Where there’s smoke, there is fire. But with climate change, larger and longer-burning wildfires are sending smoke farther from their source, often to places that are unaccustomed to the exposure. That’s been the case this week, as smoke continues to drift south from massive wildfires in Canada, prompting warnings of hazardous air quality, and poor […]
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The “interdisciplinary approach” is something that has been lauded for decades for its ability to break down silos and create new integrated approaches to research. For Munther Dahleh, founding director of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), showing the community that data science and statistics can transcend individual disciplines and form a […]
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When we think of getting on the road in our cars, our first thoughts may not be that fellow drivers are particularly safe or careful — but human drivers are more reliable than one may expect. For each fatal car crash in the United States, motor vehicles log a whopping hundred million miles on the […]
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As the world struggles to meet internationally agreed targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, methods of removing carbon dioxide such as reforestation of cleared areas have become an increasingly important strategy. But little attention has been paid to the potential for abandoned or marginal croplands to be restored to natural vegetation as an additional carbon […]
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Today, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) announced its ninth round of seed grants to support innovative research projects at MIT. The grants are designed to fund research efforts that tackle challenges related to water and food for human use, with the ultimate goal of creating meaningful impact as the world […]
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Throughout the ocean, billions upon billions of plant-like microbes make up an invisible floating forest. As they drift, the tiny organisms use sunlight to suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Collectively, these photosynthesizing plankton, or phytoplankton, absorb almost as much CO2 as the world’s terrestrial forests. A measurable fraction of their carbon-capturing muscle comes […]
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Capturing energy from the winds gusting off the coasts of the United States could more than double the nation’s electricity generation. It’s no wonder the Biden administration views this immense, clean-energy resource as central to its ambitious climate goals of 100 percent carbon-emissions-free electricity by 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. The White […]
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The following is a joint announcement from MIT and Community Jameel. An international project to build community resilience to the effects of climate change, launched by Community Jameel and a research team at MIT, has been recognized as an innovation sprint at the 2023 summit of the United States’ and United Arab Emirates’ Agriculture Innovation […]
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Faculty and researchers across MIT’s School of Engineering receive many awards in recognition of their scholarship, service, and overall excellence. The School of Engineering periodically recognizes their achievements by highlighting the honors, prizes, and medals won by faculty and research scientists working in our academic departments, labs, and centers.
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Maybe you can’t tell a book from its cover, but according to researchers at MIT you may now be able to do the equivalent for materials of all sorts, from an airplane part to a medical implant. Their new approach allows engineers to figure out what’s going on inside simply by observing properties of the […]
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When the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) launched its Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program in fall 2022, the goal was to offer undergraduate students a unique way to develop and implement research projects with the strong support of each other and MIT faculty. Now into its second semester, the program is underscoring the value […]
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Launched this month, MIT’s new Bachelor of Science in climate system science and engineering is jointly offered by the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). As part of MIT’s commitment to aid the global response to climate change, the new degree program is designed to train the […]
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MIT researchers are using artificial intelligence to design new proteins that go beyond those found in nature. They developed machine-learning algorithms that can generate proteins with specific structural features, which could be used to make materials that have certain mechanical properties, like stiffness or elasticity. Such biologically inspired materials could potentially replace materials made from […]
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The Curiosity Unbounded podcast is a conversation between MIT President Sally Kornbluth and newly-tenured faculty members. President Kornbluth invites us to listen in as she dives into the research happening in MIT’s labs and in the field. Along the way, she and her guests discuss pressing issues, as well as what inspires the people running […]
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In 2019, MIT’s Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) Office collaborated with several research labs in the Department of Biology to determine the feasibility of recycling clean lab plastics. Based on early successes with waste isolation and plastics collection, EHS collaborated with GreenLabs Recycling, a local startup, to remove and recycle lab plastics from campus. It […]
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In 2017, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) initiated the J-WAFS Fellowship Program for outstanding MIT PhD students working to solve humankind’s water-related challenges. Since then, J-WAFS has awarded 18 fellowships to students who have gone on to create innovations like a pump that can maximize energy efficiency even with changing […]
