Hydrogel superglue is 90 percent water
Nature has developed innovative ways to solve a sticky challenge: Mussels and barnacles stubbornly glue themselves to cliff faces, ship hulls, and even the skin of whales. Likewise, tendons and...
View ArticleWhy MIT.nano?
Doug Spreng '65 graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, and spent the next 40 years in high-tech manufacturing and marketing. He served as a general manager for Hewlett-Packard, executive...
View ArticleJacopo Buongiorno: Bringing outside knowledge to the nuclear industry
Here’s a paradox facing today’s nuclear power industry: On one hand, an exciting range of new fission and fusion reactor technologies has spawned a number of startups. But at the same time, market...
View ArticleChemists create adaptable metallic-cage gels
MIT chemists have created a new material that combines the flexibility of polymer gels with the rigid structure provided by metal-based clusters. The new gels could be well-suited for a range of...
View ArticleRelic from last century
During excavation for MIT.nano, the Department of Facilities unearthed an unexpected relic between buildings 12 and 26: a time capsule buried on June 5, 1957, to commemorate the opening of the Karl...
View ArticleArmor 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...
View ArticleAt the nanoscale, concrete proves effective for nuclear containment
One of the main challenges faced by the nuclear industry is the long-term confinement of nuclear waste. Concrete is one of the barrier materials commonly used to contain radionuclides, both in nuclear...
View ArticleBiomedical imaging at one-thousandth the cost
MIT researchers have developed a biomedical imaging system that could ultimately replace a $100,000 piece of a lab equipment with components that cost just hundreds of dollars. The system uses a...
View ArticleFour MIT Faculty elected AAAS Fellows
Four current MIT faculty members have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the journal Science will announce on Friday, Nov. 27. The new fellows...
View ArticleA new way to make X-rays
The most widely used technology for producing X-rays – used in everything from medical and dental imaging, to testing for cracks in industrial materials – has remained essentially the same for more...
View ArticleAn extreme close-up on heat transfer
How much heat can two bodies exchange without touching? For over a century, scientists have been able to answer this question for virtually any pair of objects in the macroscopic world, from the rate...
View ArticleDefense Secretary Carter visits MIT for innovation discussion
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter visited MIT on Wednesday, engaging with Institute President L. Rafael Reif and faculty in a roundtable discussion about cutting-edge innovation in industries...
View ArticleStretchable hydrogel electronics
MIT engineers have designed what may be the Band-Aid of the future: a sticky, stretchy, gel-like material that can incorporate temperature sensors, LED lights, and other electronics, as well as tiny,...
View ArticleA new way to deliver microRNAs for cancer treatment
Twenty years ago, scientists discovered that short strands of RNA known as microRNA help cells to fine-tune their gene expression. Disruption or loss of some microRNAs has been linked to cancer,...
View ArticleDigging in
Nov. 19 was Day 379 in the construction of MIT.nano, the nanoscale characterization and fabrication facility scheduled to open in June 2018. It also marked the halfway point in the excavation phase of...
View ArticleNew microscope creates near-real-time videos of nanoscale processes
State-of-the-art atomic force microscopes (AFMs) are designed to capture images of structures as small as a fraction of a nanometer — a million times smaller than the width of a human hair. In recent...
View ArticleScientists discover how cancer cells escape blood vessels
Scientists at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered how cancer cells latch onto blood vessels and invade tissues to form new tumors — a finding that could help them develop drugs that...
View ArticleNanodevices at one-hundredth the cost
Microelectromechanical systems — or MEMS — were a $12 billion business in 2014. But that market is dominated by just a handful of devices, such as the accelerometers that reorient the screens of most...
View ArticleNew device uses carbon nanotubes to snag molecules
Engineers at MIT have devised a new technique for trapping hard-to-detect molecules, using forests of carbon nanotubes. The team modified a simple microfluidic channel with an array of vertically...
View Article3 Questions: Martin Culpepper on making the future makers
During the summer of 2015, Martin Culpepper surveyed all undergraduate and graduate students at MIT about their activities and interests in “making.” “MIT has a strong history and culture of hands-on...
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