Electronics

MIT researchers have invented a digestible, bioresorbable battery that can deliver drugs directly to the GI tract, reports Smithsonian Magazine’s Sara Hashemi. Prof. Giovanni Traverso and his colleagues “made two versions of the battery of different sizes and voltages,” writes Hashemi. “Exposing them to an acidic liquid similar to gastric fluid revealed they would function normally in the stomach for about three days.” 

The Economist highlights MIT researchers’ new “paper-based battery whose components are safely absorbed by the body,” to help deliver drugs to the GI tract more effectively. “The new battery is a stack of magnesium, gel and chemically active paper—all coated in wax to protect it from the harsh environment of the gut. It is also compact, taking up only about a quarter of the space inside a standard gelatine capsule, leaving plenty of room for the device it is to power, as well as other useful payloads, such as a drug.”  

MIT researchers have developed an ingestible battery that could be used to monitor drug delivery and avoid the need for surgery; a “milestone towards potential human use for health monitoring and treatments,” writes Michael Peel for the Financial Times. Improving the effectiveness of therapies “moves the technology beyond a materials demonstration toward an integrated biomedical system,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso, senior author of the study.  

Scientific American reporter Bob Henderson spotlights how graduate student Jiaruo Li and Prof. Riccardo Comin are developing a new device for storing digital data using “an exotic kind of magnetism discovered in the same lab the previous year to make the device faster and more energy-efficient than any competing technology.” 

Researchers at MIT have developed a new 3D printing platform that can “produce a fully functioning linear motor in about three hours,” reports Justin Caffier for Gizmodo. The research team “explained how by retrofitting a printer with enough extruders to handle the various materials needed to make a working motor, they decimated the usual production time for such a device and brought the material costs down to around $0.50,” writes Caffier.  

Graduate student Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao and his colleagues have developed insect-sized robots to assist with artificial pollination as bee populations decline, reports Maria Simon Arboleas for Euractiv. “The tiny drones, lighter than a paperclip, can fly at speeds of up to two meters per second for more than 1,000 seconds, while performing complex maneuvers such as repeated backflips,” writes Arboleas.

Prof. Kevin Chen and his colleagues have developed a bee-like robot that can assist with farming practices, such as artificial pollination without damaging crops, reports Claire Turrell for Offrange. “Chen’s robot bee, which is tethered to a power source, is currently limited to flying between plastic flowers in the lab, but the robot engineer can see its potential,” explains Turrell. “Bees are doing great in terms of open-field farming,” says Chen. “But there is one potential type of pollination I think we can consider in the longer term, which is indoor farming,” 

Prof. Jonathan How and graduate student Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao speak with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about their latest work developing an aerial microrobot that is “agile enough complete 10 consecutive somersaults in 11 seconds, even when wind disturbances threatened to push it off course.” Hsiao explains that: “This work demonstrates that soft and microrobots, traditionally limited in speed, can now leverage advanced control algorithms to achieve agility approaching that of natural insects and larger robots, opening up new opportunities for multimodal locomotion.” 

In a roundup of the biggest tech breakthroughs of 2025, Forbes reporter Alex Knapp spotlights how MIT engineers developed magnetic transistors, a “discovery [that] could enable faster and more energy-efficient semiconductors.”

Researchers at MIT have developed microscopic devices that “can travel autonomously through the blood and provide electrical stimulation to precise brain regions,” and could one day be used to treat brain diseases, mental illness, or other parts of the body, reports Zoe Kriegler for Medical Design & Outsourcing. The development of microscopic wireless electronic devices (SWEDs) could “eliminate the need for brain surgery in some cases, decreasing the risk to the patient and the expense of the procedure by hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Kriegler explains. 

Prof. Deblina Sarkar speaks with Forbes reporter William A. Haseltine about her work developing “circulatronics,” microscopic electronics devices that could one day be used to help treat brain diseases. “What we have developed are tiny electronic devices that can travel through body fluids and autonomously find their target regions, with no external guidance or imaging,” explains Sarkar. “They provide very precise electrical stimulation of neurons without the need for surgery.” 

MIT researchers have developed “GelSight,” a system that provides robots with a sense of touch, reports Ben Guarino for Scientific American. “GelSight can identify by touch the tiny letters spelling out LEGO on the stud of a toy brick,” explains Guarino. 

Prof. Kevin Chen and his colleagues have designed a tiny, insect-sized aerial microrobot that is “faster and more acrobatic than any of its predecessors,” reports Phie Jacobs for Science. The device, “which measures just 4 centimeters across and weighs less than a paperclip, flies almost five times faster and accelerates twice as quickly as existing microrobots,” explains Jacobs. “It can also execute sharp turns while enduring 160-centimeter-per-second wind gusts and—perhaps most impressively—can complete 10 consecutive somersaults in 11 seconds.” 

Graduate student Chung-Tao (Josh) Chou speaks with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about his work developing a magnetic transistor that could lead to more energy-efficient circuits. “People have known about magnets for thousands of years, but there are very limited ways to incorporate magnetism into electronics,” says Chou. “We have shown a new way to efficiently utilize magnetism that opens up a lot of possibilities for future applications and research.”

Prof. Steve Leeb and graduate student Daniel Monagle speak with Tech Briefs reporter Edward Brown about their work “designing an energy management interface between an energy harvesting source and a sensor load that will give the best possible results.” Monagle notes that in the future they hope to make the system “smaller so that it can fit in tight places like inside a motor terminal box. But beyond that we want to take advantage of AI tools to design techniques for minimizing the energy used by the system.”