MIT community members elected to the National Academy of Engineering for 2026
Seven faculty members, along with 12 additional alumni, are honored for significant contributions to engineering research, practice, and education.
AI algorithm enables tracking of vital white matter pathways
Opening a new window on the brainstem, a new tool reliably and finely resolves distinct nerve bundles in live diffusion MRI scans, revealing signs of injury or disease.
Some early life forms may have breathed oxygen well before it filled the atmosphere
A new study suggests aerobic respiration began hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought.
A satellite language network in the brain
Researchers find a component of the brain’s dedicated language network in the cerebellum, a region better known for coordinating movement.
Terahertz microscope reveals the motion of superconducting electrons
For the first time, the new scope allowed physicists to observe terahertz “jiggles” in a superconducting fluid.
Katie Spivakovsky wins 2026 Churchill Scholarship
The MIT senior will pursue a master’s degree at Cambridge University in the U.K. this fall.
How a unique class of neurons may set the table for brain development
Somatostatin-expressing neurons follow a unique trajectory when forming connections in the visual cortex that may help establish the conditions needed for sensory experience to refine circuits.
Q&A: A simpler way to understand syntax
A new book by Professor Ted Gibson brings together his years of teaching and research to detail the rules of how words combine.
MIT engineers design structures that compute with heat
By leveraging excess heat instead of electricity, microscopic silicon structures could enable more energy-efficient thermal sensing and signal processing.
Study: The infant universe’s “primordial soup” was actually soupy
MIT physicists observed the first clear evidence that quarks create a wake as they speed through quark-gluon plasma, confirming the plasma behaves like a liquid.
Cancer’s secret safety net
Researchers uncover a hidden mechanism that allows cancer to develop aggressive mutations.
Richard Hynes, a pioneer in the biology of cellular adhesion, dies at 81
Professor, mentor, and leader at MIT for more than 50 years shaped fundamental understandings of cell adhesion, the extracellular matrix, and molecular mechanisms of metastasis.
Biology-based brain model matches animals in learning, enables new discovery
New “biomimetic” model of brain circuits and function at multiple scales produced naturalistic dynamics and learning, and even identified curious behavior by some neurons.
To flexibly organize thought, the brain makes use of space
MIT researchers tested their theory of spatial computing, which holds that the brain recruits and controls ad hoc groups of neurons for cognitive tasks by applying brain waves to patches of the cortex.
Polar weather on Jupiter and Saturn hints at the planets’ interior details
New research may explain the striking differences between the two planets’ polar vortex patterns.