https://news.mit.edu/rss/research MIT News is dedicated to communicating to the media and the public the news and achievements of the students, faculty, staff and the greater MIT community. en Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/discovery-could-lead-brighter-more-energy-efficient-digital-displays-0710 Researchers found a simple solution for extending the lifespans of LEDs made from glowing microscopic particles called quantum dots. Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/discovery-could-lead-brighter-more-energy-efficient-digital-displays-0710 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>A new study led by MIT researchers could drive the development of more energy-efficient digital displays — such as flat-screen TVs, augmented and virtual reality headsets, smartphone screens, medical imaging devices, and even large-area ambient lighting surfaces — that also generate richer, brighter colors.</p><p>The MIT scientists, in collaboration with researchers at Samsung, studied the microscopic changes that occur inside LEDs that utilize electrically excited quantum dots, which are precisely shaped nanoscale semiconductor particles that emit extremely pure colored light.&nbsp;</p><p>Quantum dots are <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2014/startup-quantum-dot-tv-displays-1119" target="_blank">currently used</a> in some of the&nbsp;computer and television displays with the best picture quality available. The efficiency of these displays could be further improved, and their manufacturing process further simplified, if the quantum dots could be electrically excited, as was first demonstrated in the quantum dot LED (QD-LED) structures <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2002/dot" target="_blank">over 20 years ago</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>But limitations on the operating lifespans of these QD-LEDs have prevented their widespread use in commercial applications.</p><p>The new study shows how encapsulating QD-LEDs in an acrylate-based resin can extend their lifespan by minimizing the physical degradation that would otherwise occur during QD-LED operation.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers demonstrated that encapsulating QD-LEDs with a resin layer using a simple, scalable process boosts stability and performance. In some devices, resin encapsulation enabled a 5,000-fold lifespan improvement. Importantly, their study reveals the fundamental reasons resin encapsulation is effective.</p><p>“The insights into how and why quantum dot LEDs get modified during their operation open the possibility of fixing everything that holds back commercialization of QD-LED displays. This technology can provide a light source like never before — pure in color, paper thin, and of large area, transforming how we produce both displays and general lighting,” says Vladimir Bulović, the Fariborz Maseeh (1990) Professor of Emerging Technology, principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), director of MIT.nano, and senior author of this study.</p><p>He is joined on the paper by lead author Ruiqi Zhang, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate student; Moungi Bawendi, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry; and other colleagues at MIT and Samsung SAIT. The research <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aec8208" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Science Advances</em></a>.</p><p><strong>A blue bottleneck</strong></p><p>This paper draws on foundational work by Bawendi, who shared the&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-chemist-moungi-bawendi-shares-nobel-prize-chemistry-1004" target="_blank">Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2023</a> for discovering and synthesizing quantum dots, and engineering work by Bulović, who joined MIT in 2000, when he began collaborating with Bawendi to make efficient LED displays using quantum dots.&nbsp;</p><p>Conventional LED displays utilize thousands of tiny lightbulbs that generate the red, green, and blue light needed to create the perception of any color on the visible spectrum. More advanced OLED screens, which Bulović was developing through his graduate work at Princeton University, utilize electrically excited, glowing organic molecules instead of light bulbs.</p><p>Bulović, Bawendi, and others at MIT sought to replace the organic molecules with quantum dots, which emit purer red, green, and blue light in a more energy-efficient manner.</p><p>“With quantum dots, the color quality of the screen would be more visually appealing and more optically flexible. One can mix and match those quantum dot colors more precisely to generate any color that is needed,” says Bulović.</p><p>Their collaboration generated a series of inventions on quantum dot LED technologies, leading to the launch of the startup&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2014/startup-quantum-dot-tv-displays-1119" target="_blank">QD Vision</a>, which successfully commercialized the first-ever displays containing quantum dots. In 2016, QD Vision was acquired by Samsung, which incorporated a less efficient form of quantum dot technology into their “QLED” displays.</p><p>Although they are more energy-efficient, electrically excited QD-LEDs have still not been commercialized, particularly since the limited lifetime of the blue QD-LED does not meet the requirements of commercial displays.</p><p>“The blue quantum dot LEDs are 50 to 100 times less stable than their red and green counterparts. If you use them in an LED display, your TV might last for just a few months before it stops working. We wanted to understand what is different about the blue quantum dot LEDs,” Zhang says.</p><p><strong>A nanoscale investigation</strong></p><p>He and his collaborators developed a technique to slice a tiny QD-LED in nanoscale-thin slivers, revealing the device cross-section. They examined these cross-sections under extremely powerful microscopes at MIT.nano. This precise method allowed them to see what happens at the nanoscale to the ultrathin layers of materials stacked inside the QD-LED.</p><p>They explored the structural and chemical changes that occurred in each layer of red and blue QD-LEDs by comparing cross-sections of freshly made devices to cross-sections of devices that were operated on overdrive. The researchers found that during operation, the three core functional layers that enable blue QD-LEDs to glow are degraded, with modified morphology and reduced thickness.&nbsp;</p><p>The distinct quantum dots also get merged together, losing their shape. This layer thinning and coarsening is caused, in part, by the release of extra hydrogen and oxygen during operation.</p><p>“We don’t yet know exactly where these extra elements are coming from — there are so many possibilities. But we definitely don’t want extra hydrogen and oxygen in the device,” Zhang says.</p><p>To prevent this degradation, they utilized a technique sometimes adopted by industry. They encapsulated the QD-LEDs with an acrylate-based resin.</p><p>They discovered that this encapsulation technique suppresses the release of the hydrogen and oxygen and inhibits some of the degradation that changes the morphology of the layers of the blue QD-LED.&nbsp;</p><p>“For the first time, we have insights into the details of what happens inside these structures of many mixed and layered materials that form the QD-LED. No one knew this before,” Bulović says.</p><p>This encapsulation strategy, which is a cost-effective and scalable technique, led to an eightfold improvement in the lifetime of red QD-LEDs and more than a 5,000-fold lifetime improvement in blue QD-LEDs.</p><p>The researchers believe the resin prevents the formation of moisture in the cloud of gases that surrounds the quantum dot. That moisture likely causes the QD-LED to degrade.&nbsp;</p><p>However, their experiments revealed that resin encapsulation does not eliminate all sources of degradation.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers are now exploring the addition of extra layers to QD-LEDs that could further improve efficiency and lifespan. They also plan to build on the lessons learned in this study to increase the stability of QD-LEDs for other applications.&nbsp;</p><p>“This version of quantum dot LEDs would be better than anything that exists now — simpler to make, more efficient, and higher performing. This could open vistas into many more ways of thinking about this technology, not just for the sake of displays or lighting, but also for sensors, lasers, and so on,” says Bulović.</p><p>This work was funded by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. The research was carried out, in part, using MIT.nano facilities.</p> MIT researchers studied the microscopic changes that occur inside LEDs that utilize electrically-excited quantum dots, which are nanoscale particles that emit extremely pure colored light. Their insights could be used to make advanced, more energy-efficient QD-LED displays commercially viable for applications like flat-screen TVs and medical imaging devices. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Electronics Chemistry Materials science and engineering Nanoscience and nanotechnology Light Mobile devices Medical devices Research Laboratory of Electronics Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Science School of Engineering MIT.nano https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-flapping-robot-swims-and-flies-like-diving-bird-0709 MIT engineers’ design could lead to a new class of aerial-aquatic vehicles for ocean exploration. Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-flapping-robot-swims-and-flies-like-diving-bird-0709 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>Loons, gulls, puffins, and petrels are some of the 100 species of birds that can both fly and swim. These diving birds can plunge in water to swim after prey, and leap back into the air to fly away.&nbsp;</p><p>Inspired by these naturally aquatic aviators, engineers at MIT and EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have designed a robot that can swim underwater, then flap out of the water to continue flying through air, much like diving birds.&nbsp;</p><p>The “flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle,” or FAAV, weighs less than 300 grams (about half a pound) and is designed to help scientists study the mechanics that enable diving birds to fly through air and water.&nbsp;</p><p>The robot&nbsp;has a central body, or fuselage; two flexible, flapping wings; and a steerable tail. The wings and tail can be swapped out for different sizes. In experiments carried out in a water tank and at a local lake, the engineers identified combinations of wing size, flapping frequency, and tail angle that enable the robot to smoothly transition from&nbsp;swimming through&nbsp;water to breaking through the surface to flying through the air.</p><p>Their results, which <a href="https://dspace.mit.edu/entities/publication/a8ca74c5-9e2a-42f3-9ddf-636701e91ae2" target="_blank">appear today in the journal <em>Science</em></a>, could help scientists understand how diving birds adapt their flight mechanics to move through air and water — mediums with very different physical properties. The design could also launch a new class of aerial-aquatic drones and vehicles. The researchers envision such winged robots could be deployed in oceanography to fly to and sample from aquatic regions that would otherwise be too dangerous for traditional ocean vessels to access.</p><p>“Our dream vision is for oceanographers, marine biologists, and members of coastal communities to launch this robot from a boat, or from shore, and it would fly close to the area of interest, such as an iceberg or a port facility, or over a pod of whales,” says Raphael Zufferey, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “It would dive into the water to take a measurement or collect a sample, and fly back to deliver the data at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. Then it could go back out to dive for more.”