In recent years, research efforts such as the Materials Genome Initiative and the Materials Project have produced a wealth of computational tools for designing new materials useful for a range of applications, from energy and electronics to aeronautics and civil engineering. But developing processes for producing those materials has continued to depend on a combination of experience, intuition, and manual literature reviews.

Human chromosome 16p11.2 deletion syndrome is caused by the absence of about 27 genes on chromosome 16. This deletion is characterised by intellectual disability; impaired language, communication, and socialisation skills; and autism spectrum disorder or ASD. Research from the laboratories of Mark Bear at MIT and Jacqueline Crawley at the University of California at Davis, has identified a potential therapeutic for ASD.

  Meshes made from fibres with nanometer-scale diameters have a wide range of potential applications, including tissue engineering, water filtration, solar cells, and even body armour. But their commercialisation has been hampered by inefficient manufacturing techniques.

Imagine hopping into a ride-share car, glancing at your smartphone, and telling the driver that the car’s left front tire needs air, its air filter should be replaced next week, and its engine needs two new spark plugs. Within the next year or two, people may be able to get that kind of diagnostic information in just a few minutes, in their own cars or any car they happen to be in.

In a traditional computer, a microprocessor is mounted on a “package,” a small circuit board with a grid of electrical leads on its bottom. The package snaps into the computer’s motherboard, and data travels between the processor and the computer’s main memory bank through the leads. As processors’ transistor counts have gone up, the relatively slow connection between the processor and main memory has become the...

Researchers have developed CityScope Andorra, a 3D augmented-reality platform that visualises complex urban data on a small-scale model of the country in real-time. The platform simulates the impact of multiple urban interventions — from urban planning proposals to shared autonomous vehicles — and facilitates civic engagement and decision making.

  Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed origami inspired robots that can fold into many different shapes. The mini robots will be able to carry out different types of surgery, like taking samples, removing objects and patching wounds.

MIT researchers have developed a paper-based test that can diagnose Zika infection within 20 minutes. Unlike existing tests, the new diagnostic does not cross-react with Dengue virus, a close relative of the Zika virus that can produce false positives on many Zika tests. This test could offer an easy-to-use, cheap, and portable diagnostic in countries where Zika and Dengue are both prevalent and the gold-standard test that measures viral RNA...

  Mutations in the KEAP1 gene could point the way to treating an aggressive form of lung cancer that is driven by “undruggable” mutations in the KRAS gene, according to a new study by MIT researchers. KEAP1 mutations occur alongside KRAS mutations in about 17% of lung adenocarcinoma cases.

Research has shown that an exotic kind of magnetic behaviour discovered just a few years ago holds great promise as a way of storing data — one that could overcome fundamental limits that might otherwise be signalling the end of “Moore’s Law,” which describes the ongoing improvements in computation and data storage over recent decades.

From butterflies that sprout wings to hermit crabs that switch their shells, many animals must adapt their exterior features in order to survive. While humans don’t undergo that kind of metamorphosis, we often try to create functional objects that are similarly adaptive — including our robots. Despite what you might have seen in “Transformers” movies, though, today’s robots are still pretty inflexible.

Recording electrical signals from inside a neuron in the living brain can reveal a great deal of information about that neuron’s function and how it coordinates with other cells in the brain. However, performing this kind of recording is extremely difficult. To make this technique more widely available, MIT engineers have now devised a way to automate the process, using a computer algorithm that analyses microscope images and guides a ...

Seven Earth-sized exoplanets circle the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, just 40 light-years from our own blue planet. Now an international team of scientists at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, MIT, and elsewhere, report that the outer planets in this system may still hold significant stores of water. Three of these potential water worlds are also considered within the habitable zone of the star, giving further support to the possibil...

For more than 20 years, Qing Hu, a distinguished professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and his group have been working on sources of terahertz radiation that can be etched onto microchips. In the latest issue of Nature Photonics, members of Hu’s group and colleagues at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Toronto describe a novel design that boosts the power output of chip-mounted terahertz...

The Wi-Fi radio waves that our laptops use to communicate with wireless routers are quite sensitive to the environment they pass through. They’re so sensitive that a few years ago researchers at MIT were able to use them to wirelessly detect a child’s movement, breathing, and heart rate. Now the MIT team working with Massachusetts General Hospital have successfully demonstrated that they’re able to repurpose this Wi-Fi data to d...

Like many kids, Amir Hirsch ’06, SM ’07 grew up playing with LEGOs. But unlike many adults, he is still playing with them as part of his job as CEO and co-founder of Flybrix. Started in 2015, the company sells kits for children and adults alike to build their own reusable drones out of the popular plastic building bricks. “It lets you tinker around with LEGOs, come up with a design you like, and see it fly,” Hirsch sa...

The precise control of printed objects’ microstructure gives designers commensurate control of the objects’ physical properties — such as their density or strength, or the way they deform when subjected to stresses. Today’s 3D printers have a resolution of 600 dots per inch, which means that they could pack a billion tiny cubes of different materials into a volume that measures just 1.67 cubic inches. 

MIT engineers have devised a way to assess a cell’s mechanical properties simply by observation. The researchers use standard confocal microscopy to zero in on the constant, jiggling motions of a cell’s particles — telltale movements that can be used to decipher a cell’s stiffness. Unlike optical tweezers, the team’s technique is noninvasive, running little risk of altering or damaging a cell while probing its c...

Can you imagine a future in which solar cells are all around us - on windows and walls, cell phones or laptops? A new flexible, transparent solar cell developed at MIT is bringing that future one step closer. The device combines low-cost organic (carbon-containing) materials with electrodes of graphene, a flexible, transparent material made from inexpensive and abundant carbon sources. This advance in solar technology was enabled by a novel ...

Researchers have taken an important step toward the long-sought goal of a quantum computer, which in theory should be capable of vastly faster computations than conventional computers, for certain kinds of problems. The new work shows that collections of ultracold molecules can retain the information stored in them, for hundreds of times longer than researchers have previously achieved in these materials.