Author: Ms. R.

When MIT’s mini cheetah perfectly executed a backflip on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” the audience screamed and applauded wildly. If this machine — which also pranced around the stage like a show dog and stretched in several different directions — could perform such a difficult maneuver, one that is impossible for most humans, it should be easy to get it to perform all kinds of everyday tasks. Or at least that is what most people might have……

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Chemical “upcycling,” or converting plastics into higher-value products, to the left. Materials that repair damage and restore themselves to the right. Straight ahead: fibers that can be woven into fabrics and used as microphones or loudspeakers. Such was the varied innovation that crowded MIT’s Morss Hall on Polymer Day 2023. Sixty-four teams from schools throughout the Northeast and beyond presented research ahead of a poster contest — the most since the event started in 2013.  “We were almost running……

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There has been a remarkable surge in the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence to address a wide range of problems and challenges. While their adoption, particularly with the rise of AI, is reshaping nearly every industry sector, discipline, and area of research, such innovations often expose unexpected consequences that involve new norms, new expectations, and new rules and laws. To facilitate deeper understanding, the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-cutting initiative in the MIT Schwarzman……

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Huge libraries of drug compounds may hold potential treatments for a variety of diseases, such as cancer or heart disease. Ideally, scientists would like to experimentally test each of these compounds against all possible targets, but doing that kind of screen is prohibitively time-consuming. In recent years, researchers have begun using computational methods to screen those libraries in hopes of speeding up drug discovery. However, many of those methods also take a long time, as most of them calculate……

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Socrates once said: “It is not the size of a thing, but the quality that truly matters. For it is in the nature of substance, not its volume, that true value is found.” Does size always matter for large language models (LLMs)? In a technological landscape bedazzled by LLMs taking center stage, a team of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers think smaller models shouldn’t be overlooked, especially for natural language understanding products widely deployed in……

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Protestors acting against repressive regimes face a particular problem: The tools they use to organize demonstrations can also be deployed to repress their actions. For instance, when citizens communicate on the internet to plan a protest, a ruling regime can access that information and be ready to break up the demonstration. Then what? What happens next, according to MIT political scientist Mai Hassan, is that protestors can engage in “coordinated discoordination,” as she calls it, finding ways to rapidly……

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Threats to lifelong mental health can arise for young children from sources including poverty, abuse or neglect at home, and racism, inequity, and pollution outside their doors, but the hopeful message that a range of experts brought to MIT on May 11 was that amid these many risks, approaches to provide effective protections and remedies are numerous and growing. In welcoming and closing remarks that framed The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory’s daylong symposium, “Environmental and Social Determinants……

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With about 200 family members, alumni, faculty, staff, and fellow students looking on, the MIT Latinx Graduate Students Association (LGSA), Latino Cultural Center (LCC), and Latino Alumni of MIT (LAMIT) held the inaugural MIT Latinx Graduation on May 31 at the MIT Media Lab. The celebration acknowledges and honors the achievements of Latinx students graduating from MIT this year. Founded in 2019, the LGSA hopes this new celebration becomes an annual tradition. “It was an honor to plan the first Institute-wide……

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Evidence that noninvasive sensory stimulation of 40 Hz gamma frequency brain rhythms can reduce Alzheimer’s disease pathology and symptoms, already shown with light and sound by multiple research groups in mice and humans, now extends to tactile stimulation. A new study by MIT scientists shows that Alzheimer’s model mice exposed to 40 Hz vibration for an hour a day for several weeks showed improved brain health and motor function compared to untreated controls. The MIT group is not the……

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This summer, five MIT graduate students will travel to Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, and Cape Verde as part of a new fellowship to explore how governance innovations are making governments more transparent and accountable to citizens in regions of the world that are underrepresented in global innovation and design research.    The students will be embedded within government innovation labs, or other think tanks that work closely with governments, for eight to 12 weeks. They will research the challenges and opportunities……

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