Researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School have developed a biocompatible and highly stretchable optical fiber made from hydrogel — an elastic, rubbery material composed mostly of water. The fiber, which is as bendable as a rope of licorice, may one day be implanted in the body to deliver therapeutic pulses of light or light […]
Electron-Phonon Interactions Affect Heat Dissipation In Computer Chips
In the coming years, as more transistors are packed into ever smaller areas within computer chips, MIT engineers say cellphones, laptops, and other electronic devices may face a higher risk of overheating, as a result of interactions between electrons and heat-carrying particles called phonons. The researchers have found that these previously underestimated interactions can play […]
Beaver-inspired Wetsuits In The Works
Beavers and sea otters lack the thick layer of blubber that insulates walruses and whales. And yet these small, semiaquatic mammals can keep warm and even dry while diving, by trapping warm pockets of air in dense layers of fur. Inspired by these fuzzy swimmers, MIT engineers have now fabricated fur-like, rubbery pelts and used […]
3-D Printed Structures ‘Remember’ Their Shapes
Engineers from MIT and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) are using light to print three-dimensional structures that “remember” their original shapes. Even after being stretched, twisted, and bent at extreme angles, the structures — from small coils and multimaterial flowers, to an inch-tall replica of the Eiffel tower — sprang back to their original forms […]
Sponge Creates Steam Using Ambient Sunlight
How do you boil water? Eschewing the traditional kettle and flame, MIT engineers have invented a bubble-wrapped, sponge-like device that soaks up natural sunlight and heats water to boiling temperatures, generating steam through its pores. The design, which the researchers call a “solar vapor generator,” requires no expensive mirrors or lenses to concentrate the sunlight, […]
MIT Scientists Find Weird Quantum Effects, Even Over Hundreds of Miles
In the world of quantum, infinitesimally small particles, weird and often logic-defying behaviors abound. Perhaps the strangest of these is the idea of superposition, in which objects can exist simultaneously in two or more seemingly counterintuitive states. For example, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, electrons may spin both clockwise and counter-clockwise, or be […]
New Microfluidic Device Offers Means for Studying Electric Field Cancer Therapy
Researchers at MIT’s research center in Singapore have developed a new microfluidic device that tests the effects of electric fields on cancer cells. They observed that a range of low-intensity, middle-frequency electric fields effectively stopped breast and lung cancer cells from growing and spreading, while having no adverse effect on neighboring healthy cells. The device, […]
Need Hair? Press ‘Print’
These days, it may seem as if 3-D printers can spit out just about anything, from a full-sized sports car, to edible food, to human skin. But some things have defied the technology, including hair, fur, and other dense arrays of extremely fine features, which require a huge amount of computational time and power to […]
2.007 Robots Battle it Out, Revolutionary-Style
On Thursday evening, just before nightfall, a revolution was afoot at MIT. The battleground was set, the munitions were stocked, the targets were marked, and the soldiers were … robots. As hundreds of spectators crowded into Johnson Athletic Center, 32 student-built robots, winnowed down from a field of 153, squared off in the annual competition […]
MIT’s Open House Attracts Tens of Thousands on Saturday
On Saturday, around 20,000 visitors were expected to arrive on MIT’s doorstep for a peek “Under the Dome,” in the Institute’s first open house since 2011. Judging from the weather — a stubborn drizzle that dominated much of the morning — those numbers appeared optimistic at first. Instead, they turned out to be more than […]