For nearly a decade, a team of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers have been seeking to uncover why certain images persist in a people’s minds, while many others fade. To do this, they set out to map the spatio-temporal brain dynamics involved in recognizing a visual image. And now for the […]
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It’s the most fundamental of processes — the evaporation of water from the surfaces of oceans and lakes, the burning off of fog in the morning sun, and the drying of briny ponds that leaves solid salt behind. Evaporation is all around us, and humans have been observing it and making use of it for […]
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What makes a desert tortoise happy? Before you answer, we should be more specific: We’re talking about a Sonoran desert tortoise, one of a few species of drab, stocky tortoises native to North America’s most arid landscapes. Adapted to the rocky crevices that striate the hills from western Arizona to northern Mexico, this long-lived reptile […]
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In 1995, 14 wolves were delivered by truck and sled to the heart of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, where the animal had long been absent. Others followed. Since then, a story has grown up, based on early research, that as the wolves increased in number, they hunted the park’s elk herds, significantly reducing them […]
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Health-monitoring apps can help people manage chronic diseases or stay on track with fitness goals, using nothing more than a smartphone. However, these apps can be slow and energy-inefficient because the vast machine-learning models that power them must be shuttled between a smartphone and a central memory server. Engineers often speed things up using hardware […]
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New research from the group of MIT Professor Brett McGuire has revealed the presence of a previously unknown molecule in space. The team’s open-access paper, “Rotational Spectrum and First Interstellar Detection of 2-Methoxyethanol Using ALMA Observations of NGC 6334I,” appears in April 12 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Zachary T.P. Fried, a graduate student […]
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Generative A.I. technologies can write poetry and computer programs or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie. Now, new A.I. technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases […]
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In the month since federal authorities announced an outbreak of bird flu on dairy farms, they have repeatedly reassured the public that the spate of infections does not impact the nation’s food or milk supply, and poses little risk to the public. Yet the outbreak among cows may be more serious than originally believed. In […]
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Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The basic physics of running involves someone applying a force to the ground in the opposite direction of their sprint. For senior Olivia Rosenstein, her cross-country participation provides momentum to her studies as an experimental physicist working with […]
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To build AI systems that can collaborate effectively with humans, it helps to have a good model of human behavior to start with. But humans tend to behave suboptimally when making decisions. This irrationality, which is especially difficult to model, often boils down to computational constraints. A human can’t spend decades thinking about the ideal […]
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Irritable bowel syndrome is one of the most common and perplexing conditions gastroenterologists treat. It affects an estimated 6 percent of people in the United States, with more women diagnosed than men, and causes symptoms so debilitating they can be hard to ignore, including abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. Scientists don’t know exactly what […]
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The News The rate of emergency room visits caused by heat illness increased significantly last year in large swaths of the country compared with the previous five years, according to a study published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The research, which analyzed visits during the warmer months of the year, […]
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Although the troposphere is often thought of as the closest layer of the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface, the planetary boundary layer (PBL) — the lowest layer of the troposphere — is actually the part that most significantly influences weather near the surface. In the 2018 planetary science decadal survey, the PBL was raised as an […]
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As China’s cities grow, they are also sinking. An estimated 16 percent of the country’s major cities are losing more than 10 millimeters of elevation per year and nearly half are losing more than 3 millimeters per year, according to a new study published in the journal Science. These amounts may seem small, but they […]
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As Clayton Lockett lay on an execution table in Oklahoma in 2014 awaiting his death, medical officials struggled to gain access to a vein to administer a lethal injection. They inserted needles in his arms, his neck, his chest and eventually his groin, where they mistakenly struck an artery. The prison warden later described it […]
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In 2018, Kenia Flores, who is blind, voted by mail in North Carolina because she was attending college out of state. Had she been able to vote in person, she could have used an accessible machine. But voting absentee, her only option was to tell another person her choices and have them fill out her […]