&nbsp;</p><p>Zufferey is the lead author of the new study, which includes co-authors from EPFL and Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington.</p><p><strong>Flight mechanics</strong></p><p>At MIT, Zufferey heads up the&nbsp;<a href="https://aura.mit.edu/" target="_blank">AURA Lab</a>, where he and his students engineer aerial and aquatic vehicles inspired by biomechanics in nature. The robots they build are small in size and designed to unobtrusively explore and monitor the health of oceans and waterways.&nbsp;</p><p>For their new work, the team aimed to design a vehicle that can fly in the air and underwater. Any such vehicle would have to adapt to and transition between two very different substances. Water is 1,000 times denser than air, and moving through one or the other requires very different mechanics. Or so people might assume.</p><p>“You have to do some adaptation to make that transition work. But there’s a solution that exists in nature,” Zufferey says. “Birds like puffins can fly very fast through the air, and can dive and swim through water at speeds of 3 meters per second. They’re able to do pretty amazing things. So we knew is was possible. Just no one had tried this in a mobile robotic system.”</p><p>To get an idea for how diving birds fly, the team looked through the scientific literature and pulled together available data on puffins, petrels, kingfishers, and other diving birds. They observed that smaller birds flap their wings around 10 times per second when flying through air, and around four times per second when swimming through water. Larger birds have a slightly lower flapping frequency through both air and water due to their wider wingspans.&nbsp;</p><p>With the biomechanics of birds in mind, the team developed a winged robot designed to flap at similar frequencies to that of actual diving birds.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Making the leap</strong></p><p>The new robot roughly resembles a bird, with a body, two wings, and a tail. The body contains a battery and waterproof electric motor that drives a crankshaft, which in turn pumps the wings up and down at preset frequencies. The wings are made of thin membranes that are coated with hydrophobic nanoparticles to help wick away water. And the tail is motorized, enabling it to change its angle to help the robot fly up or dive down.&nbsp;</p><p>The wings can be swapped out for different sizes. The researchers fabricated and tested three sets of wings: small (60 centimeters wide), medium (80 centimeters), and large (100 centimeters). They carried out experiments first in a small water tank, then in Lake Geneva in Switzerland.</p><p>In their tests, they placed the robot underwater, about half a meter below the surface. They programmed the wings to flap at certain frequencies and the tail to pitch at certain angles throughout the robot’s flight. They then observed under what conditions the robot successfully swam up toward the surface, out of the water and into the air.&nbsp;</p><p>The robot flew multiple flights with different wing sizes, flapping frequencies, and tail angles. Overall, the team found the robot was able to reliably fly, swim, and transition between water and air when it flew with medium-sized wings. Flexibility in the wings is key; the wings need to be flexible enough to minimize flapping amplitude in water and also firm enough to keep the robot aloft in the air.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers also found the robot could swim through water at speeds of almost 1 meter per second when it flapped with a frequency of around 5 herz, or five flaps per second. The robot could fly through the air at around 6 meters per second, when flapping at a similar frequency. The speeds and flapping frequencies of the robot were similar to that of actual diving birds.&nbsp;</p><p>To make the leap from water to air, they found the robot should be pitched at 70 degrees — a relatively steep angle that keeps the robot’s wingtips from touching the water’s surface as it flaps up and into the air. Any steeper, and the robot would tip back into the water.</p><p>Interestingly, this combination of wing size, flap frequency, and tail pitch enabled the robot to swim underwater, launch off the surface, and fly, without something that many diving birds require: feet. When birds such as puffins and ducks take off from the water’s surface, they paddle their feet, along with flapping their wings and pitching their tails. Surprisingly, Zufferey and his colleagues found that, at least in robotics, the act of flying out of water doesn’t necessarily require a paddling maneuver.&nbsp;</p><p>“If you look at birds, most birds need to paddle at the surface to take off. And the question was, do we need the same for robots? And it turns out we don’t,” Zufferey says.</p><p>Going forward, the team is improving the design of the wings to enable them to turn in addition to flapping up and down. They will also test the robot’s performance under turbulent conditions, such as swimming out of choppy waters and flying through wind. Then, they hope to deploy the vehicle to help answer questions in ocean science.</p><p>“One of the major challenges in ocean science is collecting data both frequently and across many locations, which is something this robot could do in the future,” Zufferey says. “You could send this out not just every week, but every hour. It could fly out at high speeds, dive in fly back, deliver its data, and go back out, multiple times.”</p><p>This work was supported, in part, by a&nbsp;Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship grant.</p> The aerial-aquatic robot can swim underwater, then flap out of the water to continue flying through air, much like diving birds. Credit: Raphael Zufferey Bioinspiration Drones Mechanical engineering Oceanography and ocean engineering Research Robotics School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/baseball-sized-tossit-sensor-can-detect-chemical-threats-0709 The “TOSSIT” device, developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, can warn service members and first responders of dangerous vapors and aerosols. Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:10:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/baseball-sized-tossit-sensor-can-detect-chemical-threats-0709 Tim Briggs | Lincoln Laboratory <p>Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory have designed a throwable, baseball-sized sensor that can remotely detect hazardous vapors and aerosols.&nbsp;</p><p>Called the Tactical Optical Spherical Sensor for Interrogating Threats (TOSSIT), the sensor is designed to alert military service members, first responders, and law enforcement to the presence of chemical threats like nerve and blister agents, industrial chemical accidents, or fentanyl dust.&nbsp;</p><p>Users can simply toss, drone-drop, or launch TOSSIT into an area of concern. To detect chemicals, the sensor samples the air and uses an internal camera to observe color changes on a removable dye card.</p><p>If certain chemicals are present, TOSSIT alerts users via an app or alarms in the sensor.</p><p>"TOSSIT fills an unmet need, providing a low-cost sensing option for vapors and solid aerosol threats — think toxic dust particles — that would otherwise not be detectable by small deployed sensor systems,” says principal investigator Richard Kingsborough.</p><p>After extensive testing in the field, the technology is being transferred to the U.S. military.</p> Researcher Jude Kelley holds up TOSSIT, an alerting sensor with a removable dye card that changes color in response to chemicals in the air. Image: Tim Briggs Research Sensors Public health Invention 3-D printing Mechanical engineering MIT intellectual property Lincoln Laboratory U.S. Armed Forces https://news.mit.edu/2026/tiny-robot-boats-build-floating-structures-0709 MIT researchers developed FloatForm, a swarm of small aquatic robots that snap together like ants forming a raft, assembling into reconfigurable structures on the water. Thu, 09 Jul 2026 11:50:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/tiny-robot-boats-build-floating-structures-0709 Rachel Gordon | MIT CSAIL <p dir="ltr">Most people think of the waterfront as the edge of the city. A team of MIT researchers sees it as a dynamic, Lego-like construction site.</p><p dir="ltr">Their new system, called “<a href="https://senseable.mit.edu/floatform/">FloatForm</a>,” is a swarm of small square robotic boats that assemble themselves into larger structures on the water, break apart, and reassemble into something new, all with minimal human direction.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Each robot, about the size of a dinner plate at 21 centimeters square, is a self-contained vessel with its own thrusters, sensors, and magnetic latches. Together, they hint at a future in which floating infrastructure could become more adaptive: a temporary platform after an emergency, a market on a canal, or a stage that appears for a festival and dissolves when the crowd goes home.</p><p dir="ltr">“Our FloatForm projects envisions a future where the waterfront becomes a programmable extension of the city, where autonomous boats can self-organize into bridges, platforms, and other useful structures on demand,” says Daniela Rus, the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “This kind of distributed robotics opens new possibilities for mobility, emergency response, public space, and infrastructure on water.”</p><p dir="ltr">“With FloatForm, we are essentially turning static water surfaces into dynamic, programmable spaces,” says Wei Wang, lead author of a new <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74527-6">paper on the project</a> and a former MIT research scientist who now leads the Marine Robotics Lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Imagine an urban environment where public space isn’t fixed, but can autonomously expand, contract, or reconfigure on demand.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“We see it as forming infrastructure on the water, using a modular system to create one larger system,” says Alejandro Gonzalez-Garcia, a former researcher with MIT CSAIL and the Senseable City Lab. “If there’s an emergency, you could form a new bridge to alleviate traffic in the city. Or you could create floating markets and floating stages. If you want a more livable city, you want to use the water, too.”</p><p dir="ltr">The open-access work, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74527-6">published today in <em>Nature Communications</em></a>, comes from the labs of Rus and Carlo Ratti, professor of practice of urban technologies and planning at MIT and director of the Senseable City Lab, and grows out of <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2021/autonomous-taxi-roboats-1027">Roboat</a>, their joint project with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions that put full-size autonomous vessels on Amsterdam’s canals. Those canals once carried the city’s goods; today, they mostly carry tourists.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“We explored whether the canals could be used for waste collection, or for transport, to offload some of the stress on the roads back onto the water,” says Niklas Hagemann, an MIT graduate student in architecture, CSAIL affiliate, and former Senseable City Lab researcher who has worked on the project since its early stages. “Urban areas are getting denser, so could you expand public space onto water that’s currently underutilized?”</p><p dir="ltr">FloatForm shrinks that vision down to tabletop scale to answer a harder question: How do you get dozens, and eventually thousands, of floating robots to organize themselves?</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Lessons from the ant raft</strong></p><p dir="ltr">The team found its answer in biology. Fire ants famously survive floods by linking their bodies into living rafts, with no leader choreographing the assembly. Each ant follows simple local rules, and a resilient structure emerges.