Mo Costandi reports for The Guardian on how Prof. Polina Anikeeva has developed a new technique to activate brain cells using nanoparticles. Costandi explains that, “research like this may eventually allow for wireless and minimally invasive deep brain stimulation of the human brain.”
Jim Nash of Scientific American speaks with Professor W. Craig Carter about why snow squeaks when it’s stepped on. Carter explains that the breaking of tiny bonds formed between individual snowflakes could cause the squeaking noise. “I believe the squeak depends on the fallen snow forming the welds to sinter together,” says Carter of his theory.
Kevin Hartnett of The Boston Globe looks at Professor Christine Ortiz’s work to develop better body armor technology by mimicking the tough qualities of fish scales. “Armored fish have multi-hit capability,” explains Ortiz. “Basically, when it gets hit, it just cracks locally in a circle.”
Jon Chesto writes for The Boston Globe about a new battery technology from Professor Don Sadoway’s company, Ambri, that allows for more efficient grid-level power storage: “The goal is to allow electric utilities or big industrial plants to store power so it can be released at times of high usage.”
According to The Economist, a battery design “being developed by Donald Sadoway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would use two sorts of liquid metal, separated by a liquid electrolyte.” Using metals of varying densities, Sadoway’s design would allow the substances to float as separate layers in a container.
A system developed by Prof. Alfredo Alexander-Katz allows microscopic devices to navigate a cell’s surface, reports Alissa Zhu for Popular Science. “Doctors could use them to provide real-time updates on internal structures or distribute drugs to specific targets within a body.”
David Weinberg of Marketplace reports that MIT researchers have developed a formula for concrete that reduces its greenhouse-gas emissions. Dr. Roland Pellenq explains that to make a “greener” cement, researchers examined concrete’s properties at the “sub-micron or big-nano level.”
Forbes reporter Bill Tucker writes about battery innovation, highlighting a liquid battery system developed by MIT researchers. The proposed system would operate at dramatically lower temperatures and would allow renewable energy sources to compete with conventional power plants, reports Tucker.
Mark Peplow writes for Nature about a new molten-metal battery designed by Professor Donald Sadoway’s team: “A battery made of molten metals could help to make sources of renewable energy more viable by storing the excess electricity generated by these intermittent sources.”
Professor Donald Sadoway’s team has designed a battery that makes use of molten metals, which could allow for large-scale power storage, reports Jonathan Webb for the BBC. “Previous battery designs have largely been too expensive to help store energy on the scale of a national power grid,” writes Webb.
MIT scientists have shown recycled lead can be used in solar cells, reports Popular Science’s Emily Gertz. “The group's work demonstrates that the perovskite created from the lead in just one old car battery could provide materials for 30 households-worth of solar energy cells,” writes Gertz.
Martin LaMonica writes for IEEE Spectrum about how MIT researchers have developed a system that uses car batteries to produce solar cells. “The beauty is that this new process is pretty interchangeable with the current production method,” says Prof. Angela Belcher.
Washington Post reporter Rachel Feltman writes that MIT engineers have developed a system that recycles batteries into solar cells. “We think it could be a competitor that’s easy to process, has rapidly increasing efficiency, and can be made in an environmentally friendly way,” says Prof. Angela Belcher.
David Pogue of the PBS show NOVA examines Professor Paula Hammond’s work developing a new type of vaccine that delivers a DNA patch via tiny microscopic needles. Using DNA as the vaccine is a “very unique but also very powerful” approach, Hammond explains.
Cynthia Graber of Scientific American reports on the new MIT technique to use solar energy to generate steam. Graber reports that the new system reaches, “85 percent efficiency in converting the solar energy into steam."