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Have you ever felt reluctant to share ideas during a meeting because you feared judgment from senior colleagues? You’re not alone. Research has shown this pervasive issue can lead to a lack of diversity in public discourse, especially when junior members of a community don’t speak up because they feel intimidated. Anonymous communication can alleviate […]
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Class of 1958 Career Development Assistant Professor Erin Kara of the Department of Physics has been named as the recipient of the 2023-24 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award. Established in 1982, the award is a tribute to the late Institute Professor Emeritus Harold E. Edgerton for his support for younger faculty members. This award recognizes […]
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Using a pair of sensors made from carbon nanotubes, researchers from MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) have discovered signals that reveal when plans are experiencing stresses such as heat, light, or attack from insects or bacteria. The sensors detect two signaling molecules that plants use to coordinate their response to […]
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Across the country, hundreds of thousands of drivers deliver packages and parcels to customers and companies each day, with many click-to-door times averaging only a few days. Coordinating a supply chain feat of this magnitude in a predictable and timely way is a longstanding problem of operations research, where researchers have been working to optimize […]
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When MIT professor and now Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) member Peter Shor first demonstrated the potential of quantum computers to solve problems faster than classical ones, he inspired scientists to imagine countless possibilities for the emerging technology. Thirty years later, though, the quantum edge remains a peak not yet reached. Unfortunately, the […]
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To save on fuel and reduce aircraft emissions, engineers are looking to build lighter, stronger airplanes out of advanced composites. These engineered materials are made from high-performance fibers that are embedded in polymer sheets. The sheets can be stacked and pressed into one multilayered material and made into extremely lightweight and durable structures. But composite […]
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Many of us realize climate change is a threat to our well being. But what we have not yet grasped is that the devastation wreaked by climate change is often just as much about headline-grabbing catastrophes as it is about the subtler accumulation of innumerable slow and unequal burns that are already underway — the […]
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The cost of a proposed NASA mission to gather rocks on Mars and return them to Earth is spiraling upward and slipping further into the future. So on Monday, space agency officials asked for ideas on simplifying the mission and trimming its price tag. “The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive,” Bill […]
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A Chinese company targeted by members of Congress over potential ties to the Chinese government makes blockbuster drugs for the American market that have been hailed as advances in the treatment of cancers, obesity and debilitating illnesses like cystic fibrosis. WuXi AppTec is one of several companies that lawmakers have identified as potential threats to […]
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Watching her uncle play a video game when she was a small child started Shaniel Bowen on her path to becoming a biomedical engineer. The game, “Metal Gear Solid 2,” introduced her to exoskeletons, wearable devices that enhance physical abilities. “The game piqued my interest when it started showing and discussing exoskeletons,” Bowen says. “I […]
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The radiation detectors used today for applications like inspecting cargo ships for smuggled nuclear materials are expensive and cannot operate in harsh environments, among other disadvantages. Now, in work funded largely by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with early support from the U.S. Department of Energy, MIT engineers have demonstrated a fundamentally new way […]
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In biomedicine, segmentation involves annotating pixels from an important structure in a medical image, like an organ or cell. Artificial intelligence models can help clinicians by highlighting pixels that may show signs of a certain disease or anomaly. However, these models typically only provide one answer, while the problem of medical image segmentation is often […]
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The spread of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan in 2011 and the ongoing threat of a possible release of radiation from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex in the Ukrainian war zone have underscored the need for effective and reliable ways of detecting and monitoring radioactive isotopes. Less dramatically, everyday operations […]
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Have dinosaurs evolved on other worlds? Could we spot a planet of glowing organisms? What nearby star systems are positioned to observe Earth passing in front of the sun? These are just a few of the questions that Lisa Kaltenegger has joyfully tackled. As the founding director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, […]
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A user could ask ChatGPT to write a computer program or summarize an article, and the AI chatbot would likely be able to generate useful code or write a cogent synopsis. However, someone could also ask for instructions to build a bomb, and the chatbot might be able to provide those, too. To prevent this […]
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