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Margaret Hamilton has died
Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.
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2
Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award
MIT Professor Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has won the Association for Computing Machinery's A.M. Turing Award. Often referred to as “the Nobel Prize of computing,” the award comes with a $1 million prize provided by Google.
3
MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations
Standing by its commitment to provide equitable and open access to scholarship, MIT has ended negotiations with Elsevier for a new journals contract. Elsevier failed to present a proposal that aligned with the principles of the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts.
4
MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy
For the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created. The demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the first fusion power plant that can produce more energy than…
5
Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
Undergraduates with family income below $200,000 can expect to attend MIT tuition-free starting next fall, thanks to newly expanded financial aid. Eighty percent of American households meet this income threshold.
6
Why was Roman concrete so durable?
Researchers have discovered ancient Roman concrete-manufacturing strategies that incorporated self-healing. Applying this knowledge toward modern cement production, they hope to improve the material’s environmental impact.
7
Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain
An MIT study reveals what happens in the brain as lapses of attention occur following sleep deprivation. During these lapses, a wave of cerebrospinal fluid flows out of the brain — a process that typically occurs during sleep and helps to wash away waste products that have built up during the day.
8
A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine
Engineers at MIT and NREL have developed a heat engine with no moving parts that is as efficient as a steam turbine.
9
Simple, solar-powered water desalination (2020)
A completely passive solar-powered desalination system developed by researchers at MIT and in China could provide more than 1.5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of solar collecting area. Such systems could potentially serve off-grid arid coastal areas to provide an efficient, low-cost…
10
A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency
MIT researchers developed a new cryptocurrency, Vault, that reduces data users need to join the network and verify transactions by up to 99 percent compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.
11
Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy
The MIT spinout Frequency Therapeutics uses a new kind of druggable regenerative therapy that targets progenitor cells to create hair cells of the inner ear and reverse hearing loss.
12
New pill can deliver insulin
An MIT-led research team has developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin, potentially replacing the injections that patients with type 2 diabetes have to give themselves every day.
13
Breaking max efficiency of solar cells by activating 2 electrons with 1 photon
Researchers at MIT and Princeton have found a way to increase the output of silicon solar cells by allowing a single photon to release two electrons in the silicon.
14
100 Gbps achieved from space to Earth
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, in partnership with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, built and designed a communications payload, TBIRD, which is demonstrating space-to-ground laser communications at unprecedented data rates.
15
Light can make water evaporate without heat
At the interface of water and air, light can, in certain conditions, bring about evaporation without the need for heat, according to an MIT study.
16
New CRISPR-based map ties every human gene to its function
A new CRISPR-based map ties every human gene to its function using a tool called Perturb-seq. The work was led by Jonathan Weissman and colleagues at MIT and the Whitehead Institute, and is free for other scientists to use.
17
MIT engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving parts (2018)
MIT engineers have flown the first silent, fuel-free “ion plane.” The light aircraft is the first plane to fly with no propellers, turbine blades, or other moving parts.
18
MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U
MIT and Harvard University announced a major transition for edX, the online platform for university courses: edX’s assets are to be acquired by education technology company 2U, and reorganized as a public benefit company. 2U will transfer $800 million to a nonprofit organization, led by MIT and Harvard, to explore the…
19
Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15
After acquiring his entire elementary and secondary education from OpenCourseWare and <i>MITx,</i> Ahaan Rungta joined the MIT Class of 2019 at age 15.
20
LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge
Researchers find large language models use a simple mechanism to retrieve stored knowledge when they respond to a user prompt. These mechanisms can be leveraged to see what the model knows about different subjects and possibly to correct false information it has stored.
21
Patrick Winston of MIT CSAIL has died
Beloved professor conducted pioneering research on imbuing machines with human-like intelligence, including the ability to understand stories.
22
MIT researchers develop a paper thin loudspeaker
MIT researchers created an ultrathin loudspeaker that can turn any rigid surface into a high-quality, active audio source. The fabrication process can enable the thin-film devices to be produced at scale.
23
MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style
An MIT study on “legalese” suggests this convoluted language acts to convey a sense of authority in legal documents. The researchers also found that even non-lawyers use legalese when asked to write laws.
24
Algorithm generates practical paper-folding patterns to produce any 3D structure
MIT’s Erik Demaine improves on his landmark, 18-year-old algorithm for generating origami folding patterns for any 3-D shape. The new work adds the requirement of “watertightness,” or minimizing the number of seams in an origami approximation of a closed surface.
25
To study how chips work, MIT researchers built their own operating system
The new "Fractal" operating system kernel, developed at MIT, gives researchers a clearer look at how computer chips work internally. It was used to study the branch predictors inside Apple's M1 processor, where it revealed a potential vulnerability to major speculative attacks.
26
To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language
MIT neuroscientists have found reading computer code does not rely on the regions of the brain involved in language processing. Instead, it activates the “multiple demand network,” which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.
27
MIT and Harvard file suit against new ICE regulations
MIT and Harvard have filed a lawsuit in response to the ICE and the DHS announcement that international students on F-1 visas will not be permitted to take a full online course load this fall while studying in the United States.
28
He made linear algebra fun
Mathematics Professor Gilbert “Gil” Strang taught his last class to thousands after teaching calculus, analysis, and linear algebra for more than 60 years at MIT and online. He reflects on his life at the Institute and as an instructor with MIT OpenCourseWare.
29
Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water
A new solar desalination system takes in saltwater and heats it with natural sunlight. The system flushes out accumulated salt, so replacement parts aren’t needed often, meaning the system could potentially produce drinking water that is cheaper than tap water.
30
Why cancer cells waste so much energy
MIT biologists have found a possible explanation for the Warburg effect, first seen in cancer cells in the 1920s. They found cancer cells use fermentation, an inefficient metabolic pathway, because it helps them to generate large quantities of a molecule called NAD+, which they need to synthesize DNA and other…