</p><p dir="ltr">“Each ant is an independent agent,” says Gonzalez-Garcia. “We wanted each robot to have its own capabilities, the same way ant colonies form a raft.”</p><p dir="ltr">Most existing self-assembling robot systems, on water and elsewhere, rely on a central computer dictating every move. That approach is vulnerable to single points of failure and scales poorly: The planning math balloons as robots are added, and the swarm must assemble sequentially, with most robots idling while they wait their turn. FloatForm flips the balance. A lightweight central planner steps in only sparingly, assigning each robot a final position to perfect the lattice, a level of geometric precision that purely distributed methods struggle to guarantee. Everything else, including navigating toward the target shape, avoiding collisions, and adapting to disturbances, runs on the robots themselves, which coordinate by exchanging positions with their immediate neighbors. The whole swarm moves at once.</p><p dir="ltr">That parallelism is what sets the work apart. The planning complexity of FloatForms approach depends only on a robot’s local neighbors, not the total size of the swarm. “What we’re trying to do is to have minimal central intervention, and have them all move together at the same time,” says Gonzalez-Garcia.</p><p dir="ltr">In experiments at MIT, a fleet of eight robots repeatedly gathered from random positions into a target shape, latched into a rigid structure, broke apart on command, reassembled into a new configuration, and then drove across the pool as a single vessel, with each run taking four to eight minutes. In that final mode, called collective transport, a planner charts a trajectory for the whole structure and each robot computes its own contribution. “Every robot becomes an actuator,” Gonzalez-Garcia explains. Simulations showed the framework scaling smoothly to swarms of 64.</p><p dir="ltr">“The beauty of this largely decentralized approach is that the computation doesn’t get bogged down as the swarm grows,” says Wang. “Whether you are working with eight boats or 80, the entire fleet coordinates and moves simultaneously. Because the overall assembly time doesn’t significantly increase in principle, the system remains highly scalable.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">There's a physical payoff to sticking together, too. “Our boats become more stable by joining together, like the ant raft, if you have waves or currents,” Hagemann says.</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>An origami handshake</strong></p><p dir="ltr">The robots connect through a latching mechanism hidden entirely inside each hull. A single servo motor at the center drives an origami-inspired auxetic structure, a geometry that contracts uniformly in all directions at once, pulling permanent magnets on all four sides inward to release, or pushing them outward to grab a neighbor across gaps of 10 to 15 centimeters. The magnets are arranged with alternating polarities, so the boats reliably click into clean square lattices.</p><p dir="ltr">The elegant part is what the mechanism doesn’t do: consume (much) power. A 3D-printed gearbox holds the latch in either state with the motor switched off. “It uses energy to latch and de-latch, but in between those states, it doesn’t use any energy,” says Hagemann. For infrastructure that might hold a configuration for hours, that matters. “Because the robots are so small, you can only have a battery so big,” adds Gonzalez-Garcia. “If they use less energy on latching, they can use more on computation, or on actually moving.”</p><p dir="ltr">Getting there took some humbling engineering. Four miniature thrusters arranged in an “X” give each robot omnidirectional motion, including turning in place, but they pack large forces relative to the robots’ tiny inertia, which made early prototypes twitchy and prone to aggressive spins at low speeds. The team added stabilizing fins to increase hydrodynamic drag and tuned the controllers to stay robust across robots that, at this scale, are never quite identical. The magnets posed their own problem: They held on so well that de-latching sometimes required the robots to twist themselves free.</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>From the tank to the canal</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Across 10 trials, the system completed its missions without human intervention 90 percent of the time with four robots and 70 percent with eight. When things did go wrong, the architecture showed its resilience: A robot that briefly lost its bearings could rejoin the structure on its own, without bringing the whole swarm to a halt, and robots stuck in formation deadlocks learned to shake themselves free and retry.</p><p dir="ltr">Moving from a controlled indoor tank to a real canal or harbor will take more than confidence. “There’s always a relationship between the size of a boat and the magnitude of the disturbance it can handle,” says Gonzalez-Garcia. “These boats are very small, so in very disturbed water, they cannot work.” Scaling up will mean reinforcing the latches, potentially with mechanical interlocking like the full-size Roboat used, and trading the lab’s ultrasonic indoor positioning for GPS or vision-based sensing. Helpfully, the coordination algorithm was designed to be sensor-agnostic: swap the sensors, keep the logic.</p><p dir="ltr">The team envisions applications well beyond city canals, from forming temporary platforms for offshore inspection and maintenance to adaptive sensor networks for studying migratory species to reconfigurable docking stations for emergency response in hard-to-reach areas. There is also potential for offshore and remote operations, from temporary construction platforms to environmental monitoring and scientific expeditions.</p><p dir="ltr">And the geography is wide open. “Venice, the Netherlands, Belgium, the fjords and lakes of Norway, really any city with a river can take advantage of this,” says Gonzalez-Garcia. “The project uses spaces where water is already important, but it also raises the question: Where else can water be used for something more?”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“This is an exciting step forward in realizing distributed collective behaviors on water,” says University of Michigan Assistant Professor Steven Ceron, who wasn’t involved in the research. “Assembly, self-reconfiguration, and collective motion are difficult enough in dry environments, but achieving these behaviors in a predominantly distributed fashion on water represents a serious additional challenge, and this team has credibly overcome it. By shifting the computational burden onto the robots themselves, they have built a more resilient system that in the near future could enable robot collectives like this to be deployed in open-water environments for search operations, environmental monitoring, and reconfigurable marine infrastructure.”</p><p dir="ltr">Gonzalez-Garcia, Hagemann, and Wang wrote the paper with senior authors Ratti, who is also a professor at Politecnico di Milano, and Rus. Gonzalez-Garcia is additionally affiliated with the MECO Research Team at KU Leuven. The research was supported by a grant from the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, with additional support from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The team thanks MIT Sea Grant and Professor Michael Triantafyllou for providing the test tank.</p> These small square robotic boats can assemble themselves into larger structures on the water, break apart, and reassemble into something new, all with minimal human direction. Image: Alex Shipps/MIT CSAIL, using assets from the researchers. Research Robotics Autonomous vehicles Artificial intelligence Computer science and technology Machine learning Bioinspiration Transportation Infrastructure Cities Urban studies and planning Architecture Senseable City Lab MIT Sea Grant Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Engineering School of Architecture and Planning MIT Schwarzman College of Computing https://news.mit.edu/2026/separating-logic-and-language-0708 Neuroscientists find logical reasoning does not involve language-processing parts of the brain. Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:35:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/separating-logic-and-language-0708 Jennifer Michalowski | McGovern Institute for Brain Research <p>Some people find it useful to talk through their problems — but language isn’t necessary for logical reasoning, cognitive neuroscientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research say.&nbsp;</p><p>In research <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520095123">published this week in the journal <em>PNAS</em></a>, researchers led by MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences <a href="https://mcgovern.mit.edu/profile/ev-fedorenko/">Evelina Fedorenko</a> have shown that people can perform well on tasks that require logical reasoning even if their language abilities are severely impaired. What’s more, brain imaging shows that language-processing parts of the brain are not called on for logical reasoning.</p><p>Philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists have debated the relationship between language and thought for thousands of years, with many arguing that we use language to think. There are good reasons to suspect a close relationship between logic and language, acknowledges Hope Kean, a postdoc and former K. Lisa Yang Integrative Computational Neuroscience (ICoN) Center graduate fellow in Fedorenko’s lab. “Abstract thinking has properties that look a lot like language,” Kean says, pointing to structural similarities. “You can decompose a thought into subcomponents, like little atoms of logical propositions, and you can combine them in a hierarchical manner to make more complex structured rules, very akin to language.”</p><p>But she and Fedorenko, who is also a McGovern Institute investigator, suspected that while we largely depend on language to communicate about logical reasoning — from presenting a problem to explaining how we have arrived at conclusions — the brain might use a separate system for the reasoning itself.&nbsp;</p><p>“There are aspects of thinking that seem to go beyond some of the limitations of language,” Kean explains. Logical reasoning demands precision that language often lacks. And language is linear, progressing one word at a time, whereas evaluating available information to reach logical conclusions can require thinking in less linear ways.</p><p><strong>Logical reasoning</strong></p><p>These observations left Kean curious about how the brain handles logical reasoning. It’s a particularly difficult question to answer scientifically, because it’s hard to take language out of the equation when working with human study participants. But Fedorenko’s team did just that by collaborating with Rosemary Varley, a neuroscientist at University College London who studies acquired language disorders, and her team.</p><p>Together, the scientists worked with two patients who had experienced stroke that damaged language-processing parts of their brains, leaving them with severe impairments in both understanding and producing language. They designed language-free logic games in which participants were asked to infer relationships between sets of numbers. Given two lists, they had to figure out the hidden rule that turned one list into the other, such as reversing the digits or removing numbers above a certain value. Once they thought they’d discovered the rule, they had to apply it to new examples. In a second game, participants were presented a set of geometric patterns and asked to identify another pattern to complete the matrix.