School of Science

To evaluate infants’ intuition regarding what other people value, researchers showed them videos in which an agent (red bouncing ball) decides whether it’s worth the effort to leap over an obstacle to reach a goal (blue cartoon character).

How badly do you want something? Babies can tell

Ten-month-old infants determine the value of a goal from how hard someone works to achieve it.

November 23, 2017

$MIT physicists have invented a new technique to cool atoms into condensates, which is faster than the conventional method and conserves a large fraction of the original atoms.$

A faster way to make Bose-Einstein condensates

Method of laser cooling may speed up investigations into magnetism and superconductivity.

November 23, 2017

Planarians possess impressive regenerative capabilities that have helped Whitehead Institute researchers uncover distinct subsets of muscle that orchestrate and pattern regrowth.

Muscle plays surprising role in tissue regeneration

Whitehead Institute researchers have pinpointed distinct muscle subsets that orchestrate and pattern regrowth.

November 22, 2017

Through a Bridge Project collaboration with David Weinstock (left) of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and MIT Professor Scott Manalis (center), cell-weighing technology is being evaluated in a clinical laboratory at DFCI. MIT visiting scientist Mark Stevens is pictured at right.

Over the river and do some good

The Bridge Project collaboration accelerates new, highly original, and powerful approaches to defeating cancer.

November 22, 2017

Micrographs of a metal surface after impact by metal particles. Craters are formed due to melting of the surface from the impact.

How to get sprayed metal coatings to stick

When spraying metal coatings, melting hurts rather than helps, MIT research reveals.

November 22, 2017

At least 30 MIT faculty, research staff, and alumni are listed throughout Forbes’ seventh annual 30 Under 30 edition, featuring some of the world’s best young innovators.

MIT brainpower highlighted in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 lists for 2018

Forbes calls this year's 30 Under 30 lists an "encyclopedia of creative disruption."

November 21, 2017

Physicists at MIT have designed a pocket-sized cosmic ray muon detector to track these ghostly particles.

Physicists design $100 handheld muon detector

Pocket-sized device detects charged particles in surrounding air.

November 20, 2017

Using a technique called solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, an MIT team found that two cholesterol molecules bind to a flu protein called M2 to sever viral buds from their host cell. The molecular configuration creates an exaggerated wedge shape inside the cell membrane that curves and narrows the neck of the budding virus until the neck breaks.

Cholesterol helps flu virus escape through host cell’s membrane

Study could shed light on how many other proteins bind with membrane cholesterol.

November 20, 2017

The Terzo Millenio, or Third Millennium, concept car from Lamborghini marks an ambitious collaboration between the Italian automaker and researchers at MIT.

MIT researchers collaborate with Lamborghini to develop an electric car of the future

Research from the Dinca and Hart labs, paired with Lamborghini’s “hypercar” concept, will result in the Terzo Millenio, an electric sports car for the third millennium.

November 17, 2017