Author: Ms. R.

If there was one thing Cameron Halliday SM ’19, MBA ’22, PhD ’22 was exceptional at during the early days of his PhD at MIT, it was producing the same graph over and over again. Unfortunately for Halliday, the graph measured various materials’ ability to absorb CO2 at high temperatures over time — and it always pointed down and to the right. That meant the materials lost their ability to capture the molecules responsible for warming our climate. At……

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Anchorage-dependent cells are cells that require physical attachment to a solid surface, such as a culture dish, to survive, grow, and reproduce. In the biomedical industry, and others, having the ability to culture these cells is crucial, but current techniques used to separate cells from surfaces can induce stresses and reduce cell viability. “In the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, cells are typically detached from culture surfaces using enzymes — a process fraught with challenges,” says Kripa Varanasi, MIT professor of mechanical……

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Humans know they exist, but how does “knowing” work? Despite all that’s been learned about brain function and the bodily processes it governs, we still don’t understand where the subjective experiences associated with brain functions originate.  A new interdisciplinary project seeks to find answers to these kinds of big questions around consciousness, a fundamental yet elusive phenomenon. The MIT Consciousness Club is co-led by philosopher Matthias Michel, the Old Dominion Career Development Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, and Earl Miller, the……

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“We’re here to talk about really substantive changes, and we want you to be a participant in that,” said Desirée Plata, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Climate and Energy in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Energizing@MIT: the MIT Energy Initiative’s (MITEI) Annual Research Conference that was held on Sept. 9-10. Plata’s words resonated with the 150-plus participants from academia, industry, and government meeting in Cambridge for the conference, whose theme was “tackling emerging energy……

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MIT and GE Vernova launched the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance on Sept. 15, a collaboration to advance research and education focused on accelerating the global energy transition. Through the alliance — an industry-academia initiative conceived by MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan and GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik — GE Vernova has committed $50 million over five years in the form of sponsored research projects and philanthropic funding for research, graduate student fellowships, internships, and experiential learning, as well……

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Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory have developed a first-of-its-kind hydrophone built around a simple, commercially available microphone. The device, leveraging a common microfabrication process known as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), is significantly smaller and less expensive than current hydrophones, yet has equal or exceeding sensitivity. The hydrophone could have applications for the U.S. Navy, as well as industry and the scientific research community. “Given the broad interest from the Navy in low-cost hydrophones, we were surprised that this design had……

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At first glimpse, student Jack Carson might appear too busy to think beyond his next problem set, much less tackle major works of philosophy. The sophomore, who plans to double major in electrical engineering with computing and mathematics, has been both an officer in Impact@MIT and a Social and Ethical Responsibility in Computing (SERC) Fellow in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computer Science — and is an active member of Concourse.  But this fall, Carson was awarded first place in the Elie……

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A new research paper documents the outcomes of five volunteers who continued to receive 40Hz light and sound stimulation for around two years after participating in an MIT early-stage clinical study of the potential Alzheimer’s disease (AD) therapy. The results show that for the three participants with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, several measures of cognition remained significantly higher than comparable Alzheimer’s patients in national databases. Moreover, in the two late-onset volunteers who donated plasma samples, levels of Alzheimer’s biomarker tau……

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Shining a light on the critical role of mentors in a postdoc’s career, the MIT Postdoctoral Association presented the fourth annual Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Awards to professors John Marshall and Erin Kara. The awards honor faculty and principal investigators who have distinguished themselves across four areas: the professional development opportunities they provide, the work environment they create, the career support they provide, and their commitment to continued professional relationships with their mentees.  They were presented at the annual Postdoctoral Appreciation event……

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The northern lights, or aurora borealis, one of nature’s most spectacular visual shows, can be elusive. Conventional wisdom says that to see them, we need to travel to northern Canada or Alaska. However, in the past two years, New Englanders have been seeing these colorful atmospheric displays on a few occasions — including this week — from the comfort of their backyards, as auroras have been visible in central and southern New England and beyond. These unusual auroral events……

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“MIT.nano is essential to making progress in high-priority areas where I believe that MIT has a responsibility to lead,” opened MIT president Sally Kornbluth at the 2025 Nano Summit. “If we harness our collective efforts, we can make a serious positive impact.” It was these collective efforts that drove discussions at the daylong event hosted by MIT.nano and focused on the importance of nanoscience and nanotechnology across MIT’s special initiatives — projects deemed critical to MIT’s mission to help solve……

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