Bloomberg reporter Tanaz Meghjani writes that MIT researchers created a new system to 3D print a customized replica of the human heart, which could help improve replacement valve procedures. The new system “mimics blood flow and pressure in individual diseased hearts, suggesting a way to predict the effects of various replacements and select the best fit, avoiding potential leakage and failure,” Meghjani writes.
MIT engineers have developed a new technique for 3D printing a soft, flexible, custom-designed replica of a patient’s heart, report Gabrielle Emanuel and Amy Sokolow for WBUR. The goal of the research is to “provide realistic models so that doctors, researchers and medical device manufacturers can use them in testing therapies for different types of heart disease,” Emanuel and Sokolow explain.
An ingestible, pill-shaped sensor module, which can pinpoint its location as it moves through the body, has been developed by researchers at MIT and Caltech, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. This method “could one day offer an effective means to assess issues like constipation, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and gastroparesis,” writes Paul.
Researchers from MIT and Caltech have developed a pill-shaped ingestible sensor that can be monitored as it moves through the GI tract, allowing doctors to more easily diagnose gastrointestinal disorders, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “The ability to characterize motility without the need for radiation, or more invasive placement of devices, I think will lower the barrier for people to be evaluated,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso.
NBC 1st Look host Chelsea Cabarcas visits MIT to learn more about how faculty, researchers and students are “pioneering the world of tomorrow.” Cabarcas meets the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle team and gets a peek at Nimbus, the single-occupant vehicle that team members raced in the American Solar Challenge from Kansas City to New Mexico. Cabarcas also sees the back-flipping MIT mini cheetah that could one day be used in disaster-relief operations.
On a recent episode of “Shark Tank,” Amrita Saigal '10 scored a $250,000 investment in her company Kudos, which is focused on making disposable diapers from sustainable and natural materials, reports Megan Sauer for CNBC. Saigal, who also founded a company called Saathi that makes sanitary napkins from banana peel fibers, notes she was inspired by seeing “just how much plastic we were putting into sanitary napkins and diapers.”
Vecna Technologies and Vecna Robotics co-founder Daniel Theobald ’95, MS ’97 speaks with Forbes reporter Heather Wishart-Smith about the future of robotics. “I believe that robotics can be one of the great tools for solving the world’s problems,” says Theobald. “The environment, equality, food scarcity, even happiness in allowing us to focus on being more human than today’s humans working like machines and doing jobs that really should not be done by humans.”
Sampriti Bhattacharyya PhD ’17, co-founder and CEO of electric hydrofoil startup Navier, speaks with AP reporter Matt O’Brien about the future of the company. “Our goal is to be the longest range-electric boat at cruising speed,” says Bhattacharyya.
Steve Hartman of CBS News visits Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi to explore the science behind whether a single act of kindness can spread around the world. “I think if people understand you don’t have to do a heavy lift, you have to do a little bit of a lift, but if everyone does it [an act of kindness], it’s a small lift for everyone,” explains Hosoi.
Prof. Kripa Varanasi and Vishnu Jayaprakash PhD ’21, MS ’19 have launched AgZen, a company that is trying to reduce pesticide use through the development of additives that allow more pesticide droplets to stick to plants, reports Ian Mount for Fortune. “Globally, farms are spending about $60 billion a year on these pesticides, and our goal is to try to get them to cut that down while still not compromising on pest control,” says Jayaprakash.
Forbes has named Commonwealth Fusion Systems one of the biggest tech innovations and breakthroughs of 2022, reports Bernard Marr. “Commonwealth Fusion Systems is now working with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center on plans to build a factory that can mass-produce components for the first commercial fusion reactors,” writes Marr.
Researchers at MIT have “created a stretchable color-changing material based on how nature often reflects color,” reports Nicole Estaphan for WCVB’s Chronicle. “As you stretch it, these embedded nanostructures change size,” explains graduate student Benjamin Miller, “which in turn changes the color of light that comes back. We are making an elastic, squishy version of the sort of thing you find in nature.”
A team of MIT researchers has discovered a new kind of liquid fractal, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The scientists “were studying how one liquid breaks up into droplets when it is mixed into another and unexpectedly” made the discovery, Padavic-Callaghan explains.
Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung spotlights Elise Strobach PhD ’20 - co-founder and CEO of AeroShield Materials, a company developing super-insulating windows. Strobach is a recipient of funding from the MassVentures fund for deep-tech startups with a focus on underserved founders or those based in underserved regions. “We want to do cool things that have big impact,” said Strobach. “The minute I first visited Massachusetts, I just really felt that, ‘Wow, this is a place where that can happen.' "
Physics World has named two research advances by MIT researchers to its list of the Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year. Prof. Gang Chen and his colleagues were selected for their work “showing that cubic boron arsenide is one of the best semiconductors known to science.” Prof. Asegun Henry, grad student Alina LaPotin and their colleagues were nominated for “constructing a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell with an efficiency of more than 40%.”