT electrical engineering and computer science faculty with tenure this year, hasn’t solved the problem of P vs. NP — nobody has — but he’s made one of the most important recent contributions toward its solution.

Chasing complexity

Ryan Williams has taken a key step toward solving the biggest problem in theoretical computer science.

November 22, 2017

MIT Associate Provost Richard Lester, left, during the launch of the China Future City Lab, Friday, November 17, 2017. Lester welcomed executives from the lab's group of founding partners at a formal signing ceremony.

MIT launches China Future City Lab

New urban studies program to spur research and innovation in China.

November 20, 2017

STEX25 is a competitive accelerator launched last year by the MIT Startup Exchange, which prioritizes connecting industry partners with fast-growing MIT startups to accelerate innovation. Throughout the year, STEX25 startups participate in various events on MIT’s campus and across the globe, attended by startup founders and corporate representatives, such as networking seminars, various workshop...

STEX25 strengthens collaboration between startups and industry

MIT Startup Exchange accelerator puts focus on establishing profitable business connections.

November 14, 2017

MIT Professor Daniela Rus (right), director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, speaks with Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt.

Summit discusses impact of machines on jobs, productivity, and the global economy

Two-day “AI and the Future of Work” summit at MIT focused on the artificial intelligence revolution and the workplace.

November 7, 2017

A look at 10 years of the MIT Energy Initiative, by the numbers

3Q: Robert Armstrong on 10 years of energy research at MIT

MIT Energy Initiative Director Robert Armstrong shares perspectives on past successes and ongoing and future energy projects at the Institute.

November 7, 2017

A team of researchers at MIT, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of California at Berkeley hope to close the materials-science automation gap, with a new artificial-intelligence system that would pore through research papers to deduce “recipes” for producing particular materials.

Artificial intelligence aids materials fabrication

System could pore through millions of research papers to extract “recipes” for producing materials.

November 5, 2017

MIT undergraduate Henoch Argaw (1998-2017)

Remembering and honoring the life of undergraduate Henoch Argaw

A motivated self-learner, Argaw found joy by teaching and mentoring others.

October 31, 2017

Shelley is an artificial intelligence horror story writer that collaborates with humans to create tales of terror.

Can artificial intelligence learn to scare us?

With Shelley, the world’s first artificial intelligence-human horror story collaboration, MIT researchers aim for goosebumps.

October 27, 2017

A new smartphone app analyzes a car’s sounds and vibrations, as measured by the phone’s microphone and accelerometers. “We’re listening to the car’s breathing, and listening for when it starts to snore,” Joshua Siegel says.

Let your car tell you what it needs

MIT team develops software that can tell if tires need air, spark plugs are bad, or air filter needs replacing.

October 25, 2017

Selective memory

Scheme would make new high-capacity data caches 33 to 50 percent more efficient.

October 22, 2017

Left to right: Jarrod Goentzel of the MIT Humanitarian Response Lab, Kathy Fulton of the American Logistics Aid Network, and Michael Rettig of the nonprofit LIFT break for lunch after a private sector supply chain coordination call in a FEMA conference room.

MIT researchers respond to hurricanes Irma and Maria

The Humanitarian Response Lab works with FEMA to optimize public and private sector supply chains serving hurricane-affected areas.

October 20, 2017

MIT representatives attend a groundbreaking ceremony for a major new graduate student residence hall along Main Street in Kendall Square. Left to right: Peter Cummings, executive director for administration in the Division of Student Life; David Friedrich, senior director of housing operations and renewal in the Division of Student Life; Krithika Ramchander, treasurer of the Graduate Student Counc...

3Q: Ian Waitz on graduate housing, other priorities

Vice chancellor reflects upon his first few months on the job, progress to date, and future plans.

October 18, 2017

“What’s really cool about eye tracking is it lets you see things that you’re not consciously aware of,” Professor Josh Tenenbaum says. “When psychologists and philosophers have proposed the idea of counterfactual simulation, they haven’t necessarily meant that you do this consciously. It’s something going on behind the surface, and eye tracking is able to reveal that.”

How we determine who’s to blame

Before assigning responsibility, our minds simulate alternative outcomes, study shows.

October 17, 2017

Alchemist statue, which is series of numbers and letters

Deshpande Center and J-WAFS announce fall 2017 research grants

Twenty-two research teams receive $1,443,000 to develop new technological innovations.