Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Researchers discover a new kind of magnetism
December 20, 2012 7:39 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsFollowing up on earlier theoretical predictions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism.
Controlled Success
December 14, 2012 11:42 am | by Paul Livingstone | Articles | CommentsFrom an early age, the 2012 Scientist of the Year knew that his knowledge of chemistry could make a difference in medicine. He’s still exploring just how much impact that can be.
Inspiration from a porcupine’s quills
December 10, 2012 5:46 pm | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsAnyone unfortunate enough to encounter a porcupine’s quills knows that once they go in, they are extremely difficult to remove. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham and Women’s Hospital now hope to exploit the porcupine quill’s unique properties to develop new types of adhesives, needles and other medical devices.
Tiny compound semiconductor transistor could challenge silicon's dominance
December 10, 2012 7:23 am | by Helen Knight, MIT News correspondent | News | CommentsSilicon's crown is under threat: The semiconductor's days as the king of microchips for computers and smart devices could be numbered, thanks to the development of the smallest transistor ever to be built from a rival material, indium gallium arsenide. The compound transistor, built by a team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, performs well despite being just 22 nm in length.
When the first stars blinked on
December 6, 2012 7:53 am | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsAs far back in time as astronomers have been able to see, the universe has had some trace of heavy elements, such as carbon and oxygen. These elements, originally churned from the explosion of massive stars, formed the building blocks for planetary bodies, and eventually for life on Earth. Now, researchers have peered far back in time, to the era of the first stars and galaxies, and found matter with no discernible trace of heavy elements.
How "transparent" is graphene?
December 4, 2012 8:07 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe amazing electrical, optical, and strength properties of graphene have been extensively researched over the last decade. Recently, the material has been studied as a coating that might confer electrical conductivity while maintaining other properties of the underlying material. But the "transparency" of such a graphene coating to wetting is not as absolute as some researchers had thought.
The robotic equivalent of a Swiss army knife
December 3, 2012 9:23 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe device doesn't look like much: a caterpillar-sized assembly of metal rings and strips resembling something you might find buried in a home-workshop drawer. But the technology behind it, and the long-range possibilities it represents, are quite remarkable. The little device is called a milli-motein, a name melding its millimeter-sized components and a motorized design inspired by proteins, which naturally fold themselves into complex shapes. The robot may be a harbinger of future devices that could fold themselves up into almost any shape imaginable.
The precise engineering of 3D brain tissues
November 30, 2012 9:54 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsBorrowing from microfabrication techniques used in the semiconductor industry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University engineers have developed a simple and inexpensive way to create 3D brain tissues in a laboratory dish. The new technique yields tissue constructs that closely mimic the cellular composition of those in the living brain, allowing scientists to study how neurons form connections and to predict how cells from individual patients might respond to different drugs.
Scientists discover water ice on Mercury
November 29, 2012 4:21 pm | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMercury, the smallest and innermost planet in our solar system, revolves around the sun in a mere 88 days, making a tight orbit that keeps the planet incredibly toasty. Surface temperatures on Mercury can reach a blistering 800 F—hot enough to liquefy lead. Now researchers have discovered evidence that the scorching planet may harbor pockets of water ice, along with organic material, in several permanently shadowed craters near Mercury's north pole.
The music of the silks
November 28, 2012 8:11 am | by David Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsPound for pound, spider silk is one of the strongest materials known: Research by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Markus Buehler has helped explain that this strength arises from silk's unusual hierarchical arrangement of protein building blocks. Now Buehler and his team have synthesized new variants on silk's natural structure, and found a method for making further improvements in the synthetic material.
Proving quantum computers feasible
November 27, 2012 8:12 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsWith a new contribution to probability theory, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, IBM, Northwestern University, and colleagues from the Czech Republic have shown that relatively simple physical systems could yield powerful quantum computers.
Light at the end of the funnel
November 26, 2012 10:43 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe quest to harness a broader spectrum of sunlight's energy to produce electricity has taken a radically new turn. Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have proposed a "solar energy funnel" that takes advantage of materials under elastic strain. This device provides a new way of harnessing photons for electricity, with the potential for capturing a wider spectrum of solar energy.
Making 'nanospinning' practical
November 20, 2012 8:03 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsNanofibers have a huge range of possible applications: scaffolds for bioengineered organs, ultrafine air and water filters, and lightweight Kevlar body armor, to name just a few. But so far, the expense of producing them has consigned them to a few high-end, niche applications. Now, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology has described a new system for spinning nanofibers that should offer significant productivity increases while reducing power consumption.