</p><p>As participants solved increasingly difficult puzzles, it became clear that people don’t need language for this kind of reasoning. Patients with language impairments solved the problems as well as a control group, and were even able to communicate the rules they inferred using gestures, or with a sketch. “It really upends a theory that says that symbolic rule induction is not possible without linguistic capacities,” says Kean.</p><p>Alongside this part of the study, Kean and colleagues also used functional brain imaging to study what happens in the brains of healthy adults when they are engaged in logical reasoning. Participants in this part of the study visited MIT for a series of MRI scans, which captured images of their brain activity during an array of tasks. In addition to completing different kinds of logic games inside the scanner, participants were asked to engage in tasks designed to map the language-processing parts of their brain. Another set of tasks was used to map each person’s so-called “multiple demand network” — a distributed brain system that supports complex problem-solving.</p><p>These neurotypical participants completed logic games similar to those used with the language-impaired patients. They were also presented with problems that required syllogistic reasoning, using “if-then” statements such as “if the ball is red, then it is big. The ball is red. Is the ball big?” The team varied the difficulty of the logic puzzles so they could see&nbsp;which brain areas became more active when the need for logical reasoning intensified. Likewise, they looked for changes in brain activity when participants had to infer a hidden rule, versus simply applying a rule they’d been given.</p><p>Here, too, a separation between language and logic was clear: The MRI scans showed the brain’s language system is not engaged for either inductive reasoning (when participants identified hidden rules) or deductive reasoning (when they assessed the validity of syllogistic conclusions). Surprisingly, the multiple demand network, which many scientists had suspected was important for logical reasoning, was engaged during inductive reasoning, but didn’t seem to get involved in deductive reasoning — a finding Kean is building on in her ongoing work.</p><p>For Fedorenko and Kean, the findings are strong support for a separation of logic and language in the brain. They add to previous findings from Fedorenko’s lab showing that other types of thinking, such as object categorization and social reasoning, also do not rely on language.</p><p><strong>Acquired language impairments and AI</strong></p><p>The researchers say these findings have important implications for how we think about acquired language impairments, or aphasia. Specialists who work with people with aphasia have long recognized that loss of language does not mean loss of intelligence. People with aphasia can continue to enjoy playing chess, solving sudoku puzzles, or being in charge of the family’s finances. But it is common for others to confuse their communicative difficulties with thinking difficulties.</p><p>“This research adds to a growing body of work establishing that even severely aphasic individuals can preserve their ability for abstract logical thought — a defining feature of our species,” Fedorenko says. “We should continue to educate the public that linguistic difficulties — in aphasia, but also in those with developmental language conditions, such as stuttering, or those who do not speak English natively — are not indicative of how smart or capable someone is.”</p><p>There could be implications for artificial intelligence, too. Large language models like ChatGPT and Claude are trained entirely on text and use text as their output — yet they convincingly simulate some kinds of human reasoning. Exploring the differences between these models and the human brain, where language and abstract logical thought are distinct, might offer useful insights to inform future models, Kean says.</p><p>When it comes to understanding how the human brain reasons, Kean calls this a new frontier in the geography of thought — and she says it’s one she is eager to explore.</p> A functional brain scan of a neurotypical participant in a new study shows a distinct separation between logic (green) and language (red/yellow) activations. Image: Hope Kean Research Neuroscience Language Learning Brain and cognitive sciences School of Science McGovern Institute https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-engineers-whip-up-more-breathable-hydrogel-0708 The new aerated material could enable longer-lasting bandages, implants, and wearable sensors. Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-engineers-whip-up-more-breathable-hydrogel-0708 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>Hydrogels are squishy, bio-friendly materials that are made mostly of water and a bit of polymer. The Jell-O-like substance is available in the form of medical patches, sprays, and glues, and can be stuck to the skin or implanted in the body to dress wounds, affix implants, and encapsulate and release medicine over time.&nbsp;</p><p>For all their sticky, stretchy, and protective properties, hydrogels lack one key trait: breathability. If worn for too long, a bandage or patch can trap moisture and sweat, which can irritate tissues and reduce the effectiveness of any device that a hydrogel adheres.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Now MIT engineers have come up with a recipe for a hydrogel that is both hydrated and aerated, or permeable to air. The new material is just as soft, stretchy, and robust as conventional hydrogels, but a network of tiny tunnels running through the gel allows air to pass through.&nbsp;</p><p>The aerated hydrogel can be worn for longer periods of time compared to conventional hydrogels, without causing skin irritation. It can also reduce sweat buildup, even during exercise. In experiments, volunteers wore wireless heart monitors that were attached to their chest with the new breathable hydrogel. After working out regularly for 10 days, the volunteers showed no signs of skin irritation, and the heart monitors maintained clear readings.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The results, which are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10712-3" target="_blank">reported today</a> in the journal <em>Nature</em>, may enable longer-lasting hydrogel products, such as breathable bandages and dressings, cosmetic face masks, and contact lenses, along with better-performing health monitors and implants.&nbsp;</p><p>“Water and oxygen are both essential for life,” says Xuanhe Zhao, the&nbsp;Uncas (1923) and Helen Whitaker Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and medical engineering and science. “Now that we’ve added air to hydrogels, people can find broad applications.”</p><p>Zhao’s MIT co-authors on the study include Xiao-Yun Yan, Shucong Li, Won Jun Song, Runze Li, Bastien Aymon, Jingjing Wu, Gengxi Lu, Jiayi Liu, Shu Wang, Eric Lu, Hyunhee Lee, James Zhang, Casey O’Brien, and Zachary Smith, along with collaborators from multiple other institutions.</p><p><strong>Breathing through Jello</strong></p><p>Water makes up about 90 percent of a typical hydrogel. The rest of the material consists of polymers. When mixed with water in a chemical process known as “cross-linking,” the polymers settle into a sort of scaffold that holds the water in place, forming a gel that’s both squishy and stretchy. But because hydrogel’s composition is mainly water, it’s inherently challenging for any air to make its way through the material effectively.&nbsp;</p><p>“In general, water is not breathable,” co-lead author Xiao-Yun Yan says. “Hydrogel is 80 to 90 percent water, similar to Jell-O. And you cannot breathe through Jell-O.”</p><p>Other groups have tried to design air-permeable hydrogels, mainly taking one of two approaches. The first has been to essentially puncture microscopic holes throughout the gel. Such designs are breathable, but only in air. When they are placed in liquid, the holes quickly clog up.&nbsp;</p><p>Researchers have also tried mixing hydrogel with certain polymers, such as silicone, that naturally allow air through. But this approach requires adding a large amount of polymers to the hydrogel in order to create enough permeable space for air to move through the entire gel. These hydrogels end up having a greater balance of polymer to water, making them less hydrated in general.&nbsp;</p><p>Zhao, who has been a leader in the development and application of hydrogels, looked to make a hydrogel that lets air through without losing its water-heavy makeup.&nbsp;</p><p>“We want to have lots of tiny channels to let air through, while also maintaining lots of water in the gel,” Zhao says. “This was a significant challenge, and something that people thought was impossible to do.”</p><p><strong>Highways for air</strong></p><p>After several years of investigation, the team hit on an ideal recipe for a breathable hydrogel that minimizes the non-water ingredients needed to let air through. In their new study, they report that the key to the recipe is “phase separation.” A common example of this process is the interaction between oil and water. The difference in the two liquids’ phases cause them to instantly separate. When the two are mixed, oil and water glom to their own kind, while avoiding the other.&nbsp;</p><p>Zhao and his colleagues took advantage of viscoelastic phase separation in concocting a breathable hydrogel. For their new design, they mixed their conventional hydrogel recipe with a very small amount of silica aerogel particles, which are essentially “solid-form” air bubbles.&nbsp;</p><p>“They are like boba beads,” Yan offers. “The particles are made of silica, which is hydrophobic, meaning that water does not want to leak through them, so they are very stable in water.”&nbsp;</p><p>And as it turns out, the particles are similar to oil when mixed with water. The researchers found that when they mixed just a small amount of the particles with a solution of the water-heavy hydrogel, the water molecules glommed together, essentially finding each other faster than the less abundant silica particles. This effect of&nbsp;viscoelastic phase separation created large pockets of water and squeezed the silica particles into skinny, interconnected tunnels. The team observed that after a few hours, this effect formed a network of thin and sturdy, silica-skinned tunnels through which air could flow.</p><img src="/sites/default/files/images/inline/MIT-breathable-hydrogel-embed.gif" data-align="center" data-entity-uuid="fb859830-3762-495a-b501-0d18dc9ddcc8" data-entity-type="file" alt="The white piece floats on top of water while the clear piece sinks." width="500" height="281" data-caption="The new design of the breathable hydrogel (white) floats on water because of the air tunnels. The old design (clear) drops to the bottom of the cup.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Credit: Melanie Gonick, MIT"><p>“It’s as if the particles formed a network of connected tunnels, like air-permeable highways within the hydrated hydrogel,” says co-lead author Shucong Li.&nbsp;</p><p>Once they confirmed that the network had formed, the team cross-linked the mixture, essentially freezing the gel, and its breathable network, in place. They then tested the gel’s breathability and mechanical performance over multiple experiments, including one in which they asked&nbsp;several&nbsp;volunteers to wear the gel, attached to a wireless electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor, while exercising for 20 minutes. The volunteers also wore monitors with conventional, commercial hydrogel adhesives.</p><p>Throughout the workouts, the researchers observed that the breathable hydrogel maintained a strong ECG signal, in contrast to the conventional gel which exhibited significant signal fluctuations.The researchers observed similar results in an experiment with several volunteers who wore the breathable hydrogel and ECG monitor over 10 days.&nbsp;</p><p>“We reliably saw that after 10 days, the quality of the ECG signal is still pretty good, and after you take off the monitor, there were no noticeable blisters or redness on the skin,” Li says. “This indicates healthy skin conditions.”