Tag: Research

New algorithm unlocks high-resolution insights for computer vision

Imagine yourself glancing at a busy street for a few moments, then trying to sketch the scene you saw from memory. Most people could draw the rough positions of the major objects like cars, people, and crosswalks, but almost no one can draw every detail with pixel-perfect accuracy. The same is true for most modern […]

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Pandemic Lockdowns Had Varied Effects on Wildlife

In the early months of the Covid pandemic, when every bit of news seemed bleak, there was one heartwarming narrative that took hold: With humans stuck in their homes, the world was safe again for wild animals, which could now wander freely through cities, parking lots or fields that once might have been crowded with […]

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Five MIT faculty members take on Cancer Grand Challenges

Cancer Grand Challenges recently announced five winning teams for 2024, which included five researchers from MIT: Michael Birnbaum, Regina Barzilay, Brandon DeKosky, Seychelle Vos, and Ömer Yilmaz. Each team is made up of interdisciplinary cancer researchers from across the globe and will be awarded $25 million over five years.  Birnbaum, an associate professor in the […]

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Study finds lands used for grazing can worsen or help climate change

When it comes to global climate change, livestock grazing can be either a blessing or a curse, according to a new study, which offers clues on how to tell the difference. If managed properly, the study shows, grazing can actually increase the amount of carbon from the air that gets stored in the ground and […]

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Teen Pregnancy Linked to Risk of Earlier Death in Adulthood, Study Finds

Teen pregnancy increases the chances that a young woman will drop out of school and struggle with poverty, research has shown. Teenagers are also more likely to develop serious medical complications during pregnancy. Now a large study in Canada reports another disturbing finding: Women who were pregnant as teenagers are more likely to die before […]

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Researchers help robots navigate efficiently in uncertain environments

If a robot traveling to a destination has just two possible paths, it needs only to compare the routes’ travel time and probability of success. But if the robot is traversing a complex environment with many possible paths, choosing the best route amid so much uncertainty can quickly become an intractable problem. MIT researchers developed […]

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Study finds workers misjudge wage markets

Many employees believe their counterparts at other firms make less in salary than is actually the case — an assumption that costs them money, according to a study co-authored by MIT scholars. “Workers wrongly anchor their beliefs about outside options on their current wage,” says MIT economist Simon Jäger, co-author of a newly published paper […]

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Colon Cancer Blood Test Shows Promise for Early Detection

Early detection of colon cancer can prevent a majority of deaths from this disease, possibly as much as 73 percent of them. But just 50 to 75 percent of middle-aged and older adults who should be screened regularly are being tested. One reason, doctors say, is that the screening methods put many people off. There […]

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A sprayable gel could make minimally invasive surgeries simpler and safer

More than 20 million Americans undergo colonoscopy screenings every year, and in many of those cases, doctors end up removing polyps that are 2 cm or larger and require additional care. This procedure has greatly reduced the overall incidence of colon cancer, but not without complications, as patients may experience gastrointestinal bleeding both during and […]

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Scientists develop a rapid gene-editing screen to find effects of cancer mutations

Tumors can carry mutations in hundreds of different genes, and each of those genes may be mutated in different ways — some mutations simply replace one DNA nucleotide with another, while others insert or delete larger sections of DNA. Until now, there has been no way to quickly and easily screen each of those mutations […]

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Reducing pesticide use while increasing effectiveness

Farming can be a low-margin, high-risk business, subject to weather and climate patterns, insect population cycles, and other unpredictable factors. Farmers need to be savvy managers of the many resources they deal, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides are among their major recurring expenses. Despite the importance of these chemicals, a lack of technology that monitors […]

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Exploring the cellular neighborhood

Cells rely on complex molecular machines composed of protein assemblies to perform essential functions such as energy production, gene expression, and protein synthesis. To better understand how these machines work, scientists capture snapshots of them by isolating proteins from cells and using various methods to determine their structures. However, isolating proteins from cells also removes […]

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A new sensor detects harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking water

MIT chemists have designed a sensor that detects tiny quantities of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — chemicals found in food packaging, nonstick cookware, and many other consumer products. These compounds, also known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down naturally, have been linked to a variety of harmful health effects, including cancer, […]

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For people who speak many languages, there’s something special about their native tongue

A new study of people who speak many languages has found that there is something special about how the brain processes their native language. In the brains of these polyglots — people who speak five or more languages — the same language regions light up when they listen to any of the languages that they […]

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100 New Marine Species Discovered Off Coast of New Zealand

A team of 21 scientists set off on an expedition in the largely uncharted waters of Bounty Trough off the coast of the South Island of New Zealand in February hoping to find a trove of new species. The expedition paid off, they said on Sunday, with the discovery of 100 new species, a number […]

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A.I. Is Learning What It Means to Be Alive

In 1889, a French doctor named Francois-Gilbert Viault climbed down from a mountain in the Andes, drew blood from his arm and inspected it under a microscope. Dr. Viault’s red blood cells, which ferry oxygen, had surged 42 percent. He had discovered a mysterious power of the human body: When it needs more of these […]

