Content by Zach Winn
Startup Plans to Rejuvenate Nuclear Power Industry With New Manufacturing ApproachBlue Energy to manufacture giant pieces of nuclear reactors at shipyards, transport on barges for final assembly
Mon, 11/16/2026 - 12:02
Building a nuclear power plant is one of the most complex construction projects in the world. It requires thousands of trucks to ship parts, often to remote regions, where huge teams of skilled workers such as electricians and welders come together…
Turning Plastic Waste Into Resilient Building MaterialsAtlas Building Composites commercializes MIT research to produce parts for buildings and other infrastructure
Mon, 11/09/2026 - 12:02
The world needs more homes. The world also has too much plastic. Perhaps the only thing those two problems have in common is that they’re hard to solve. Atlas Building Composites, a spinout of MIT, is on a mission to address both problems with a…
For Energy Systems That Power a Reliable Grid, the Future Is All About LocationWhere new energy projects are built could be key to avoiding blackouts in an uncertain future
Mon, 08/03/2026 - 12:03
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- Will a warming climate and changing weather patterns lead to more grid blackouts and other energy disruptions? Answering that question requires studying both regional climate forecasts and local energy systems, including…
Found Industries Aims to Strengthen America’s Industrial Supply ChainsNew technologies for extracting critical metals and making fuel out of aluminum
Thu, 05/14/2026 - 12:02
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- Found Industries has gone through several distinct phases in the four years since it was originally formed as Found Energy. There was the scrappy startup stage, during which the company was primarily housed in the basement of…
Electrifying Boilers to Decarbonize IndustryAtmosZero developed a modular heat pump to electrify the centuries-old steam boiler
Thu, 02/05/2026 - 12:03
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- More than 200 years ago, the steam boiler helped spark the Industrial Revolution. Since then, steam has been the lifeblood of industrial activity around the world. Today the production of steam—created by burning gas, oil, or…
Robots Spare Warehouse Workers the Heavy LiftingPickle Robot Co. has developed machines that can autonomously load and unload trucks
Tue, 01/20/2026 - 12:03
There are some jobs human bodies just weren’t meant to do. Unloading trucks and shipping containers is a repetitive, grueling task—and a big reason warehouse injury rates are more than twice the national average. Pickle Robot Co. wants its machines…
Technique Makes Complex 3D-Printed Parts More ReliableNew research enables computer designs to account for the limitations of 3D printers
Wed, 10/22/2025 - 12:01
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- People are increasingly turning to software to design complex material structures like airplane wings and medical implants. But as design models become more capable, our fabrication techniques haven’t kept up. Even 3D…
Gen AI Models Help Create Breakthrough MaterialsSCIGEN enables researchers to better steer AI
Mon, 10/20/2025 - 12:02
Artificial intelligence models that turn text into images are also useful for generating new materials. During the last few years, generative materials models from companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have drawn on their training data to help…
A New Platform for Developing Advanced Metals at ScaleFoundation Alloy uses solid-state metallurgy technology to create a new class of high-performance metals
Tue, 07/29/2025 - 12:02
Companies building next-generation products are often limited by the physical constraints of traditional materials. In aerospace, defense, energy, and industrial tooling, pushing those constraints introduces possible failure points into the system.…
Accelerating Hardware Development to Improve National Security and InnovationFor engineering teams, sensor data points are hugely valuable—if they can make sense of them
Mon, 07/21/2025 - 12:02
Modern fighter jets contain hundreds or even thousands of sensors. Some of those sensors collect data every second, others every nanosecond. For the engineering teams building and testing those jets, all those data points are hugely valuable—if they…