</p><p>The team also exercised the gel itself, putting it through 10,000 cycles of stretching and compression. After these tests, they found the gel still retained the network of air channels, maintaining its breathability.&nbsp;</p><p>“After 10,000 cycles, there was less than a 5 percent drop in oxygen permeability,” Li says. “That matters, because even with your heartbeat, your chest continuously undergoes small strains. So we have to make sure this gel is durable for such daily activity.”</p><p>Zhao says the new study provides a novel approach for others to fabricate breathable and multifunctional hydrogels, using the concept of visoelastic phase separation as a guide.&nbsp;</p><p>“We’ve discovered that this process can create these air-permeable hydrogels, and we demonstrate one application,” he says. “But we think there can be very broad applications. This is a technology platform.”</p><p>This work was carried out in part through the use of MIT.nano’s facilities. This work was supported in part by the MIT Hatsopoulos Faculty Fellowship, the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professorship, a HEALS seed grant, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs.</p> “Now that we’ve added air to hydrogels, people can find broad applications,” says Xuanhe Zhao. Here, a rectangular hydrogel floats on top of water. Credit: Felice Frankel Drug delivery Materials science and engineering Mechanical engineering Civil and environmental engineering Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) Medical devices Research School of Engineering Sensors Wearable sensors National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researcher-proposes-way-to-detect-nuclear-weapons-in-space-0708 The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans nuclear weapons in space, but there’s currently no way to verify that satellites aren’t carrying them. Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researcher-proposes-way-to-detect-nuclear-weapons-in-space-0708 Zach Winn | MIT News <p>In 2024, a U.S. government official <a href="https://www.war.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3858311/nuclear-threats-and-the-role-of-allies-remarks-by-acting-assistant-secretary-of/" target="_blank">warned</a> that Russia could be developing a new satellite designed to carry nuclear weapons into space. The statement followed the launch of a suspicious Russian satellite into low-Earth orbit in 2022, just a few weeks before the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.</p><p>A nuclear detonation in low-Earth orbit — the region about 100 miles to 1,200 miles above Earth’s surface — would release trillions of highly energetic electrons that would destroy many of the satellites in space, disrupting telecommunications networks, GPS, space-based internet, and more.</p><p>The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans the placement of nuclear weapons in space, but there’s currently no way to verify satellites don’t contain nuclear weapons. In fact, no verification methods have even been proposed in unclassified, peer-reviewed literature.</p><p>Now, MIT Professor Areg Danagoulian is proposing a way to determine if a satellite orbiting Earth contains a nuclear weapon. In a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10783-2" target="_blank">new paper published in <em>Nature</em></a>, Danagoulian describes his idea for a satellite-based sensor system that could orbit close by a suspect satellite and detect neutrons generated by high-energy protons colliding with radioactive material.</p><p>In the paper, Danagoulian calculates that a sensor system the size of a large encyclopedia could detect a nuclear weapon with 99 percent accuracy if it orbited within 4,000 meters of the suspect satellite for about a week. He also estimates that the detection time could be cut to a matter of hours if multiple satellite sensors were used or the sensor satellite was able to get within 1,000 meters of the suspect satellite.</p><p>“If we eventually have some verification mechanisms for the Outer Space Treaty, that will put pressure on countries to respect the treaty or disclose what they are doing, because they know if they try to violate it, we will find out,” Danagoulian says. “I very much hope this will turn into a real system, or proof-of-concept system, but the goal right now is to get national labs to use this work for their own research, and to get policymakers to seriously consider this technology as a potential part of national technical means.”</p><p><strong>Protecting space</strong></p><p>In 1962, the U.S. detonated a 1.4-megaton thermonuclear warhead in space, which unintentionally destroyed many of the early satellites of the era. The blast released enormous volumes of highly energized electrons, and many became trapped in Earth’s magnetic field, where they damage any electronics in their path.</p><p>“When you have a nuclear detonation in outer space, basically the whole body of the bomb becomes ionized, and nearly every single electron in the weapon’s mass becomes free,” Danagoulian explains. “It gets injected into what’s called the inner Van Allen radiation belt. Once there, the electrons start hitting everything flying through those belts, causing ionization, radiation damage, and more. As you go further out into space, you create these thick belts around Earth populated by highly energetic protons and electrons.”</p><p>The 1967 Outer Space Treaty declared space the “province of all mankind” and banned nuclear weapons in space, among other safeguards. It has since been signed by 118 countries including the U.S., China, and Russia.</p><p>Monitoring compliance with the treaty has taken on increased urgency since Russia’s 2022 launch of a suspicious satellite, Cosmos2553, which Russia claims is used for surveillance and sensing. However, U.S. authorities believe it may carry components of a nuclear device undergoing testing, with the possible future goal of fielding an actual nuclear anti-satellite weapon. The detonation of a nuclear weapon at that orbit could destroy many of the U.S. reconnaissance satellites, international communication satellite platforms, as well as the Starlink satellites.</p><p>“The Russians launched this satellite in a very strange and unusual orbit because it goes through the most hostile environment possible around the planet,” Danagoulian explains. “No one puts satellites there because it’s highly radioactive. Why would you put a satellite in that orbit? Well, that location is likely the best point for trapping electrons if you were to detonate a thermonuclear weapon.”</p><p>Danagoulian notes most research on nuclear detection is highly classified, making it hard to know how much progress has been made in national labs. But he wanted to show that scientifically proving the presence of a nuclear weapon in space is possible.</p><p><strong>Particle bombardment</strong></p><p>The approach Danagoulian developed centers on a reaction known as spallation, caused by highly energetic protons in radioactive environments.</p><p>“When an energetic proton slams into elements with a high atomic number, like uranium and plutonium, each proton may knock out something like 40 neutrons,” he explains. “That’s a ridiculously large number. We’re talking about millions of protons per second per square centimeter, with many of them generating 40 neutrons. The question is can you detect some of those neutrons?”</p><p>Normal satellites wouldn’t emit nearly as many neutrons, but there are still naturally occurring protons, neutrons, and electrons in the atmosphere, especially in low-Earth orbit. Danagoulian’s concept uses two panels made up of pixels of neutron sensors known as scintillators that interact with radiation and emit light. The panels are sandwiched between synthetic crystal diamond detectors that allow the system to distinguish between neutrons coming from radioactive materials and natural protons and electrons. The two-panel construction then can be used to estimate the direction of the neutron, allowing it to differentiate between natural atmospheric neutrons and those coming from a suspected satellite.&nbsp;</p><p>“Most neutron detectors are very sensitive to protons, so you have to come up with some smart ways to reject protons but keep neutrons,” Danagoulian says. “You also have to tell the difference between naturally occurring neutrons and neutron spallation from the satellite.”</p><p>He believes the system, placed inside of an inspector satellite, would be strong enough to survive the harsh environment of low-Earth orbit while also being fast enough to process the protons, electrons, and neutrons that bombard it.</p><p>Danagoulian’s calculations on how long the detector satellite would have to be near the suspect satellite give him confidence in the feasibility of the system. If a detector satellite were able to get within 1,000 meters of the suspect satellite, it could accurately detect nuclear weapons in about one hour. That would amount to a single flyby.</p><p>Danagoulian calls the paper a feasibility study of the concept.</p><p>“I say in the paper this isn’t a completely proven system,” he says. “The purpose of the paper is to show the scientific community that it’s scientifically possible to do this. But there are many more practical considerations to be made to actually build these detectors.”</p><p>Danagoulian hopes the study will stimulate further research and development. He is also working with researchers in MIT’s Center for Nuclear Security and Policy (CNSP) to understand the policy landscape around this issue.</p><p>If a version of his system is eventually developed, Danagoulian believes it could encourage the nonproliferation that has helped preserve satellites so far. He notes that while adversarial countries are naturally suspicious of each other’s claims, scientific evidence would strengthen trust.</p><p>“You can fake intelligence,” he says, “but you can’t fake physics.”</p><p>The work was supported, in part, by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Carnegie Foundation, and Longview Philanthropy.</p> MIT Professor Areg Danagoulian is proposing a way to determine if a satellite contains a nuclear weapon. Credit: MIT News; iStock Research Nuclear science and engineering Nuclear security and policy Space Spaceflight Satellites Security and military studies Policy School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/the-brains-internal-ruler-0707 A simple brain circuit measures objects’ distance from the body using touch signals from a rodent’s whiskers, MIT scientists find. Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:40:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/the-brains-internal-ruler-0707 Jennifer Michalowski | McGovern Institute for Brain Research <p>If you are crossing an unfamiliar room in the dark, you may grope around a bit to get a sense of your space.</p><p>But for many animals, feeling out a space comes more naturally. A mouse, for instance, can efficiently navigate in the dark just by grazing its whiskers against walls and other obstacles.</p><p><a href="https://mcgovern.mit.edu/profile/fan-wang/" target="_blank">Fan Wang,</a> a professor of brain and cognitive sciences and an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, has discovered how neurons in a mouse’s brainstem use signals from the animal’s touch-sensitive whiskers to estimate an object’s distance from the face.</p><p>Her team’s findings, <a href="https://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(26)00419-8">published June 25 in the journal <em>Neuron</em></a>, unlock key circuitry the brain uses to represent the space immediately surrounding the body.</p><p><strong>Mapping space</strong></p><p>The circuit the team discovered is part of the brain’s system for creating an egocentric map of space — that is, understanding where things are relative to one’s own body. Neuroscientists know that the brain calls on specialized circuits to understand space in this way, which are different from its system for mapping space using external landmarks.