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7 Covid Mysteries Scientists Are Starting to Unravel

When the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, nearly everything about the novel coronavirus was an open question: How was it spreading so quickly? How sick would it make people? Would a single bout buy you protection from future cases? In the four years since, scientists have unraveled some of […]

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Researchers enhance peripheral vision in AI models

Peripheral vision enables humans to see shapes that aren’t directly in our line of sight, albeit with less detail. This ability expands our field of vision and can be helpful in many situations, such as detecting a vehicle approaching our car from the side. Unlike humans, AI does not have peripheral vision. Equipping computer vision […]

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How sensory gamma rhythm stimulation clears amyloid in Alzheimer’s mice

Studies at MIT and elsewhere are producing mounting evidence that light flickering and sound clicking at the gamma brain rhythm frequency of 40 hertz (Hz) can reduce Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression and treat symptoms in human volunteers as well as lab mice. In a new open-access study in Nature using a mouse model of the […]

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How the brain coordinates speaking and breathing

MIT researchers have discovered a brain circuit that drives vocalization and ensures that you talk only when you breathe out, and stop talking when you breathe in. The newly discovered circuit controls two actions that are required for vocalization: narrowing of the larynx and exhaling air from the lungs. The researchers also found that this […]

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Method rapidly verifies that a robot will avoid collisions

Before a robot can grab dishes off a shelf to set the table, it must ensure its gripper and arm won’t crash into anything and potentially shatter the fine china. As part of its motion planning process, a robot typically runs “safety check” algorithms that verify its trajectory is collision-free. However, sometimes these algorithms generate […]

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Gray Whale, Long Absent From the Atlantic, Is Spotted Off Massachusetts

Researchers with the New England Aquarium were conducting a regular survey of the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts last week when something caught their eye. What they spotted, a whale without a dorsal fin, led the researchers to think that it might be a North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered […]

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One Twin Was Hurt, the Other Was Not. Their Adult Mental Health Diverged.

Twins are a bonanza for research psychologists. In a field perpetually seeking to tease out the effects of genetics, environment and life experience, they provide a natural controlled experiment as their paths diverge, subtly or dramatically, through adulthood. Take Dennis and Douglas. In high school, they were so alike that friends told them apart by […]

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Deciphering the cellular mechanisms behind ALS

At a time in which scientific research is increasingly cross-disciplinary, Ernest Fraenkel, the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, stands out as both a very early adopter of drawing from different scientific fields and a great advocate of the practice today. When Fraenkel’s students find themselves […]

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He Had 217 Covid Shots Without Side Effects, Study Finds

Two years ago, German doctors stumbled across news reports of a man being investigated for receiving scores of coronavirus vaccines with no medical explanation. Then followed a flurry of speculation about what he had been up to. As it turned out, prosecutors were looking into whether he had been receiving so many extra doses as […]

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A noninvasive treatment for “chemo brain”

Patients undergoing chemotherapy often experience cognitive effects such as memory impairment and difficulty concentrating — a condition commonly known as “chemo brain.” MIT researchers have now shown that a noninvasive treatment that stimulates gamma frequency brain waves may hold promise for treating chemo brain. In a study of mice, they found that daily exposure to […]

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MIT scientists use a new type of nanoparticle to make vaccines more powerful

Many vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis B and whooping cough, consist of fragments of viral or bacterial proteins. These vaccines often include other molecules called adjuvants, which help to boost the immune system’s response to the protein. Most of these adjuvants consist of aluminum salts or other molecules that provoke a nonspecific immune response. A […]

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Satellite Data Gives Crisper Look at Cities at Risk of Sea Level Rise

A new study of sea-level rise using detailed data on changes to land elevation found that current scientific models may not accurately capture vulnerabilities in 32 coastal cities in the United States. The analysis, published Wednesday in Nature, uses satellite imagery to detect sinking and rising land to help paint a more precise picture of […]

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Powerful Psychedelic Drug Gains New Notice as an Opioid Addiction Therapy

Ibogaine, a formidable hallucinogen made from the root of a shrub native to Central Africa, is not for the timid. It unleashes a harrowing psychedelic trip that can last more than 24 hours, and the drug can cause sudden cardiac arrest and death. But scientists who have studied ibogaine have reported startling findings. According to […]

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What to Know About Ibogaine, a Psychedelic

What is ibogaine? A naturally occurring psychoactive compound, ibogaine comes from the iboga tree, a rainforest shrub native to Central Africa. The drug comes from the bark of the root, which is crushed and consumed as a powder or given in an extracted form. Iboga has long been used for medicinal and ritual purposes in […]

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Using generative AI to improve software testing

Generative AI is getting plenty of attention for its ability to create text and images. But those media represent only a fraction of the data that proliferate in our society today. Data are generated every time a patient goes through a medical system, a storm impacts a flight, or a person interacts with a software […]

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