Content by Anne Trafton
Designing Tiny Filters to Solve Big ProblemsNew materials for separating a mixture’s components could reduce costs and environmental impacts for many industries

Wed, 01/29/2025 - 00:02
For many industrial processes, the typical way to separate gases, liquids, or ions is with heat, using slight differences in boiling points to purify mixtures. These thermal processes account for roughly 10% of the energy use in the United States.…
A New Method Makes High-Resolution Imaging More AccessibleIntroducing an expansion technique to image nanoscale structures inside cells
Wed, 10/23/2024 - 23:58
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- A classic way to image nanoscale structures in cells is with expensive high-powered, super-resolution microscopes. As an alternative, MIT researchers have developed a way to expand tissue before imaging it—a technique that…
MIT Engineers Design Tiny Batteries for Powering Cell-Sized RobotsCould help minuscule robots sense and respond to their environment
Tue, 09/03/2024 - 12:00
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- A tiny battery designed by MIT engineers could enable the deployment of cell-sized, autonomous robots for drug delivery within the human body, as well as other applications such as locating leaks in gas pipelines. The new…
Arrays of Quantum Rods Could Enhance TVs or Virtual-Reality DevicesMIT engineers develop a new way to create arrays on patterned DNA
Tue, 10/31/2023 - 12:02
Flat screen TVs that incorporate quantum dots are now commercially available. But it has been more difficult to create arrays of their elongated cousins, quantum rods, for commercial devices. Quantum rods can control both the polarization and color…
Pixel-by-Pixel Analysis Yields Insights Into Lithium-Ion BatteriesIn a first, researchers have observed how lithium ions flow through a battery interface
Thu, 09/28/2023 - 12:01
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- By mining data from X-ray images, researchers at MIT, Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator, and the Toyota Research Institute have made significant new discoveries about the reactivity of lithium iron phosphate, a…
Surprise! Weaker Bonds Can Make Polymers StrongerNew approach doesn’t alter other physical properties of the polymers
Tue, 07/18/2023 - 12:02
A team of chemists from MIT and Duke University has discovered a counterintuitive way to make polymers stronger: Introduce a few weaker bonds into the material. Working with a type of polymer known as polyacrylate elastomers, the researchers found…
Tiny Bits Work Together to Do Big ThingsMicroparticles generate an oscillating electrical current that could power microrobotic devices
Thu, 11/10/2022 - 12:02
Taking advantage of a phenomenon known as emergent behavior in the microscale, MIT engineers have designed simple microparticles that can collectively generate complex behavior, much the same way that a colony of ants can dig tunnels or collect food…
Study Finds the Risks of Sharing Healthcare Data Are LowReduce identifying info in patient health data to enable better treatments and diagnostics
Thu, 10/27/2022 - 12:01
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- In recent years, scientists have made great strides in their ability to develop artificial intelligence algorithms that can analyze patient data and come up with new ways to diagnose disease or predict which treatments work…
New Device Can Diagnose Covid-19 From Saliva SamplesThe tabletop diagnostic yields results in an hour and can be programmed to detect variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus
Wed, 08/11/2021 - 12:00
First published Aug. 6, 2021, on MIT News. Engineers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a small tabletop device that can detect SARS-CoV-2 from a saliva sample in about an hour. In a new study, they showed that the diagnostic is just as…
Tiny Particles Power Chemical ReactionsA new material made from carbon nanotubes can generate electricity by scavenging energy from its environment
Wed, 06/23/2021 - 12:01
First published June 7, 2021, on MIT News. MIT engineers have discovered a new way of generating electricity using tiny carbon particles that can create a current simply by interacting with liquid surrounding them. The liquid, an organic solvent,…