While it’s easy to be amazed by the constant drumbeat of innovations coming from Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sometimes overlooked are the dedicated individuals working to make those scientific and technological breakthroughs a reality. Every day, people in the neighborhood tackle previously intractable problems and push the frontiers of their fields. This year’s Kendall […]
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Inventive solutions to some of the world’s most critical problems are being discovered in labs, classrooms, and centers across MIT every day. Many of these solutions move from the lab to the commercial world with the help of over 85 Institute resources that comprise MIT’s robust innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) ecosystem. The Abdul Latif Jameel […]
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In 2021, Michael Short, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering, approached professor of anthropology Manduhai Buyandelger with an unusual pitch: collaborating on a project to prototype a molten salt heat bank in Mongolia, Buyandelger’s country of origin and place of her scholarship. It was also an invitation to forge a novel partnership between two […]
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The MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (MIT CTL) and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) have released the 2024 State of Supply Chain Sustainability report, marking the fifth edition of this influential research. The report highlights how supply chain sustainability practices have evolved over the past five years, assessing their global implementation […]
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Liam Hines ’22 didn’t move to Sarasota, Florida, until high school, but he’s a Floridian through and through. He jokes that he’s even got a floral shirt, what he calls a “Florida formal,” for every occasion. Which is why it broke his heart when toxic red algae used to devastate the Sunshine State’s coastline, including […]
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Flooding, including the devastation caused recently by Hurricane Helene, is responsible for $5 billion in annual damages in the U.S. That’s more than any other type of weather-related extreme event. To address the problem, the federal government instituted a program in 1990 that helps reduce flood insurance costs in communities enacting measures to better handle […]
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What if construction materials could be put together and taken apart as easily as LEGO bricks? Such reconfigurable masonry would be disassembled at the end of a building’s lifetime and reassembled into a new structure, in a sustainable cycle that could supply generations of buildings using the same physical building blocks. That’s the idea behind […]
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The leaders of The Climate Project at MIT met with community members at a campus forum on Monday, helping to kick off the Institute’s major new effort to accelerate and scale up climate change solutions. “The Climate Project is a whole-of-MIT mobilization,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in her opening remarks. “It’s designed to focus […]
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It was 1978, over a decade before the word “sustainable” would infiltrate environmental nomenclature, and Ronald Prinn, MIT professor of atmospheric science, had just founded the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE). Today, AGAGE provides real-time measurements for well over 50 environmentally harmful trace gases, enabling us to determine emissions at the country level, a […]
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Climate anxiety affects nearly half of young people aged 16-25. Students like second-year Rachel Mohammed find hope and inspiration through her involvement in innovative climate solutions, working alongside peers who share her determination. “I’ve met so many people at MIT who are dedicated to finding climate solutions in ways that I had never imagined, dreamed […]
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Water contamination by the chemicals used in today’s technology is a rapidly growing problem globally. A recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that 98 percent of people tested had detectable levels of PFAS, a family of particularly long-lasting compounds also known as “forever chemicals,” in their bloodstream. A new filtration material developed […]
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Asked to describe his work for a lay audience, Allan Shtofenmakher responds with an unexpected question: “Have you ever seen the movie ‘Wall-E?’” Recalling that the 2008 Disney-Pixar movie’s view of Earth from space was “brown and dusty and just surrounded by tons and tons of space junk,” he cautions, “If we’re not good stewards […]
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A team of scientists from the University of Leeds, University of Edinburgh, North Carolina State University, and the UK Met Office has visually illustrated global air quality trends through the “Air Quality Stripes.” These images reveal significant disparities in air quality improvements and deterioration worldwide. While Europe has seen substantial reductions in particulate matter, particularly […]
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The blades of propellers and wind turbines are designed based on aerodynamics principles that were first described mathematically more than a century ago. But engineers have long realized that these formulas don’t work in every situation. To compensate, they have added ad hoc “correction factors” based on empirical observations. Now, for the first time, engineers […]
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For many decades, nuclear fusion power has been viewed as the ultimate energy source. A fusion power plant could generate carbon-free energy at a scale needed to address climate change. And it could be fueled by deuterium recovered from an essentially endless source — seawater. Decades of work and billions of dollars in research funding […]
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While today’s cement is made through extremely high temperatures in a kiln, ancient Romans didn’t have that option. Still, anyone who’s been to Rome recently will tell you that ancient cement seems to have held up just fine. The startup Sublime Systems thinks the Romans were onto something. The MIT spinout has created a drop-in […]
