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Adriana Schulz, an MIT PhD student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, demonstrates the InstantCAD computer-aided-design-optimizing interface.

Reshaping computer-aided design

CSAIL’s InstantCAD allows manufacturers to simulate, optimize CAD designs in real-time.

July 24, 2017

MIT engineers have designed a gel-like material that can be coated onto standard plastic or rubber devices, providing a softer, more slippery exterior that can significantly ease a patient’s discomfort during surgery.

New gel coatings may lead to better catheters and condoms

Bonded layers of rubber and hydrogel yield tough, slippery, and impermeable coatings.

July 18, 2017

Researchers have developed a metal-free contrast agent for MRI scans, which could be safer for certain patients.

Metal-free MRI contrast agent could be safer for some patients

New agent could be used for certain high-risk groups and may enable longer-term tumor imaging.

July 12, 2017

$Engineers at MIT have taken a first step in designing a computer chip that uses a fraction of the power of larger drone computers and is tailored for a drone as small as a bottlecap.$

Miniaturizing the brain of a drone

Method for designing efficient computer chips may get miniature smart drones off the ground.

July 11, 2017

Instead of relying on silicon-based devices, a new chip uses carbon nanotubes and resistive random-access memory (RRAM) cells. The two are built vertically over one another, making a new, dense 3-D computer architecture with interleaving layers of logic and memory.

New 3-D chip combines computing and data storage

Advance points toward new generation of computers for coming superstorm of data.

July 5, 2017

Chemical engineering postdoc Antoni Forner-Cuenca (far right) explains work in the Brushett Lab on advanced flow batteries for grid-level energy storage to 2017 MPC-CMSE Summer Scholars (l-r) Kaila Holloway, Gaetana Michelet, Alexandra Oliveira, Saleem Iqbal, and Alejandro Aponte-Lugo. Forner-Cuenca is holding carbon paper where battery reactions take place.

Summer interns' lab work underway

Summer Scholars in materials science and engineering are tackling projects ranging from magnetic thin films to catalysts for energy.

July 3, 2017

Rainer Weiss

Rainer Weiss wins Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research

Prestigious Spanish award shared with Caltech's Kip Thorne and Barry Barish and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration for work in detecting gravitational waves.

June 29, 2017

Amanda Giang PhD '17 is working to empower local, regional and global decision makers with better policies to minimize impacts of mercury and other long-range persistent pollutants.

Monitoring and mitigating mercury

Amanda Giang PhD '17 models a pollutant’s pathways and helps decision makers craft more effective mitigation policies.

June 14, 2017

Metafluidics.org, a new MIT open-source website, supplies blueprints for microfluidic parts. Pictured are a few photographs from the website.

Microfluidics for the masses

New open-source website features blueprints for lab-on-a-chip devices.

June 13, 2017

Researchers have found one of the last undisturbed tropical peat forests, in the nation of Brunei on the island of Borneo.

Peatlands, already dwindling, could face further losses

Climate change could damage the fragile zones, causing major carbon emissions.

June 12, 2017

This futuristic drawing shows programmable nanophotonic processors integrated on a printed circuit board and carrying out deep learning computing.

New system allows optical “deep learning”

Neural networks could be implemented more quickly using new photonic technology.

June 12, 2017

This artist's conception shows two merging black holes similar to those detected by LIGO. The black holes are spinning in a nonaligned fashion, which means they have different orientations relative to the overall orbital motion of the pair. LIGO found hints that at least one black hole in the system called GW170104 was nonaligned with its orbital motion before it merged with its partner.

LIGO detects merging black holes for third time

Nearly 3 billion light years from Earth, the black holes are the farthest ever detected.

June 1, 2017

Researchers have observed a novel phenomenon in sheets of tantalum arsenide that mimics the behavior of theorized (but never observed) particles called Weyl fermions.

Exploring elusive high-energy particles in an unusual metal

Exotic metal displays behavior that could lead to new infrared detectors.

May 30, 2017

“Our whole goal was to monitor how materials evolve when exposed to radiation,” associate professor Michael Short explains, “but do it in a way that’s online,” without requiring samples to be extracted from that environment and tested in outside devices.

New method enables real-time monitoring of materials during irradiation

Technique will enable continuous measurement of damage to materials in high-radiation environments.

May 30, 2017

Engineers at MIT have come up with a scaling law to describe how objects move through sand. The scaling law can be used to predict how large trucks and cars drive through this material, based on how toy versions of those vehicles drive through an experimental sandbox containing the same grains.

New scaling law predicts how wheels drive over sand

Formula could help optimize construction vehicles, military tanks, and rovers on Mars.

May 29, 2017