mit news

A team of scientists at MIT have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say.

Most polymers — materials made of long, chain-like molecules — are very good insulators for both heat and electricity. But an MIT team has found a way to transform the most widely used polymer, polyethylene, into a material that conducts heat just as well as most metals, yet remains an electrical insulator.

BP today announced the launch of a major research collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Manchester. BP and the universities will work together on materials and corrosion research, as it applies to oilfield applications.

The new study, in the journal Cerebral Cortex, found that nearly a quarter of the variability in achievement seen among men and women trained on a new video game could be predicted by measuring the volume of parts of the striatum, a collection of brain structures tucked deep inside the cerebral cortex.

As Americans fight through the most stressful time of the year, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are embarking on a plan to study driver workload and identify new opportunities to use in-vehicle technologies to improve driver safety by lowering stress.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and MIT today announced a major research partnership to transform how the world combats climate change and produces and consumes energy.

New MIT research points the way to a technology that might make it possible to harvest much of the wasted heat produced by everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, and turn it into usable electricity.

Drugs that inhibit the protein, which normally helps defend cells from infection, could target tumors in certain lung cancer patients.

MIT engineers have created a kind of beltway that allows for the rapid transit of electrical energy through a well-known battery material, an advance that could usher in smaller, lighter batteries -- for cell phones and other devices -- that could recharge in seconds rather than hours.

A Kauffman Foundation study released today demonstrates the critical role universities play not only in fostering innovation and entrepreneurial growth, but in stimulating the much-needed recovery in regional and global economies.

Worldwide, nearly 2 million people per year die from diarrhea, the vast majority of them in poor countries in Africa and Asia. The disease accounts for 18 percent of all deaths among children -- and yet is almost always preventable with proper treatment.

Rapid transfer of a high-definition movie from a PC to a cell phone - plus a host of other media and data possibilities - is approaching reality.

MIT engineers have developed carbon nanotubes into sensors for cancer drugs and other DNA-damaging agents inside living cells.

Students at MIT working on designing a system that creates power using solar heat and methane gas received one of 49 national EPA grants which are helping programs that protect the environment and are economically profitable.

Researchers at MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research have produced a report concerning key design issues of proposed cap-and-trade programs that are under consideration in the United States as a way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Planning has begun in earnest for MIT's sesquicentennial in 2011, when the Institute will celebrate 150 years of education and research.

BlackBerry users can now text or speak their way to increased productivity with the reQall memory aid

In response to the chronic cyber threat of hackers, MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers are developing a software tool to identify the most vulnerable points in a computer network.

Hundreds of insect species spend much of their time underwater, where food may be more plentiful. MIT mathematicians have now figured out exactly how those insects breathe underwater.

Ten graduate students from MIT recently spent three weeks in Durban, South Africa, working on a project to develop an online tool that could help municipal governments around the world adapt to a changing climate.