Spider silk, already known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property that might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers have found. The resilient fibers, the team discovered, respond very strongly to changes in humidity. Above a certain level of relative humidity…
A New Hope for Tatooine? In Field Tests, Device Harvests Water From Desert Air
It may seem like a technology borrowed from Luke Skywalker’s imaginary home world, but you really can get drinkable water right out of the driest of desert air. Even in the most arid places on Earth, there is some moisture in the air, and a practical way to extract that moisture could be a key…
Study Tracks “Memory” Of Soil Moisture
The top 2 inches of topsoil on all of Earth’s landmasses contains an infinitesimal fraction of the planet’s water — less than one-thousandth of a percent. Yet because of its position at the interface between the land and the atmosphere, that tiny amount plays a crucial role in everything from agriculture to weather and climate,…
Movable Microplatform Floats on a Sea of Droplets
Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are tiny machines fabricated using equipment and processes developed for the production of electronic chips and devices. They’ve found a wide variety of applications in today’s consumer electronics, but their moving parts can wear out over time as a result of friction. A new approach developed by researchers at MIT could…
Measuring Radiation Damage On The Fly
Materials exposed to a high-radiation environment such as the inside of a nuclear reactor vessel can gradually degrade and weaken. But to determine exactly how much damage these materials suffer generally requires removing a sample and testing it in specialized facilities, a process that can take weeks. An analytical method developed by researchers in the…
A New Twist On Airplane Wing Design
When the Wright brothers accomplished their first powered flight more than a century ago, they controlled the motion of their Flyer 1 aircraft using wires and pulleys that bent and twisted the wood-and-canvas wings. This system was quite different than the separate, hinged flaps and ailerons that have performed those functions on most aircraft ever…
New Method Snips Complex Fibers into Uniform Particles
An interdisciplinary team of researchers enabled by the National Science Foundation-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) program has developed a way to break fibers or sheets of material into many tiny, almost perfectly uniform segments or strips. The method can work on plastics, metals, glasses, and even natural materials such as silk or…
MIT Develops Nontoxic Way of Generating Portable Power
The batteries that power the ubiquitous devices of modern life, from smartphones and computers to electric cars, are mostly made of toxic materials such as lithium that can be difficult to dispose of and have limited global supplies. Now, researchers at MIT have come up with an alternative system for generating electricity, which harnesses heat…
Students Unveil ‘Magical’ Product Designs
In the 20 years that David Wallace has been teaching the mechanical engineering course “product engineering processes,” known by its course number 2.009, he has spiced up the class by donning costumes ranging from an explorer in a pith helmet, to a princess in a blonde wig, to a wizard in a cape. The final…
Armor Plating with Built-In Transparent Ceramic Eyes
Usually, it’s a tradeoff: If you want maximum physical protection, whether from biting predators or exploding artillery shells, that generally compromises your ability to see. But sea-dwelling creatures called chitons have figured out a way around that problem: Tiny eyes are embedded within their tough protective shells, with their transparent lenses made of the same…
MIT to Be Key Player in $600M Public-Private Partnership
MIT is a key player in a new $600 million public-private partnership announced by the Obama administration to help strengthen high-tech U.S.-based manufacturing. Physically headquartered in New York state and led by the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly), the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) will bring government, industry,…
Testing Algorithms for Complex Docking in Space
MIT’s Lennon Rodgers, a research scientist who did graduate work in the MIT Space Systems Laboratory (SSL), led a team of students to build a universal docking port (UDP) for the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) testbed on the International Space Station (ISS). The flight versions were subsequently developed by graduate students…
Surfaces Get Smooth or Bumpy on Demand
An MIT team has developed a way of making soft materials, using a 3-D printer, with surface textures that can then be modified at will to be perfectly smooth, or ridged or bumpy, or even to have complex patterns that could be used to guide fluids. The process, developed using detailed computer simulations, involves a…
Tough Biogel Structures Produced By 3D Printing
Researchers have developed a new way of making tough — but soft and wet — biocompatible materials, called “hydrogels,” into complex and intricately patterned shapes. The process might lead to injectable materials for delivering drugs or cells into the body; scaffolds for regenerating load-bearing tissues; or tough but flexible actuators for future robots, the researchers…
Spinning a New Version of Silk
After years of research decoding the complex structure and production of spider silk, researchers have now succeeded in producing samples of this exceptionally strong and resilient material in the laboratory. The new development could lead to a variety of biomedical materials — from sutures to scaffolding for organ replacements — made from synthesized silk with…
MIT Students Get Serious About Toy Development
“This is the funnest class at MIT,” declared Maria Yang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and an instructor of course 2.00b (Toy Product Design), as she introduced the final presentations of toys that 16 teams had spent a semester dreaming up, designing, and prototyping. View more: Engineering Newswire: 10 Worst Toys Pass Test And…
Robots Compete in ‘Hack to the Future’
The future, as defined in the first sequel to 1985’s classic time-travel saga “Back to the Future,” is this year: 2015. So, appropriately enough, that movie was selected as the theme for this year’s version of the annual competition that marks the end of the MIT mechanical engineering course 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing). The popular…
Satellite Imagery Can Aid Development Projects
Projects that target aid toward villages and rural areas in the developing world often face time-consuming challenges, even at the most basic level of figuring out where the most appropriate sites are for pilot programs or deployment of new systems such as solar-power for regions that have no access to electricity. Often, even the sizes…
Wireless, Magnetic Brain Stimulation
Researchers at MIT have developed a method to stimulate brain tissue using external magnetic fields and injected magnetic nanoparticles — a technique allowing direct stimulation of neurons, which could be an effective treatment for a variety of neurological diseases, without the need for implants or external connections. The research, conducted by Polina Anikeeva, an assistant…
New Approach for Making High-Quality Fiber-Based Electronics
New approach could enable low-cost silicon devices in fibers that could be made into fabrics. Scientists have known how to draw thin fibers from bulk materials for decades. But a new approach to that old method, developed by researchers at MIT, could lead to a whole new way of making high-quality fiber-based electronic devices. View:…
How to Prevent Metal Embrittlement
When a metal tube lines an oil well thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, that metal had better be solid and reliable. Unfortunately, the environment in such deep wells is often rich in hydrogen, a gas that can penetrate high-tech alloys and make them brittle — making fractures and leaks more likely.…
SWAMP Satellite Embarks on 3-Year Soil-Moisture Mission
Dara Entekhabi, an MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering and of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, is the science team leader of NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite, scheduled to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Jan. 29. The satellite will provide measurements of the moisture in the top…
New Fibers Can Deliver Many Simultaneous Stimuli
The human brain’s complexity makes it extremely challenging to study — not only because of its sheer size, but also because of the variety of signaling methods it uses simultaneously. Conventional neural probes are designed to record a single type of signaling, limiting the information that can be derived from the brain at any point…
Multimodal Fibers Deliver Drugs Directly to the Brain
Implanted into the brain or spinal column, they can transmit drugs, light, and electrical signals. The human brain’s complexity makes it extremely challenging to study — not only because of its sheer size, but also because of the variety of signaling methods it uses simultaneously. Conventional neural probes are designed to record a single type…
New Material for Flat Semiconductors
Researchers find a two-dimensional, self-assembling material that might produce solar cells or transistors. Researchers around the world have been working to harness the unusual properties of graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms. But graphene lacks one important characteristic that would make it even more useful: a property called a bandgap, which is essential for…