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When MIT senior Rudiba Laiba saw that stores in the Netherlands eschewed plastic bags to save the planet, her first thought was, “that doesn’t happen in Bangladesh.” Laiba is one of eight MIT students who traveled to the Netherlands in June as part of an MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)-sponsored trip to experience first-hand the country’s […]
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Amidst a global wave of corporate pledges to decarbonize or reach net-zero emissions, a system for verifying actual greenhouse gas reductions has never been more important. Context Labs, founded by former MIT Sloan Fellow and serial entrepreneur Dan Harple SM ’13, is rising to meet that challenge with an analytics platform that brings more transparency […]
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The MIT School of Science is launching a center to advance knowledge and computational capabilities in the field of sustainability science, and support decision-makers in government, industry, and civil society to achieve sustainable development goals. Aligned with the Climate Project at MIT, researchers at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy will develop and apply expertise from […]
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Seen from a distance, MIT’s Cecil and Ida Green Building (Building 54) — designed by renowned architect and MIT alumnus I.M. Pei ’40 — is one of the most iconic buildings on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, skyline. Home to the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), the 21-story concrete structure soars over campus, […]
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Dutch airline KLM has teamed up with British-American startup ZeroAvia to develop a liquid hydrogen-powered turboprop aircraft. The partners aim to conduct a flight demonstration between two yet-to-be-named airports in 2026. ZeroAvia builds hydrogen-electric powertrains that can be retrofitted onto new or existing aircraft. The company has raised over $300mn from the likes of Airbus, […]
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Five years ago, what began as three nervous Norwegians spotting each other across a study room has evolved into a drone company enabling sustainable deliveries, elder care, and more against a backdrop of unforgiving conditions. Lars Erik Fagernæs, Herman Øie Kolden, and Bernhard Paus Græsdal all attended the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, but […]
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A sustainable source for clean energy may lie in old soda cans and seawater. MIT engineers have found that when the aluminum in soda cans is exposed in its pure form and mixed with seawater, the solution bubbles up and naturally produces hydrogen — a gas that can be subsequently used to power an engine […]
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Inside a hangar on the outskirts of Gothenburg, Sweden, lies the sleek metal frame of an electric plane poised to change the way we fly forever. The hangar belongs to Heart Aerospace. The Swedish startup is building a hybrid-electric 30-passenger airliner called the ES-30. It could offer a cleaner, cheaper alternative to short-haul flights on […]
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It’s one of the paradoxes of economic development: Many countries currently offer large subsidies to their industrial fishing fleets, even though the harms of overfishing are well-known. Governments might be willing to end this practice, if they saw that its costs outweighed its benefits. But each country, acting individually, faces an incentive to keep subsidies […]
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Tristan Brown is the S.C. Fang Chinese Language and Culture Career Development Professor at MIT. He specializes in law, science, environment and religion of late imperial China, a period running from the 16th through early 20th centuries. In this Q&A, Brown discusses how his areas of historical research can be useful for examining today’s pressing […]
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The Climate Project at MIT has appointed leaders for each of its six focal areas, or Climate Missions, President Sally Kornbluth announced in a letter to the MIT community today. Introduced in February, the Climate Project at MIT is a major new effort to change the trajectory of global climate outcomes for the better over […]
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As the name suggests, most electronic devices today work through the movement of electrons. But materials that can efficiently conduct protons — the nucleus of the hydrogen atom — could be key to a number of important technologies for combating global climate change. Most proton-conducting inorganic materials available now require undesirably high temperatures to achieve […]
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Warmer weather can be a welcome change for many across the MIT community. But as climate impacts intensify, warm days are often becoming hot days with increased severity and frequency. Already this summer, heat waves in June and July brought daily highs of over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the Resilient Cambridge report published in 2021, […]
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Susan Solomon, MIT professor of Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences (EAPS) and of chemistry, played a critical role in understanding how a class of chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons were creating a hole in the ozone layer. Her research was foundational to the creation of the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement established in the 1980s that phased […]
Read MoreSatellite density in Earth’s orbit has increased exponentially in recent years, with lower costs of small satellites allowing governments, researchers, and private companies to launch and operate some 2,877 satellites into orbit in 2023 alone. This includes increased geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite activity, which brings technologies with global-scale impact, from broadband internet to climate […]
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