Pioneering the future of materials extraction
The next time you cook pasta, imagine that you are cooking spaghetti, rigatoni, and seven other varieties all together, and they need to be separated onto 10 different plates before serving. A colander can remove the water — but you still have a mound of unsorted noodles.
Helping nonexperts build advanced generative AI models
The impact of artificial intelligence will never be equitable if there’s only one company that builds and controls the models (not to mention the data that go into them). Unfortunately, today’s AI models are made up of billions of parameters that must be trained and tuned to maximize performance for each use case, putting the most powerful AI models out of reach for most people and companies.
Dean Anantha Chandrakasan receives honorary degree from the National Technical University of Athens
The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) has awarded an honorary doctorate to Anantha P. Chandrakasan – MIT's Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Dean of Engineering, and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science – during a ceremony on NTUA’s campus on June 10, 2024. The honor recognizes Chandrakasan’s pioneering work in low-power electronics, as well as his impactful leadership in advancing engineering education and research.
Making steel with electricity
Steel is one of the most useful materials on the planet. A backbone of modern life, it’s used in skyscrapers, cars, airplanes, bridges, and more. Unfortunately, steelmaking is an extremely dirty process.
“Pathways to Invention” documentary debuts on PBS, streaming
The Lemelson-MIT Program has announced the national debut of an award-winning documentary that celebrates invention: American Public Television (APT) presents “Pathways to Invention,” a film that follows modern inventors of diverse backgrounds as they develop life-changing innovations.
Unlocking mRNA’s cancer-fighting potential
What if training your immune system to attack cancer cells was as easy as training it to fight Covid-19? Many people believe the technology behind some Covid-19 vaccines, messenger RNA, holds great promise for stimulating immune responses to cancer.
Device could jumpstart work toward quantum internet
In research that could jumpstart work toward the quantum internet, researchers at MIT and the University of Cambridge have built and tested an exquisitely small device that could allow the quick, efficient flow of quantum information over large distances.
Safer skies with self-flying helicopters
In late 2019, after years of studying aviation and aerospace engineering, Hector (Haofeng) Xu decided to learn to fly helicopters. At the time, he was pursuing his PhD in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, so he was familiar with the risks associated with flying small aircraft. But something about being in the cockpit gave Xu a greater appreciation of those risks. After a couple of nerve-wracking experiences, he was inspired to make helicopter flight safer.
The future of motorcycles could be hydrogen
MIT’s Electric Vehicle Team, which has a long record of building and racing innovative electric vehicles, including cars and motorcycles, in international professional-level competitions, is trying something very different this year: The team is building a hydrogen-powered electric motorcycle, using a fuel cell system, as a testbed for new hydrogen-based transportation.
How to be an astronaut
The first question a student asked Warren “Woody” Hoburg ’08 during his visit to MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) this November was: “It seems like there’s no real way to know if being an astronaut is something you could really do. Are there any activities we can try out and see if astronaut-related things are something we might want to do?”