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Human skin is home to millions of microbes. One of these microbes, Staphylococcus aureus, is an opportunistic pathogen that can invade patches of skin affected by eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis. In a new study, researchers at MIT and other institutions have discovered that this microbe can rapidly evolve within a single person’s microbiome. […]
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Increasing environmental conditions caused by climate change, an ever-growing human population, scarcity of arable land, and limited resources are pressuring the agriculture industry to adopt more sustainable and precise practices that foster more efficient use of resources (e.g., water, fertilizers, and pesticides) and mitigation of environmental impacts. Developing delivery systems that efficiently deploy agrochemicals such […]
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Global supply chains are immense feats of technological and organizational sophistication. They are also, as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic showed, vulnerable to unexpected developments. Will that change as artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of supply chains? And what will happen to workers in the process? MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi explores these topics […]
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To secure a more sustainable and resilient future, we must take a careful look at the life cycle impacts of humanity’s most-produced building material: concrete. Carbon uptake, the process by which cement-based products sequester carbon dioxide, is key to this understanding. Hessam AzariJafari, the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub’s deputy director, is deeply invested in the […]
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When Joy Domingo-Kameenui spent two weeks in her native Hawaii as part of MIT class 1.091 (Traveling Research Environmental eXperiences), she was surprised to learn about the number of invasive and endangered species. “I knew about Hawaiian ecology from middle and high school but wasn’t fully aware to the extent of how invasive species and […]
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Despite the many advantages of concrete as a modern construction material, including its high strength, low cost, and ease of manufacture, its production currently accounts for approximately 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Recent discoveries by a team at MIT have revealed that introducing new materials into existing concrete manufacturing processes could significantly reduce […]
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Haruko Wainwright, the Norman C. Rasmussen Career Development Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) and assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at MIT, grew up in rural Japan, where many nuclear facilities are located. She remembers worrying about the facilities as a child. Wainwright was only 6 at the time of the Chernobyl […]
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Average crop yields in Africa are consistently far below those expected, and one significant reason is the prevalence of counterfeit seeds whose germination rates are far lower than those of the genuine ones. The World Bank estimates that as much as half of all seeds sold in some African countries are fake, which could help […]
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QS World University Rankings has placed MIT in the No. 1 spot in 11 subject areas for 2023, the organization announced today. The Institute received a No. 1 ranking in the following QS subject areas: Chemical Engineering; Civil and Structural Engineering; Computer Science and Information Systems; Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; Electrical and Electronic Engineering; […]
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“MIT is a place where dreams come true,” says César Terrer, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Here at MIT, Terrer says he’s given the resources needed to explore ideas he finds most exciting, and at the top of his list is climate science. In particular, he is interested in […]
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A new research collaboration with The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) will seek to develop advanced characterization tools for the analysis of the properties of pearls and to explore technologies to assign unique identifiers to individual pearls. The three-year project will be led by Admir Mašić, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, […]
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During the chilly last weekend of February, families around Cambridge, Massachusetts, enjoyed a fun-filled day in the Kendall/MIT Open Space. Winter Family Day included a range of family-friendly activities for attendees of all ages. With an estimated 1,500 attendees, the event was MIT Open Space Programming’s largest program to date. Collaborators across the Institute and […]
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Modern fabrication tools such as 3D printers can make structural materials in shapes that would have been difficult or impossible using conventional tools. Meanwhile, new generative design systems can take great advantage of this flexibility to create innovative designs for parts of a new building, car, or virtually any other device. But such “black box” […]
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Almost 2.8 million lane-miles, or about 4.6 million lane-kilometers, of the United States are paved. Roads and streets form the backbone of our built environment. They take us to work or school, take goods to their destinations, and much more. However, a new study by MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) researchers shows that the annual […]
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On Jan. 26, the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) hosted FedEx founder and executive chair Frederick W. Smith for an intimate, one-on-one conversation with Yossi Sheffi, director of CTL and professor of civil and environmental engineering. Their talk, titled “50 Years of Delivering Innovation,” centered on the evolution of the supply chain and […]
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