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Building materials are getting closer to doubling as batteries

A weight-bearing arch made of electron-conducting carbon concrete (ec3) integrates supercapacitor electrodes to power a light.MIT EC³ HUB The researchers achieved this progress by using high-resolution 3D imaging to learn more about... Read more »

Listening to battery failure

“Through some careful scientific work, our team has managed to decode the acoustic emissions,” says Martin Z. Bazant, a professor of chemical engineering and mathematics. They were able to classify them as... Read more »

Under 10% of an earthquake’s energy makes the ground shake

Earthquakes are driven by energy stored up in rocks over millennia—energy that, once released, we perceive mainly in the form of the ground’s shaking. But a quake also generates a flash of... Read more »

Secrets of the sleep-deprived brain

To explore what might happen to this CSF flow in a sleep-deprived brain, Lewis, who is also a member of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and her colleagues tested 26... Read more »

Investing in the promise of quantum

Like all MIT’s strategic priorities, QMIT will help ensure that new technologies are used for the benefit of society. Faculty director Danna Freedman, the Frederick George Keyes Professor of Chemistry, is leading... Read more »

Hands-on engineering

Located in the basement of Building 26, the BioMaker Space welcomes novices and expert mentors alike, offering workshops in such things as bacterial photography, biobots, lateral flow assay, CRISPR, and DNA origami.... Read more »

Dennis Whyte’s fusion quest

Dennis Whyte, then director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, describes efforts to address climate change through carbon-free power at a conference in 2019.GRETCHEN ERTL The idea is straightforward: Fill the... Read more »

Powering up (and saving) the planet

Wang’s experience at ARPA-E is expected to be especially useful. “The current geopolitical situation and the limited amount of research funding available relative to the scale of the climate problem pose formidable... Read more »

What is the chance your plane will be hit by space debris?

“We have done some work for some small-satellite manufacturers and basically, their major problem is that the tanks get down,” Beck says. “For larger satellites, around 800 kilos, we would expect maybe... Read more »

Estrada signs with the Dodgers

Like almost any MIT student, Mason Estrada wants to take what he learned on campus and apply it to the working world. Unlike any other current MIT student, Estrada’s primary workplace is a pitcher’s... Read more »