Wed, 01/15/2014 - 09:35
MIT engineers have devised a way to measure the mass of particles with a resolution better than an attogram—one millionth of a trillionth of a gram. Weighing these tiny particles, including both synthetic nanoparticles and biological components of…
Fri, 01/10/2014 - 15:57
Finding the most efficient way to transport items across a network like the U.S. highway system or the Internet is a problem that has taxed mathematicians and computer scientists for decades.
To tackle the problem, researchers have traditionally…
Mon, 12/16/2013 - 16:17
A new MIT study on supply-chain risk shows no correlation between the total amount a manufacturer spends with a supplier and the profit loss it would incur if that supply were suddenly interrupted. This counterintuitive finding defies a basic…
Mon, 12/09/2013 - 17:16
X-rays transformed medicine a century ago by providing a noninvasive way to detect internal structures in the body. Still, they have limitations: They can’t image the body’s soft tissues, except with the use of contrast-enhancing agents that must…
Mon, 12/02/2013 - 11:18
A $500 “nano-camera” that can operate at the speed of light has been developed by researchers in the MIT Media Lab.
The 3D camera, which was presented last week at Siggraph Asia in Hong Kong, could be used in medical imaging and collision-…
Tue, 11/05/2013 - 09:54
Advances in materials are driving the proliferation of new technologies, from energy to smart phones and televisions to robotic surgery, MIT faculty and industry researchers said during MIT’s recent Materials Day Symposium, hosted by the Materials…
Fri, 10/25/2013 - 09:52
‘It’s all about the process,” says MIT professor Warren Seering. He’s referring to his product design and development class (identified as Course 2.739), but he could easily be talking about product development itself.
“We want 2.739 students to…
Mon, 10/21/2013 - 17:10
It was a result so unexpected that MIT researchers initially thought it must be a mistake: Under certain conditions, putting a cracked piece of metal under tension—that is, exerting a force that would be expected to pull it apart—has the reverse…
Mon, 10/14/2013 - 09:19
The U.S. economy retains myriad sources of innovative capacity—but not enough of the innovations occurring in America today reach the marketplace, according to a major two-year MIT study.
The report, by MIT’s commission on Production in the…
Tue, 09/24/2013 - 15:35
Since 2011, MIT faculty from several disciplines have collaborated on a unique research project, Production in the Innovation Economy (PIE); the aim is to see how U.S. strengths in innovation can be turned into new production capabilities, to spur…