Wireless, wearable toxic-gas detector
Inexpensive sensors could be worn by soldiers to detect hazardous chemical agents.
How the spleen filters blood
Computer model finds slits in the spleen impose a “physical fitness test” on red blood cells.
Tough new hydrogel hybrid doesn’t dry out
Water-based material could be used to make artificial skin, longer-lasting contact lenses.
Southern Ocean cooling in a warming world
Research suggests Antarctica and the Southern Ocean may be experiencing a period of cooling before warming takes over, thanks to the ozone hole.
A strategy for “convergence” research to transform biomedicine
Report calls for more integration of physical, life sciences for needed advances in biomedical research.
For second time, LIGO detects gravitational waves
Signal was produced by two black holes colliding 1.4 billion light years away.
Why do women leave engineering?
Study: Group dynamics of teamwork and internships deter many women in the profession.
Researchers find a way to extend life and improve performance of fuel cell electrodes
Surface treatment greatly reduces degradation of catalyst material.
A new approach to chemical synthesis
Communesins, originally found in fungus, could hold potential as cancer drugs.
Stepping out of their comfort zone
Eleven students will challenge themselves at MIT in the MPC-CMSE Summer Scholars program.
![“[T]oday, if you want to write a program, you go and bring in these huge frameworks and these huge pieces of functionality that you then glue together, and you write a little code to get them to interact with each other. If you don’t understand what that big framework is doing, you’re not even going to know where your program is going to start executing,” says Armando Solar-Lezama.](/sites/default/files/styles/term_page__news_article/public/images/201605/MIT-Symbolic-Execution.jpg?itok=A5FxILHQ)
Automatic bug finder
System could make complex analysis practical for programs that import huge swaths of code.
Maria Zuber elected as chair of the National Science Board
For the first time, women will hold both of the board’s top leadership positions.
Light can “heal” defects in some solar cells
Defects in some new electronic materials can be removed by making ions move under illumination.
New nanoparticle catalysts could reduce need for precious metals
Process from MIT provides improved reactivity with much less platinum.
Study pinpoints timing of oxygen’s first appearance in Earth’s atmosphere
Beginning 2.33 billion years ago, atmospheric oxygen built up in just 10 million years.