A new technique developed by MIT researchers reveals the inner details of photonic crystals, synthetic materials whose exotic optical properties are the subject of widespread research. Photonic crystals are generally made by drilling millions of closely spaced, minuscule holes in a slab of transparent material, using variations of microchip-fabrication methods. Depending on the exact orientation,…
Nylon Fibers Made to Flex Like Muscles
Artificial muscles — materials that contract and expand somewhat like muscle fibers do — can have many applications, from robotics to components in the automobile and aviation industries. Now, MIT researchers have come up with one of the simplest and lowest-cost systems yet for developing such “muscles,” in which a material reproduces some of the…
Crowdsourcing And Cellphone Data Could Help Guide Urban Revitalization
For years, researchers at the MIT Media Lab have been developing a database of images captured at regular distances around several major cities. The images are scored according to different visual characteristics — how safe the depicted areas look, how affluent, how lively, and the like. In a paper they presented last week at the…
Scientists Observe Supermassive Black Hole Feeding on Cold Gas
For the first time, astronomers have detected billowy clouds of cold, clumpy gas streaming toward a black hole, at the center of a massive galaxy cluster. The clouds are traveling at speeds of up to 355 kilometers per second — that’s almost 800,000 miles per hour — and may be only 150 light years away…
Algorithm Could Construct First Images of Black Holes
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Harvard University have developed a new algorithm that could help astronomers produce the first image of a black hole. The algorithm would stitch together data collected from radio telescopes scattered around the globe, under the auspices of an international collaboration called the Event Horizon Telescope.…
The Origin of the Cosmos’ Heaviest Elements
Reticulum II is an ancient and faint dwarf galaxy discovered in images taken as part of the Dark Energy Survey. It orbits the Milky Way galaxy about 100,000 light years away from us. Though the galaxy looks unassuming at first, the chemical content of its stars may hold the key to unlocking a 60-year-old mystery about…
A Living, Breathing Textile Aims to Enhance Athletic Performance
Textile production has historically been a bellwether for innovations in manufacturing—from technological improvements such as the spinney jenny and the flying shuttle at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to recent developments in electronic and reactive textiles by designers such as Joanna Berzowska MS ’99, who are transforming fabrics into wearable computers. Now, bioLogic, a research…
Cutting Down Runway Queues
Most frequent fliers are familiar with long lines at airports: at the check-in counter, the departure gate, and in boarding a booked flight. But even after passengers are buckled in, the waiting may continue — when a plane leaves the gate, only to sit on the tarmac, joining a long queue of flights awaiting takeoff.…
Engineers and Students Grapple with 3-D Printing a Habitable Structure on Mars
We are in the midst of a “Mars moment.” This fall, the Matt Damon film, “The Martian,” a story about a stranded astronaut who must learn to survive on Mars, grossed a whopping $55 million at the box office in its opening weekend. The same week, scientists breathlessly revealed the discovery of liquid water on…
To Save on Weight, A Detour to the Moon is the Best Route to Mars
To Save On Weight, A Detour To The Moon Is The Best Route To Mars
Launching humans to Mars may not require a full tank of gas: A new MIT study suggests that a Martian mission may lighten its launch load considerably by refueling on the moon. Previous studies have suggested that lunar soil and water ice in certain craters of the moon may be mined and converted to fuel.…
A Cheaper, High-Performance Prosthetic Knee
In the last two decades, prosthetic limb technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, the most advanced prostheses incorporate microprocessors that work with onboard gyroscopes, accelerometers, and hydraulics to enable a person to walk with a normal gait. Such top-of-the-line prosthetics can cost more than $50,000. Amos Winter is aiming to develop a passive,…
New RFID Technology Helps Robots Find Household Objects
Mobile robots could be much more useful in homes, if they could locate people, places and objects. Today’s robots usually see the world with cameras and lasers, which have difficulty reliably recognizing things and can miss objects that are hidden in clutter. A complementary way robots can “sense” what is around them is through the…
Spinning Satellites in the Geostationary Graveyard
Algorithm tested aboard the International Space Station analyzes the rotation of objects in space. Objects in space tend to spin — and spin in a way that’s totally different from the way they spin on earth. Understanding how objects are spinning, where their centers of mass are, and how their mass is distributed is crucial…
Classroom Contest Yields Publishable Results
Students’ designs for cellular-networking protocols help define the limits of protocol performance. In the 21st century, design contests have emerged as a way to make rapid progress on tough computational problems. The million-dollar Netflix Prize, which sought to improve Netflix’s movie recommendation algorithm, is probably the most high-profile example. But similar, if lower-stakes, contests have…
Delivery by Drone
New algorithm lets drones monitor their own health during long package-delivery missions. In the near future, the package that you ordered online may be deposited at your doorstep by a drone: Last December, online retailer Amazon announced plans to explore drone-based delivery, suggesting that fleets of flying robots might serve as autonomous messengers that shuttle…
Light Pulses Control Graphene’s Electrical Behavior
Graphene, an ultrathin form of carbon with exceptional electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, has become a focus of research on a variety of potential uses. Now researchers at MIT have found a way to control how the material conducts electricity by using extremely short light pulses, which could enable its use as a broadband light…
A Market for Emotions
With emotion-tracking software, Affectiva attracts big-name clients, aims for “mood-aware” Internet. Emotions can be powerful for individuals. But they’re also powerful tools for content creators, such as advertisers, marketers, and filmmakers. By tracking people’s negative or positive feelings toward ads — via traditional surveys and focus groups — agencies can tweak and tailor their content…
No-Wait Data Centers
New system could reduce data-transmission delays across server farms by 99.6 percent Big websites usually maintain their own “data centers,” banks of tens or even hundreds of thousands of servers, all passing data back and forth to field users’ requests. Like any big, decentralized network, data centers are prone to congestion: Packets of data arriving…
Drones Could Provide Photographic Lighting
Autonomous vehicles could automatically assume the right positions for photographic lighting Lighting is crucial to the art of photography. But lights are cumbersome and time-consuming to set up, and outside the studio, it can be prohibitively difficult to position them where, ideally, they ought to go. Researchers at MIT and Cornell University hope to change…
Terahertz Imaging on the Cheap
New theory could reduce number of sensors required for high-resolution imaging systems Terahertz imaging, which is already familiar from airport security checkpoints, has a number of other promising applications — from explosives detection to collision avoidance in cars. Like sonar or radar, terahertz imaging produces an image by comparing measurements across an array of sensors.…
Bionic Plants
Nanotechnology could turn shrubbery into supercharged energy producers or sensors for explosives. Plants have many valuable functions: They provide food and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, a team of MIT researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance…
System that Automatically Fills Gaps in Programmers’ Code Gains Power
Since he was a graduate student, Armando Solar-Lezama, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been working on a programming language called Sketch, which allows programmers to simply omit some of the computational details of their code. Sketch then automatically fills in the gaps. If it’s fleshed out and…
Better Cache Management Could Improve Chip Performance, Cut Energy Use
Computer chips keep getting faster because transistors keep getting smaller. But the chips themselves are as big as ever, so data moving around the chip, and between chips and main memory, has to travel just as far. As transistors get faster, the cost of moving data becomes, proportionally, a more severe limitation. So far, chip…
Herding Robots
A new system combines simple control programs to enable fleets of robots — or other “multiagent systems” — to collaborate in unprecedented ways. Writing a program to control a single autonomous robot navigating an uncertain environment with an erratic communication link is hard enough; write one for multiple robots that may or may not have…