</p><p>In their study, Wang and her team explored how the brain maps the space closest to the body, known as the peripersonal space. This is the space in which we move, and it is vital that we understand where things are in relationship to our bodies so we can reach, step, avoid hazards, and otherwise interact effectively with our environment.</p><p>Wang says mice were an appealing model for investigating how the brain understands objects’ distance within the peripersonal space, because a rodent’s whiskers seem so much like a built-in set of rulers. These whiskers, which vary in length, are swept back and forth as the animals explore their environment. As whiskers bend and vibrate, the mechanical sensations are relayed to the brain by sensory neurons at their base. Those neurons fire more when a whisker bends close to the face than they do in response to contact near the whisker’s tip, communicating information about the proximity of the touch.</p><p>Wang’s team wanted to know if the brain uses these signals to build an internal ruler-like representation of distance more precise than “near” or “far.” To find out, graduate student Wenxi Xiao and Research Scientist Kyle Severson monitored neural activity in a small sensory-processing region in the brainstem where tactile signals from the whiskers first arrive in the brain. They studied what happened there as mice walked on a treadmill while brushing their whiskers against a wall that passed by at different distances.</p><p>Many neurons in the region were sensitive to the whisker bending triggered by the wall. Some behaved similarly to the sensory neurons they were getting their information from, firing more when the wall was closer to the face and thus serving as a proximity-based distance code. But other cells were tuned in to discrete distances, firing only when the distance of the wall the whiskers had touched was within a specific range.</p><p><strong>The whiskers rule</strong></p><p>For some neurons, activity peaked when the wall was 23 millimeters away from the face, near the tips of the longest whiskers. Others responded most when the wall was at intermediate distances. “Each of these neurons represents a specific distance, and together they span the full range reached by the longest whisker, like tick marks on the ruler,” Wang explains. “We call that the map code.”</p><p>The team wanted to know how the brain converts proximity signals from different whiskers into accurate map code of object’s distances from the head. “You cannot just listen to individual whisker neurons, because a contact at the tip of a short whisker would be in the middle of a long whisker. You need a brain circuit to build a unified distance map,” Wang says.</p><p>Through computational modeling and by exploring what happened when they manipulated neural signaling in specific ways, Wang’s team showed how distances can be calculated by comparing inputs from different sensory neurons. Their findings suggest that each brainstem neuron that makes up the map code receives both direct excitatory inputs from proximity-sensitive whisker neurons and inhibitory inputs from neurons driven by proximity-dependent whisker touch signals.</p><p>“Essentially, the inhibitory pathway allows the brainstem to compare two inputs by subtraction,” Wang explains. “If one input signals ‘this is how far it is’ and the other signals ‘this is how far I estimate it to be,’ subtracting one from the other yields an intermediate value. We think it’s a simple and elegant way to transform tactile input into a representation of discrete distance.”</p><p>Wang notes that despite their importance, the brain’s body-centered representations of space have so far received little attention from neuroscientists, who know much more about how we understand locations in space relative to landmarks (an allocentric map). She is eager to investigate how the egocentric map code her team discovered is integrated with other brain systems to guide movement, social interactions, and other behavior, and hopes the findings will further exploration from other groups.</p><p>The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.</p> Neurons in the brain stem (green) represent individual whiskers on a mouse’s face. Image: Fan Wang Research Neuroscience Animals Brain and cognitive sciences McGovern Institute School of Science National Institutes of Health (NIH) https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-novice-coders-can-develop-ai-programs-for-military-applications-0707 A USAF cadet and a Lincoln Laboratory researcher found AI chatbots can help nontechnical service members produce viable software applications for their unique problems. Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:25:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-novice-coders-can-develop-ai-programs-for-military-applications-0707 Haley Wahl | MIT Lincoln Laboratory <p>In today's world, artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude can perform many functions, such as composing work emails and planning travel itineraries. These chatbots are systems built around large vision-language models (VLMs): AI trained on a massive dataset that includes books, websites, code, and images.&nbsp;</p><p>The AI algorithms are then refined on massive amounts of human-generated feedback to follow instructions and avoid harmful or unwanted output, and use that "knowledge" to produce text or images based on input from a user. Although chatbots have clear limitations, they can be very helpful for a wide range of tasks, including in some areas that traditionally require specialized skills, like computer programming.</p><p>As part of a project for the <a href="https://www.aiaccelerator.af.mil/About-Us/" target="_blank">U.S. Department of the Air Force–MIT AI Accelerator</a>'s <a href="https://www.aiaccelerator.af.mil/Phantom-Program/" target="_blank">Phantom Program</a>, U.S. Air Force cadet Joshua Lynch — with the help of his mentor, Laura Niss, a technical staff member in the <a href="https://www.ll.mit.edu/r-d/isr-systems-and-technology/embedded-and-ai-systems" target="_blank">Embedded and AI Systems Group</a> at MIT Lincoln Laboratory — wanted to determine if, as a complete novice to coding, he could develop a fully functional program. He used a process called "vibe-coding," in which a user relies entirely on prompts to guide a generative AI chatbot to write and refine code.&nbsp;</p><p>His motivation was to empower anyone familiar with the military problem space, regardless of their technical background, to advance their ideas for useful software applications, essentially bypassing the time and cost constraints of the traditional military software development pipeline. Lynch aimed to build his own application while Niss monitored his experience with the technology.</p><p>"The Phantom student wanted to see if he could create a useful application through self-identified vibe-coding, without any previous experience," Niss says. "Within this project, I wanted to understand how his perception of AI changed over time with use. We both wanted to understand better where and how AI could be used by nontechnical users in the military."</p><p>Lynch set out to see if, starting with no coding skills and using chatbots, he could create an application specific to his type of tactical team to help reduce collateral damage while enhancing survivability in the broader mission. This application would offer capabilities including AI-assisted target recognition; modular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; autonomous striking; and communication management on the battlefield.&nbsp;</p><p>During the project, Lynch completed several professional development courses in AI and familiarized himself with both military and nonmilitary uses of the technology. For the basis for his code generation, he used the paid models of three AI chatbots: Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini. Most of this work was done only through the chatbots' main chat function on a web browser, not as an integrated system within a development environment, as is standard now. The final application was produced using Google AI Studio App, which can create applications that interface with the Gemini application programming interface and has AI integrated in the development environment.&nbsp;</p><p>Over three months, Lynch worked with these models to build his application, called the Remote Operating Modular Augmentation Device (ROMAD-AI). During this time, he learned several methods to improve the code output. For example, he often encountered difficulties with the AI chatbots lacking hierarchical focus and modifying unrelated code sections. He discovered it was important to break problems into small parts, frame questions clearly, and steer conversations back on topic when they stray too far from the objective.&nbsp;</p><p>Learning to recognize the chatbots' limitations and effectively work around them took up most of the project timeline. As Lynch gained more experience with the chatbots, limitations in the AI capabilities and time for development caused him to re-scope the project, moving it from an application that could assist on the battlefield to one that could perform basic document processing, such as analyzing tactical maps of battlefields and generating mission-planning documents through an interface with a VLM-powered chatbot. While the resulting prototype did not perform all capabilities Lynch originally set out to include (and in its current iteration was not secure for the desired use case), it proved the capability and usefulness of such an application for service members.</p><p>"I was quite impressed with this final product, and it showed me how powerful these systems can be at prototyping designs from nonexperts," Niss says. "I'm now of the opinion that these can be powerful tools for nontechnical experts to convey problems and possible solutions to technical experts, and aid in communicating desired outcomes."</p><p>Niss observed the change in Lynch's perspective of AI language models during his experience. After starting with an impressive goal, Lynch gained understanding of the capabilities of current technology and significantly scoped down his expectations by the end of the project period. Measures of his perceptions of the different AI systems over time and across system updates were particularly interesting to Lynch and Niss, with Claude showing more stability than ChatGPT across traits such as likeability, anthropomorphism, and perceived intelligence. Lynch found AI to be a helpful tutor, but noted its inaccuracies on topics he knew well.</p><p>The project showed that AI chatbots can empower nontechnical service members to produce viable software applications for their unique problems, although it works better as a prototyping assistant than as a full production tool when handling sensitive information and for critical applications. Improper vetting of code may lead to security risks, as demonstrated by an instance where Lynch didn't realize that the final application was sending the input documents to a Gemini AI model to analyze, rather than parsing the documents locally on his computer. Although AI can generate significant amounts of functional code, code review remains a bottleneck in this space.</p><p>"For me, this project reinforced the expanse between experts in different fields," Niss says. "No matter how good AI gets, I think we'll always need to collaborate to get to the best solutions for the most important problems."</p><p>Research was sponsored by the Department of the Air Force&nbsp;Artificial Intelligence Accelerator and was accomplished under Cooperative Agreement Number FA8750-19-2-1000.</p> Molding AI is an iterative process to find where capabilities intersect user needs. Image: Allison Mosley/Lincoln Laboratory Research Artificial intelligence Security and military studies Programming Software Computer science and technology Lincoln Laboratory U.S. Armed Forces https://news.mit.edu/2026/many-black-holes-had-past-lives-new-research-shows-0707 Physicists have found signs of colliding black holes that are themselves products of previous black hole smash-ups. Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/many-black-holes-had-past-lives-new-research-shows-0707 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>When a star dies, a black hole is born. This has been the textbook origin story for most black holes. At the end of a massive star’s life, its outer layers blast away in a brilliant supernova, and its core collapses into a gravitationally tight and dense region, forming a black hole.</p><p>Recent discoveries from gravitational-wave detectors have revealed hundreds of merging black holes across the universe. Many of them have been thought to come directly from exploding stars. But black holes can also come from other, smaller black holes. The products of previous black hole mergers can, in principle, merge again, creating a more massive black hole. This alternative, black-holes-birthing-black-holes pathway is known as “hierarchical merging.”</p><p>Now MIT scientists are finding that a good number of merging black holes may have indeed merged before. They carried out a new analysis of recent data from the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA observatories, containing 155 pairs of binary black holes, and found about 14 percent of merging black holes in the universe may in fact be second-generation black holes that formed from the previous merging of two smaller black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>The results, which the team <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/n6p4-ftgq" target="_blank">reports this week in <em>Physical Review Letters</em></a>, suggest that repeated hierarchical merging is a significant pathway by which black holes form.&nbsp;</p><p>“We’re finding that, for some of these merging black holes, it’s not their first rodeo,” says the study’s first author, Cailin Plunkett, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Physics. “Overall in the universe, black holes are merging all the time. The question of how often are they repeatedly merging was pretty uncertain. Now we’re seeing a relatively consistent picture where there’s a decent percentage of black holes that are coming from this repeated pathway.”</p><p>The study’s co-authors are Salvatore Vitale, associate professor of physics at MIT; Thomas Callister of Williams College; and Michael Zevin of Adler Planetarium and Northwestern University.</p><p><strong>Lopsided pairs</strong></p><p>When a massive star collapses and dies, the resulting black hole should have very little spin. In addition to losing a huge amount of mass when it explodes, the star should also lose much of its inherent spin, or angular momentum. The black hole left over should then have little to no spin.&nbsp;</p><p>In contrast, when two black holes merge, the collision should create a new, wildly spinning^&nbsp;second-generation black hole.&nbsp;</p><p>“They would be spinning very fast, at about 70 percent their maximum possible spin,” Vitale says.&nbsp;</p><p>Scientists suspect that hierarchical mergers occur in dense stellar environments, where stars are so tightly packed together that multiple neighboring stars could die and collapse to form black holes that are then close enough to merge with each other to form second-generation black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>“You might have a ton of stars whizzing around each other, and if some are massive and explode, they become black holes. The black holes continue to whizz around, and can capture each other and merge,” Plunkett says. “This process can repeat potentially ad infinitum, by virtue of the fact that you have a ton of stars and black holes in this really dense environment.”</p><p>One sign of a hierarchical merger is that one black hole in a pair of merging black holes has a much higher spin, and higher mass, than the other. Such a lopsided duo would signal that at least one of the black holes came from the collision of two previous black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>In 2024, scientists detected two such lopsided mergers in signals recorded by the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA observatories. The observatories detect incoming gravitational waves — incredibly small wobbles in the fabric of space and time — that are the reverberations from distant cosmic phenomena, such as colliding black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>The observatories detected two gravitational-wave signals, labeled GW241011 and GW241110, each of which likely contain a black hole spinning much faster than its partner. The hierarchical mergers were discovered by analyzing each signal in detail to tease out the specific masses and spins of the black holes involved in each merger.</p><p>That work inspired Plunkett and Vitale to do a search of similar hierarchical mergers using all the gravitational-wave signals that the observatories have captured to date.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>A pattern of wobbles</strong></p><p>For their new study, the team analyzed the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog 4.0 (GWTC-4.0), which comprises gravitational-wave detections from the observatories’ fourth observing run. Rather than analyze each gravitational-wave signal one by one, which is what scientists did for GW241011 and GW241110, Plunkett and Vitale searched for a characteristic pattern of hierarchical mergers across the data overall, to see if any matching signals popped out.</p><p>The pattern they searched for represents a range of orbital “wobbles.” Just before they merge, two black holes spiral toward each other in a disk-like, orbital plane. When the spins of the pair are perpendicular to the plane, this remains relatively steady. But when one or both spins are not perpendicular to the plane, the disk will wobble. The degree to which the whole plane wobbles, or “precesses,” can tell scientists about the balance of masses and spins between the two spiraling black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>Plunkett and Vitale developed a model for the range of wobbling that should be a sign of a hierarchical merger, specifically between a first-generation and a second-generation black hole.&nbsp;</p><p>The team applied the model to the entire GWTC-4.0 catalog, which comprises gravitational-wave signals from 153 black hole mergers, in addition to the signals from GW241011 and GW241110. Their analysis revealed that a number of mergers fit the pattern for orbital wobbling that was likely caused by the colliding of first- and second-generation black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>Specifically, they found that roughly 14 percent of merging black holes in the universe may have merged before, and that these second-generation black holes had very particular masses: Black holes of around 10 solar masses (10 times the mass of the sun) and 30 solar masses were run-of-the-mill star-born black holes, while second-generation black holes had masses of around 20 solar masses or 40 solar masses and above.&nbsp;</p><p>“One of the reasons why the 40-and-above regime is interesting is, stellar evolution theory predicts you shouldn’t be able to form black holes in that mass range at all from just a supernova,” Plunkett says. “We think supernovae from really massive stars end up being so violent that they leave no black holes at all above roughly 45 solar masses. Yet we have seen black holes that are that massive. And the question is: Where did they come from?”</p><p>The team’s new analysis provides support for the idea that black holes can form from the repeated merging of other black holes, and that this alternate origin story could explain some of the curious black holes that we can detect today.&nbsp;</p><p>This work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation, and the Brinson Foundation.</p> Some merging black holes may be second-generation black holes that formed from the previous merging of two smaller black holes, according to a new study. Pictured is an artist’s concept of the hierarchical formation of black holes. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt (IPAC) Research Astronomy and astrophysics Black holes LIGO Physics Space Kavli Institute School of Science National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/hydrogen-clean-fuel-of-the-future-if-we-can-ship-it-0707 A team led by MIT Energy Initiative researchers developed the HyCAT tool, enabling decision-makers to explore the cost and carbon emissions of their options for shipping hydrogen fuel to their site. Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:10:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/hydrogen-clean-fuel-of-the-future-if-we-can-ship-it-0707 Nancy W. Stauffer | MIT Energy Initiative <p>Many experts refer to hydrogen as “the fuel of the future.” It is expected to help decarbonize the global economy in two main ways: burning it or feeding it into a fuel cell produces storable energy with no carbon emissions, just water. And it can be used in place of fossil fuels or as a chemical feedstock in hard-to-decarbonize industrial processes such as steel and cement production.</p><p>But for hydrogen to realize its potential, two challenges must be overcome. Researchers worldwide are now working to address the first: finding a method of producing pure hydrogen that’s both cheap and low in carbon emissions.</p><p>Just as critical is finding a good means of transporting and storing hydrogen. A team led by researchers at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) has been tackling that less-discussed but important challenge. The location where the pure hydrogen is produced is likely to be far away from where it will be used, so moving it will be critical — and difficult.</p><p>The problem stems from two characteristics of hydrogen: It’s the lightest gas there is, and it has low energy density per volume. Therefore, delivering a given amount of energy requires a large volume of hydrogen and a container that’s sealed so tightly that the hydrogen molecules can’t escape. Suffice it to say, moving a liquid fuel such as gasoline is easier. And without a good means of storing and transporting hydrogen, it can’t fulfill its promise as the world’s clean fuel of the future.</p><p>In 2024, with funding provided by ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Co. through MITEI, a team of MITEI researchers and their Exxon colleagues began examining various approaches to transporting hydrogen. The researchers have now concluded that there’s no single answer; the cost and carbon emissions from a given transportation method will vary from one location to another. Therefore, instead of presenting a table showing the “best” outcome, the team created a tool that enables users to understand the various options and choose the best option for their particular use case.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers present their study and the tool they developed in a new <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236126020259?via%3Dihub">paper</a> published in the journal <em>Fuel.&nbsp;</em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The study was led by former MITEI postdocs Gasim Ibrahim, now an R&amp;D engineer/scientist at Honeywell, and Guiyan Zang, former MITEI group lead who is now an associate professor at Washington State University. Additional MIT co-authors include former postdocs Bosong Lin, Jacqueline Garrido, Woojae Shin, and Haoxiang Lai.</p><p><strong>The hydrogen challenge and hydrogen “carriers” that can help</strong></p><p>The team’s starting assumption was that for hydrogen to become a viable fuel for the world, it would need to be transported over long distances — specifically, overseas, across continents, or across large water bodies. Given the properties of hydrogen gas, it would be best to convert it to some liquid form before shipping.