Author: Ms. R.

Traditional folk ballads are one of our most enduring forms of cultural expression. They can also be lost to society, forgotten over time. That’s why, in the mid-1700s, when a Scottish woman named Anna Gordon was found to know three dozen ancient ballads, collectors tried to document all of these songs — a volume of work that became a kind of sensation in its time, a celebrated piece of cultural heritage. That story is told in MIT Professor Emerita……

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A new 3D human brain tissue platform developed by MIT researchers is the first to integrate all major brain cell types, including neurons, glial cells, and the vasculature, into a single culture.  Grown from individual donors’ induced pluripotent stem cells, these models — dubbed Multicellular Integrated Brains (miBrains) — replicate key features and functions of human brain tissue, are readily customizable through gene editing, and can be produced in quantities that support large-scale research. Although each unit is smaller……

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What if clinicians could place tiny electronic chips in the brain that electrically stimulate a precise target, through a simple injection in the arm? This may someday help treat deadly or debilitating brain diseases, while eliminating surgery-related risks and costs. MIT researchers have taken a major step toward making this scenario a reality. They developed microscopic, wireless bioelectronics that could travel through the body’s circulatory system and autonomously self-implant in a target region of the brain, where they would provide……

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Although heart cells and skin cells contain identical instructions for creating proteins encoded in their DNA, they’re able to fill such disparate niches because molecular machinery can cut out and stitch together different segments of those instructions to create endlessly unique combinations. The ingenuity of using the same genes in different ways is made possible by a process called splicing and is controlled by splicing factors; which splicing factors a cell employs determines what sets of instructions that cell……

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MIT engineers have developed a flexible drug-delivery patch that can be placed on the heart after a heart attack to help promote healing and regeneration of cardiac tissue. The new patch is designed to carry several different drugs that can be released at different times, on a pre-programmed schedule. In a study of rats, the researchers showed that this treatment reduced the amount of damaged heart tissue by 50 percent and significantly improved cardiac function. If approved for use……

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Quantum computers have the potential to model new molecules and weather patterns better than any computer today. They may also one day accelerate artificial intelligence algorithms at a much lower energy footprint. But anyone interested in using quantum computers faces a steep learning curve that starts with getting access to quantum devices and then figuring out one of the many quantum software programs on the market. Now qBraid, founded by Kanav Setia and Jason Necaise ’20, is providing a……

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More than 70 aircraft are struck by lightning every day. If you happen to be flying when a strike occurs, chances are you won’t feel a thing, thanks to lightning protection measures that are embedded in key zones throughout the aircraft. Lightning protection systems work well, largely because they are designed for planes with a “tube-and-wing” structure, a simple geometry common to most aircraft today. But future airplanes may not look and fly the same way. The aviation industry……

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With the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence, teachers and school leaders are looking for answers to complicated questions about successfully integrating technology into lessons, while also ensuring students actually learn what they’re trying to teach.  Justin Reich, an associate professor in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing program, hopes a new guidebook published by the MIT Teaching Systems Lab can support K-12 educators as they determine what AI policies or guidelines to craft. “Throughout my career, I’ve tried to be a person……

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A recent study from Oregon State University estimated that more than 3,500 animal species are at risk of extinction because of factors including habitat alterations, natural resources being overexploited, and climate change. To better understand these changes and protect vulnerable wildlife, conservationists like MIT PhD student and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researcher Justin Kay are developing computer vision algorithms that carefully monitor animal populations. A member of the lab of MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer……

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