Injectable gels toughen up after entering the body
November 16, 2012 9:12 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsGels that can be injected into the body, carrying drugs or cells that regenerate damaged tissue, hold promise for treating many types of disease. However, these injectable gels don't always maintain their solid structure once inside the body. Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemical engineers have now designed an injectable gel that responds to the body's high temperature by forming a reinforcing network that makes the gel much more durable, allowing it to function over a longer period of time.
New metamaterial lens focuses radio waves
November 14, 2012 7:44 am | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsResearchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have fabricated a 3D, lightweight metamaterial lens that focuses radio waves with extreme precision. The concave lens exhibits a property called negative refraction, bending electromagnetic waves in exactly the opposite sense from which a normal concave lens would work.
Jellyfish-inspired device could enable better patient monitoring
November 13, 2012 8:36 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsScientists have been working on microfluidic devices that can isolate circulating tumor cells, but most of these have two major limitations: It takes too long to process a sufficient amount of blood, and there is no good way to extract cancer cells for analysis after their capture. To help overcome these limitations, a research team has developed a microfluidic device inspired by the tentacles of jellyfish.
Fighting bacteria with mucus
November 9, 2012 9:28 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsSlimy layers of bacterial growth, known as biofilms, pose a significant hazard in industrial and medical settings. Once established, biofilms are very difficult to remove, and a great deal of research has gone into figuring out how to prevent and eradicate them. Results from a recent study suggest a possible new source of protection against biofilm formation: polymers found in mucus.
Medical devices powered by the ear itself
November 8, 2012 7:58 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsDeep in the inner ear of mammals is a natural battery—a chamber filled with ions that produces an electrical potential to drive neural signals. A team of researchers has, for the first time, demonstrated that this battery could power implantable electronic devices without impairing hearing.
Stronger than a speeding bullet
November 7, 2012 3:13 pm | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsNew tests of nanostructured material developed by scientists at Rice University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology could lead to better armor against everything from gunfire to micrometeorites. The key, they found, was to use composites made of two or more materials whose stiffness and flexibility are structured in very specific ways—such as in alternating layers just a few nanometers thick.
A step toward stronger polymers
November 6, 2012 8:56 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsA team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed, for the first time, a way to measure how many loops are present in a given polymer network, an advance they believe is the first step toward creating better materials that don't contain weak spots.
Paintballs may deflect an incoming asteroid
October 26, 2012 9:43 am | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsIn the event that a giant asteroid is headed toward Earth, you'd better hope that it's blindingly white. A pale asteroid would reflect sunlight—and over time, this bouncing of photons off its surface could create enough of a force to push the asteroid off its course. How might one encourage such a deflection? The answer, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student: with a volley or two of space-launched paintballs.
Tiny pores in graphene could give rise to membranes
October 23, 2012 12:22 pm | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMuch has been made of graphene’s exceptional qualities, particularly its phenomenal strength and impermeability. But the material may not be as impenetrable as scientists have thought. Recent analysis shows that the material bears intrinsic defects, or holes in its atom-sized armor. Experiments demonstrate small molecules like salts can pass easily through a graphene membrane’s tiny pores, while larger molecules were unable to penetrate.
A new glow for electron microscopy
October 22, 2012 10:06 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe glowing green molecule known as green fluorescent protein (GFP) has revolutionized molecular biology. When GFP is attached to a particular protein inside a cell, scientists can easily identify and locate it using fluorescence microscopy. However, GFP can't be used with electron microscopy, which offers much higher resolution than fluorescence microscopy. Chemists have now designed a GFP equivalent for electron microscopy.
A better way to shed water
October 22, 2012 7:43 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsCondensers are a crucial part of today's power generation systems: About 80% of all the world's power plants use them to turn steam back to water after it comes out of the turbines that turn generators. They are also a key element in desalination plants. Now, a new surface architecture designed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology holds the promise of boosting the performance of such condensers.
Calcium reveals connections between neurons
October 19, 2012 8:37 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsA team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientists has developed a way to monitor how brain cells coordinate with each other to control specific behaviors, such as initiating movement or detecting an odor. The researchers' new imaging technique, based on the detection of calcium ions in neurons, could help them map the brain circuits that perform such functions.
