Research

This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 15 miles (24 km). The image was obtained at a 50 degree phase angle between the spacecraft, asteroid, and the sun.

MIT’s REXIS and Bennu’s watery surface

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample-return spacecraft, carrying MIT instrument, arrived at asteroid in December; now begins the science to select a sampling location.

January 29, 2019

Using a new cooperative learning technique, MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab researchers cut by half the time it took a pair of robot agents to learn to maneuver to opposite sides of a virtual room.

Learning to teach to speed up learning

An algorithm that teaches robot agents how to exchange advice to complete a task helps them learn faster.

January 29, 2019

A new study co-authored by an MIT professor shows that crowdsourced judgments about the quality of news sources may effectively marginalize false news stories and other kinds of online misinformation.

Want to squelch fake news? Let the readers take charge

Study shows audience judgments can identify online misinformation.

January 28, 2019

$Experiments on ultra-thin copper-oxide ceramic superconductors performed by MIT researchers showed an unexpected disorderly, or “glassy,” arrangement of electrons, known as a “Wigner glass.” At left, “Fourier space,” or momentum space, shows the diffraction data that proved the tendency of the charge ripples to align in any direction, while the image at right displays the random placem...$

Surprising electronic disorder in a copper oxide-based ceramic

MIT researchers use resonant X-ray scattering measurements to reveal unexpected “Wigner glass” in desirable superconducting material.

January 28, 2019

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have designed the first fully flexible, battery-free “rectenna” — a device that converts energy from Wi-Fi signals into electricity — that could be used to power flexible and wearable electronics, medical devices, and sensors for the “internet of things.”

Converting Wi-Fi signals to electricity with new 2-D materials

Device made from flexible, inexpensive materials could power large-area electronics, wearables, medical devices, and more.

January 28, 2019

Poonam was 13 years old and blind from cataracts when Project Prakash provided her with surgery to restore her sight.

The gift of light, through science and service

Professor Pawan Sinha addresses a humanitarian need — treatable blindness — and advances our understanding of visual development in the brain.

January 28, 2019

New research describes a single neural network that can collect missing data from a patient and add it to their chart.

Filling the gaps in a patient’s medical data

Neural network assimilates multiple types of health data to help doctors make decisions with incomplete information.

January 25, 2019

A model by MIT and Microsoft researchers identifies instances where autonomous systems have “learned” from training examples that don’t match what’s actually happening in the real world, which can be used to identify which learned actions could cause costly errors.

Identifying artificial intelligence “blind spots”

Model identifies instances when autonomous systems have learned from examples that may cause dangerous errors in the real world.

January 24, 2019

MIT researchers have developed a new secure cryptocurrency that reduces data users need to join the network and verify transactions by up to 99 percent, compared to today’s popular cryptocurrencies, which could mean a more scalable network.

A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

Design reduces by 99 percent the data users need to join the network and verify transactions.

January 23, 2019

The first color image of Ultima Thule, taken at a distance of 85,000 miles (137,000 kilometers) at 4:08 Universal Time on Jan. 1, 2019, highlights its reddish surface. The left image was taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager. At right, color has been overlaid onto the LORRI image.

3Q: On the significance of Ultima Thule

New Horizons Mission Team members Alissa Earle and Richard Binzel discuss the revelations the icy world provides about the formation of our solar system.

January 23, 2019