ENGINEERING IN ACTION
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Helping cassava farmers by extending crop life
The root vegetable cassava is a major food staple in dozens of countries across the world. Drought-resistant, nutritious, and tasty, it has also become a major source of income for small-scale, rural farmers in places like West Africa and Southeast Asia. -
Startup lets doctors classify skin conditions with the snap of a picture
At the age of 22, when Susan Conover wanted to get a strange-looking mole checked out, she was told it would take three months to see a dermatologist. When the mole was finally removed and biopsied, doctors determined it was cancerous. At the time, no one could be sure the cancer hadn’t spread to other […] -
Building communities, founding a startup with people in mind
MIT postdoc Francesco Benedetti admits he wasn’t always a star student. But the people he met along his educational journey inspired him to strive, which led him to conduct research at MIT, launch a startup, and even lead the team that won the 2021 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Now he is determined to make sure his company, Osmoses, succeeds […] -
Launchpad for healthcare entrepreneurs
When Computation and Systems Biology PhD student Elvira Kinzina was diagnosed with Lyme disease during her first year at MIT, she struggled to find a doctor specializing in the disease – even though Boston is renowned for its thriving healthcare community. She soon found out this was common for Lyme patients, with many specialists booked […] -
Brave Behind Bars: Prison education program focuses on computing skills for women
A programming language textbook might not be the first thing you’d expect to see when walking into a correctional facility.
IN THE NEWS
At the forefront of building with biology
Ritu Raman leads the Raman Lab, where she creates adaptive biological materials for applications in medicine and machines. go
Evan Leppink: Seeking a way to better stabilize the fusion environment
In a residency supported by the Department of Energy, the MIT PhD candidate will explore the high-field side of the DIII-D tokamak. go- Design prevents buildup of scar tissue around medical implan...
- Making hydropower plants more sustainable
- Researchers create the first artificial vision system for bo...
- Researchers discover major roadblock in alleviating network ...
- A better way to quantify radiation damage in materials
- New algorithm aces university math course questions
Ask an Engineer
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Can global warming be reversed?
It is getting warmer out there, and it isn’t an easy problem to solve…
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How did life on Earth begin?
It started in the depths of the ocean. Or maybe underneath the ice caps…
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How were we able to navigate from the Earth to the Moon with such precision?
Before the days of GPS, engineers had to rely on good old fashioned computation…
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Can we build a time machine?
An internationally renowned expert on general relativity says it’s a no go…
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Why doesn’t a plain, white piece of paper reflect light, but a mirror does?
Almost everything reflects light — it’s how it reflects it that makes a difference…
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Does a golf ball really change its shape when struck by the club?
Thanks to Doc Edgerton, Tiger Woods can really see what Bobby Jones couldn’t even imagine…
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What are the technological obstacles to colonizing another planet?
Space is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there—yet…
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Is chaos an actual state, or just a name for rules we haven’t discovered yet?
Such a broad question requires input from our philosophy department…