Heat generated by electronic devices is usually a problem, but a team led by Giuseppe Romano, a research scientist at MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, has found a way to use it for data processing that doesn’t rely on electricity. In this analog computing method, input data is encoded not as binary 1s and 0s…
Several years ago, Suzanne Berger was visiting a manufacturing facility in Ohio, talking to workers on the shop floor, when a machinist offered a thought that could serve as her current credo. “Technology takes a step forward—workers take a step forward too,” the employee said. Berger, to explain, is an MIT political scientist who for…
A photogenic green-eyed Russian Blue named Petra might just be the world’s most sequenced cat. Petra was rescued from an animal shelter in Reno, Nevada, by Charlie Lieu, MBA ’05, SM ’05, a data whiz, serial entrepreneur, investor, and cofounder of Darwin’s Ark, a community science nonprofit focused on pet genetics. Since becoming Lieu’s furry…
In the horticultural world, some vines are especially grabby. As they grow, the woody tendrils can wrap around obstacles with enough force to pull down fences and trees. Inspired by vines’ twisty tenacity, engineers at MIT and Stanford University have developed a robotic gripper that can snake around and lift a variety of objects and…
Launching from the Lab: Building a Deep-Tech StartupBy Lita Nelsen ’64, SM ’66, SM ’79, former director of the MIT Technology Licensing Office, and Maureen StancikBoyce, SM ’91, SM ’93, PhD ’95, with Sophie Hagerty MIT PRESS, 2026, $35 Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One BargeBy Ian Kumekawa, lecturer in historyPENGUIN RANDOM…
Antibody treatments for cancer and other diseases are typically delivered intravenously, requiring patients to go to a hospital and potentially spend hours receiving infusions. Now Professor Patrick Doyle and his colleagues have taken a major step toward reformulating antibodies so that they can be injected with a standard syringe, making treatment easier and more accessible. …
Researchers at MIT and Microsoft have used artificial intelligence to create molecular sensors that could detect early signs of cancer via a urine test. The researchers developed an AI model to design short proteins that are targeted by enzymes called proteases, which are overactive in cancer cells. Nanoparticles coated with these proteins, called peptides, can…
As people age, their immune function weakens. Owing to shrinkage of the thymus, where T cells normally mature and diversify, populations of these immune cells become smaller and can’t react to pathogens as quickly. But researchers at MIT and the Broad Institute have now found a way to overcome that decline by temporarily programming cells…
In the vision disorder amblyopia (or “lazy eye”), impaired vision in one eye early in life causes neural connections in the brain’s visual system to shift toward supporting the other eye, leaving the amblyopic eye less capable even if the original impairment is corrected. Current interventions don’t work after infancy and early childhood, when the…