School of Science

MIT Professor Tom Leighton has won the 2018 Marconi Prize for his fundamental contributions to technology and the establishment of the content delivery network (CDN) industry.

Professor Tom Leighton wins 2018 Marconi Prize

Akamai co-founder honored for pioneering content delivery network services industry.

March 22, 2018

An MIT-led research team reversed age-related endurance loss in mice by treating them with a compound that promotes new blood vessel growth.

Study suggests method for boosting growth of blood vessels and muscle

Activating proteins linked to longevity may help to increase endurance and combat frailty in the elderly.

March 22, 2018

The MVP protein appears green in these stained neurons (red denotes neuronal marker SATB2).

Researchers identify important role for gene in 16p11.2 deletion autism

Study finds that major vault protein is needed for homeostatic plasticity.

March 21, 2018

MIT graduate engineering, business, science programs ranked highly by U.S. News for 2019

Graduate engineering program is No. 1 in the nation; MIT Sloan is No. 5.

March 20, 2018

The Committee on Animal Care solicits feedback

March 19, 2018

An illustration depicting a kagome metal — an electrically conducting crystal, made from layers of iron and tin atoms, with each atomic layer arranged in the repeating pattern of a kagome lattice.

Physicists discover new quantum electronic material

With an atomic structure resembling a Japanese basketweaving pattern, “kagome metal” exhibits exotic, quantum behavior.

March 19, 2018

Artist's impression of an inner accretion flow and a jet from a supermassive black hole when it is actively feeding, for example, from a star that it recent tore apart.

Scientists detect radio echoes of a black hole feeding on a star

Signals suggest black hole emits a jet of energy proportional to the stellar material it gobbles up.

March 18, 2018

MIT senior Isabella Pecorari embarked on a path to medicine at a young age, beginning with a grade-school fascination with biology.

Lending mind, hand, and heart

Senior Isabella Pecorari is building supportive communities at MIT and beyond.

March 16, 2018

Three-eye planarians created by removing one of the flatworm's eyes during regeneration of its head.

A blueprint for regeneration

Whitehead Institute researchers uncover framework for how stem cells determine where to form replacement structures.

March 15, 2018

Researchers at MIT and the Australian National University have found that seismic waves are essentially blind to a very common substance found throughout the Earth's interior: water.

Scientists find seismic imaging is blind to water

Findings may lead scientists to reinterpret seismic maps of the Earth's interior.

March 14, 2018

MIT graduate student Hilary Richardson helps a child into an MRI scanner for a study of how children's brains develop the ability to think about the mental states of other people.

Study finds early signatures of the social brain

Children as young as 3 have brain network devoted to interpreting thoughts of other people.

March 12, 2018

Melissa Nobles (far right), Kenan Sahin Dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, introduced the panel discussion, "The Consequences: Intelligence and Society," at the launch of the MIT Intelligence Quest on March 1. From left, Gideon Lichfield, editor-in-chief, MIT Technology Review; Rodney Brooks, Panasonic Professor of Robotics, emeritus; Megan Smith, founder and CEO, shi...

MIT Intelligence Quest kicks off

A star-studded lineup helps the Institute celebrate the launch of a new initiative on human and machine intelligence.

March 7, 2018

Research shows that students who fail to read adequately in first grade have a 90 percent probability of reading poorly in fourth grade, and a 75 percent probability of reading poorly in high school.

MIT and Harvard join forces to address early childhood literacy

Reach Every Reader aims to end early literacy crisis.

March 6, 2018

Catching a bouncing ball or hitting a ball with a racket requires estimating when the ball will arrive. Neuroscientists have long thought that the brain does this by calculating the speed of the moving object. However, a new study from MIT shows that the brain's approach is more complex.

Study reveals how the brain tracks objects in motion

Timing and speed are both important for making accurate estimates of how an object will travel.

March 5, 2018

Physicists at MIT and Harvard University have found that graphene, a lacy, honeycomb-like sheet of carbon atoms, can behave at two electrical extremes: as an insulator, in which electrons are completely blocked from flowing; and as a superconductor, in which electrical current can stream through without resistance.

Insulator or superconductor? Physicists find graphene is both

When rotated at a "magic angle," graphene sheets can form an insulator or a superconductor.