Research

Using atmospheric emissions taken by the global network AGAGE, Ronald Prinn (left) and Xuekun Fang (right) have identified rising emissions of chloroform that may pose a new threat to ozone recovery.

New threat to ozone recovery

Study finds chloroform emissions, on the rise in East Asia, could delay ozone recovery by up to eight years.

December 20, 2018

Graduate student Julia Sokol is working on making drip irrigation cheaper and more efficient at MIT’s Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Lab.

Improving crop yields while conserving resources

PhD student Julia Sokol is helping develop drip irrigation technologies that allow farmers to save water and energy.

December 20, 2018

Left to right: Graduate student Cédric Viry, Professor Jeffrey Grossman, and postdoc Grace Han, along with their collaborators, are using specially designed “photoswitching” molecules to control the release of heat from materials used to store thermal energy in devices ranging from solar concentrators and solar cookers to heated seats in vehicles.

Saving heat until you need it

A new concept for thermal energy storage involves a material that absorbs heat as it melts and releases it as it resolidifies — but only when triggered by light.

December 19, 2018

Matthew Wilson and former postdocs Zhe "Sage" Chen and Fabian Kloosterman have been working for a decade on systems to decode neural signals.

Real-time readouts of thinking in rats

New open-source system provides fast, accurate neural decoding and real-time readouts of where rats think they are.

December 19, 2018

The ion beamline at Sandia National Labs where the new radiation damage measurement system has been installed and tested. The radiation damage process is observed in a target chamber located behind the black-box laser enclosure on the right of the image.

System monitors radiation damage to materials in real-time

Facility could rapidly provide data on how material properties change in a nuclear reactor.

December 18, 2018

An MIT team has discovered that the small molecule ppGpp (red) binds to the PurF enzyme (subunits shown in green and purple).

Engineering "capture compounds" to probe cell growth

Researchers develop a method to investigate how bacteria respond to starvation and to identify which proteins bind to the “magic spot” — ppGpp.

December 17, 2018

The toughness of Sporopollenin, a polymer within the shells of pollen grains (seen here magnified 500X using a scanning electron microscope), has made it possible for plant life to survive on land — but has also frustrated attempts to study its fundamental composition, until now.

Cracking a tough case

Whitehead Institute and MIT researchers uncover the detailed molecular structure of the sporopollenin polymer, an inert material key for the emergence of land plants.

December 17, 2018

MIT researchers used their new tissue preservation technique to label and image neurons in a brain region called the globus pallidus externa. Neurons that express a protein called parvalbumin are labeled in red, and neurons labeled blue express a protein called GAD1.

Mapping the brain, cell by cell

Technique for preserving tissue allows researchers to create maps of neural circuits with single-cell resolution.

December 17, 2018

Extremophiles are capable of living in some of the harshest locations on Earth, such as the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park.

Surviving one of Earth’s most extreme environments

New research finds a unique component of cell membranes in an archaea species conveys protection against acidic surroundings.

December 14, 2018

Cells have evolved to produce the components of their multi-protein complexes in precise ratios.

Tracking the footprints of protein synthesis

Researchers refine a method to quantify protein production, show that the precision with which bacteria and eukaryotes tune their gene expression is remarkably similar.

December 14, 2018