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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 »

Starstruck

There are, she explains, 100 billion stars in our galaxy, most orbited by at least one planet, and over 100 billion galaxies beyond ours. That’s about 1022 stars in the universe. 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 »

The Download: our predictions for AI, and good climate news

3 America is in the grip of a flu outbreakInfections have reached their highest levels since the covid pandemic. (Bloomberg $)+ All but four states have reported high levels of flu activity.... Read more »

Europe’s drone-filled vision for the future of war

Linking all these elements together is Altra, the company’s so-called “­recce-strike software platform,” which served as part of the collective brain in the ASGARD trials. It’s the key piece. “These kill webs... Read more »

Why AI predictions are so hard

Inevitably, these conversations take a turn: AI is having all these ripple effects now, but if the technology gets better, what happens next? That’s usually when they look at me, expecting a... Read more »