Metamaterials—materials whose properties are primarily dictated by their internal microstructure, and not their chemical makeup—have been redefining the engineering materials space for the last decade. To date, however, most metamaterials have been…
In the ongoing measles outbreak in South Carolina that has infected more than 800 people, some children have developed a rare but serious complication called encephalitis.
An agentic AI tool for battery researchers harnesses data from previous battery designs to predict the cycle life of new battery concepts. With information from just 50 cycles, the tool—developed at University of Michigan Engineering—can predict how many…
Axiom says its AI found solutions to several long-standing math problems, a sign of the technology’s steadily advancing reasoning capabilities.
Brian Hedden PhD ’12 has been appointed co-associate dean of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) at MIT, a cross-cutting initiative in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, effective Jan. 16.
Metamaterials — materials whose properties are primarily dictated by their internal microstructure, and not their chemical makeup — have been redefining the engineering materials space for the last decade. To date, however, most metamaterials have been…
When AlphaFold solved the protein-folding problem in 2020, it showed that artificial intelligence could crack one of biology’s deepest mysteries: how a string of amino acids folds itself into a working molecular machine.
Mechanical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a proof-of-concept method for programming mechanical properties into solid Lego-like building blocks. By controlling the solidity of hundreds of individual cells in specific patterns, the approach…
By now, it's no secret that large language models (LLMs) are experts at mimicking natural language. Trained on vast troves of data, these models have proven themselves capable of generating text so convincing that it regularly appears humanlike to readers.…
Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of dark matter, revealing the invisible framework that shaped the Universe long before stars and galaxies formed. Using powerful new observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the research shows…
Computer scientists often assume that the brain works by approximations, and therefore that computing hardware inspired by the brain won’t be as good at complex math as traditional hardware. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, are…
A new light-based breakthrough could help quantum computers finally scale up. Stanford researchers created miniature optical cavities that efficiently collect light from individual atoms, allowing many qubits to be read at once. The team has already…
Dinosaur footprints have always been mysterious, but a new AI app is cracking their secrets. DinoTracker analyzes photos of fossil tracks and predicts which dinosaur made them, with accuracy rivaling human experts. Along the way, it uncovered footprints that…
There’s an interesting development in amateur ballooning: using so-called superpressure balloons, which float high in the atmosphere indefinitely rather than simply going up and up and then popping like a normal weather balloon. Superpressure balloons can…
As fairies for the Irish or leeks for Welsh,it’s the secret lives of small hidden machines,their junctures, and networks that inspire me:Mystic hidden functionaries that makeour made world live, brave little servo motors,whose couplers, whose eccentric…
Students can take many possible routes through MIT’s curriculum, which can zigag through different departments, linking classes and disciplines in unexpected ways. With so many options, charting an academic path can be overwhelming, but a new tool called…