</p><p>There are known ways to do that, but what would be best for shipping? How much would various methods cost, and how much would they add to the carbon intensity of the delivered hydrogen?</p><p>“There hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to addressing those questions,” Ibrahim says. While some studies have been done, their conclusions are inconsistent and many uncertainties remain, both because the cost and carbon emissions will differ from place to place and because there’s not a lot of data to inform how the large-scale transportation of hydrogen will work.</p><p>“So we decided the best thing to do was to develop an adaptive tool that would enable users to perform their own assessments — a tool that could be updated very easily,” Ibrahim explains. “And we would make it open source, so anyone can see and update the numbers that we used in formulating and testing it. As the industry develops, and as scale becomes more a factor, the assumptions made in [our initial] assessments of the economics and the carbon intensity [of different shipping methods] will need to be updated.”</p><p>To focus on the transportation and storage issues, their model — called the Hydrogen Carrier Analysis Tool, or HyCAT — doesn’t consider how the starting hydrogen is produced, or how the hydrogen is used after it’s delivered. HyCAT focuses on determining the costs and carbon emissions incurred as the hydrogen is transported and delivered. In addition, while a full life-cycle assessment would include all environmental impacts, HyCAT focuses on emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).</p><p>The tool is easy to use, says Ibrahim. Built into it is a user interface with drop-down menus for inputting assumptions, and results from an analysis are presented in simple bar charts that include links to tables presenting the details.</p><p>Ibrahim clarifies that, while HyCAT has a well-defined boundary — “incoming hydrogen to outgoing hydrogen” — in an analysis of a specific situation, the user will input various factors about the local situation, including the carbon intensity and cost associated with production of the incoming hydrogen. “So that will inform the final values that come out of a HyCAT analysis,” says Ibrahim, and in part explains why the results vary from place to place.</p><p>Based on the user’s assumptions, HyCAT calculates the cost and GHG emissions at five steps in the “supply chain”:</p><ul><li data-list-item-id="e45779dc142f7c3ba91a8c6b335318599">converting the hydrogen into liquid form at the “export” terminal;</li><li data-list-item-id="ecf95883796ab34fc6c9df5d3177542fb">storing the hydrogen-rich liquid;</li><li data-list-item-id="e2f757bb8627b600ccfdd61087a5d9415">shipping it when an empty tanker becomes available;</li><li data-list-item-id="e620214840eb915c8dee8aeec434c9677">storing it at the “import” terminal; and</li><li data-list-item-id="e4b58dd5dd6cc42e2f4a3e534268bc454">releasing the hydrogen as a gas suitable for burning or being fed into a pipeline for distribution. &nbsp;</li></ul><p><strong>Options for liquifying hydrogen gas</strong></p><p>The main decision in analyzing the cost and emissions of a proposed hydrogen transport plan is how to convert the gaseous hydrogen to a liquid, and then how to recover the hydrogen gas at the end.</p><p>One approach is to simply change the gaseous hydrogen into an easily transportable liquid. But turning hydrogen gas into a liquid requires making it very, very cold. Indeed, notes Ibrahim, “you would need to consume about a third of the energy content of the hydrogen to make the gaseous hydrogen cold enough to liquify.” A further problem arises as the liquified hydrogen is being stored and moved. Unless the vessel containing the liquid hydrogen is properly insulated, the liquid hydrogen can re-gasify and escape. The upside of hydrogen liquefaction is that no chemical reactions are required.</p><p>Other options involve using a hydrogen “carrier.” Some liquid chemical compounds will absorb hydrogen atoms under certain conditions, and under other conditions will release them. Therefore, one approach to solving the hydrogen transportation problem is to make a carrier compound absorb the hydrogen where it’s made and then release it when it reaches its destination. This approach therefore involves two chemical reactions — one to bind the hydrogen to the carrier and the other to release it. &nbsp;</p><p>In their demonstration runs, the researchers looked at the hydrogen carriers involving three potential compounds, each of which has known advantages and disadvantages.</p><p>One of those carriers is produced by adding hydrogen to toluene. That chemical reaction hasn’t been studied a lot, but there’s one known drawback: the source of toluene is typically the oil and gas industry, so the toluene itself has a relatively high carbon intensity when it picks up the hydrogen. Moreover, over time some of the toluene is lost, so more toluene must be added.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>The researchers also looked at “synthetic methane,” which is made by reacting hydrogen with carbon dioxide. That reaction has been known for some time. Ibrahim notes that making synthetic methane actually consumes carbon dioxide, often captured from the atmosphere. On the negative side, however, one of the products of the reaction is water, so some of the hydrogen is lost each time the reaction occurs.</p><p>The final option they analyzed is ammonia, which forms when hydrogen reacts with nitrogen from the air. That reaction is very well-studied and is used commercially. “We’ve been producing ammonia for a long time,” says Ibrahim. And the infrastructure for transporting and storing it is well established. While Ibrahim refers to ammonia as the “most promising option,” the reaction needed to release the hydrogen has not received much attention.</p><p><strong>Varying conclusions and future plans</strong></p><p>Based on their sample runs, the researchers observed that the best path to follow will vary from place to place and from situation to situation. “As we developed the tool, we saw that the ‘best’ carrier was very specific to the supply chain at hand,” says Ibrahim. “It’s a function of how far you’re trying to ship your hydrogen, energy and shipping costs at your exporting and importing countries, the capital cost of building the needed facilities at both ends, and more.”</p><p>Ibrahim and his team are now planning a follow-up study in which they use HyCAT to analyze specific supply chains under certain conditions. They’ll then select assumptions that are highly uncertain and look at the range of possible values for those assumptions. “Then we’ll be able to say, ‘under these conditions, this carrier is better than that one,’ or ‘this carrier is better at cost, but worse at carbon intensity,’” says Ibrahim.</p><p>For now, the main conclusion of the study, says Ibrahim, is that “there’s no conclusion.” He warns decision-makers not to assume that anything they see in the literature can easily be generalized or extrapolated to their specific conditions. Instead, decision-makers should use HyCAT to explore the options available to them. Guided by their results and the objectives and values of their company, they will be able to optimize their supply chains and make clean-burning hydrogen a reality.</p> The Hydrogen Carrier Analysis Tool (HyCAT), developed by a MITEI-led team, helps users determine the costs and carbon emissions incurred when transporting and delivering hydrogen fuel. Image: Shutterstock Research Energy Alternative energy Emissions Carbon dioxide Greenhouse gases Supply chains Transportation Invention Economics Environment MIT Energy Initiative https://news.mit.edu/2026/discovery-helps-explain-why-solid-state-batteries-often-fail-0706 New research could help prevent the formation of tiny seeds of lithium metal within the electrolyte, enabling batteries that charge faster and last longer. Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/discovery-helps-explain-why-solid-state-batteries-often-fail-0706 Zach Winn | MIT News <p>Next generation batteries that use new electrolyte materials could achieve far higher energy density than today’s lithium-ion batteries, without many of the safety concerns. But advanced batteries, such as those that use solid or almost-solid electrolytes, have been plagued by the formation of tiny spikes of lithium metal called dendrites that cause the batteries to lose efficiency and fail.</p><p>Exactly how those dendrites form is still up for debate. While the interface between the battery’s electrolyte and electrodes has been the focus of most research, another culprit is the boundary where two grains of electrolyte in a solid material meet. Researchers know these boundaries can seed dendrites within electrolytes, although the effects have been difficult to study.</p><p>Now researchers at MIT and the Technical University of Munich have uncovered why such boundaries can lead to dendrites: Hidden electrical imbalances across the boundaries affect how the electrolyte conducts electrical charges, which influences how the ions and electrons move through the material during battery operation. In a <a href=" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-026-02206-0" target="_blank">paper published today</a> in <em>Nature Nanotechnology</em>, the researchers characterized the electrical and chemical behavior of the boundaries and showed that adjusting how the electrolyte is processed enhances the movement of ions while reducing electron&nbsp;leakage. This adjustment can&nbsp;increase critical current density by more than 300 percent, which could enable solid-state batteries that charge faster and last longer.</p><p>“Grain boundaries are like the weather: Everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything about it,” says senior author Harry Tuller,&nbsp;a professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “In this paper, we’ve decided to do something about grain boundaries, and by doing something we’ve shown improved performance and demonstrated the importance of grain boundaries more broadly.”</p><p>Joining Tuller on the paper are first author Hyunwon Chu PhD ’25; former MIT professor Jennifer Rupp, the Electrochemical Material Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), who led the study; TUM researchers Waldemar Kaiser, Lukas Wolz, Fran Kurnia, Kun Joong Kim, David Egger, and Johanna Eichhorn; Thomas Defferriere PhD ’22; Willis O’Leary PhD ’24; and University of Antwerp researchers Proloy Nandi, Johan Verbeeck, Sara Bals, and Thomas Altantzis.</p><p><strong>Investigating grain boundaries</strong></p><p>Rupp’s research group, which moved from MIT to TUM during this research, has spent years studying the behavior of next-generation electrolyte materials. Electrolytes in solid-state batteries are made of many tiny crystals of material packed together.</p><p>“What we call a grain, like a grain of salt, is actually a single crystal, but it might only be on the order of 1 micron in size,” explains Tuller. “Under high temperature processes, the best materials essentially consolidate to be void or pore-free and can be nearly 100 percent dense, but each of those crystallites is separated from its neighbor by a grain boundary.”</p><p>Solid-state battery researchers have increasingly focused on grain boundaries as the source of the lithium metal dendrites that cause them to short circuit. It’s been suspected that grain boundaries have different chemical and electrical properties from the grains, which interact with the ions and electrons shuttling between electrodes during battery charging and discharging. However, the exact mechanisms by which the boundaries slowed the ions down, leaked electrons,&nbsp;and led to dendrites was unknown.</p><p>“Grain boundaries are like defects,” Tuller says. “The boundaries have a higher level of defects than in the grains themselves, and generally that means as carriers of charge approach the boundary, whether electrons or ions, there’s some kind of blockage to overcome.”</p><p>To better understand that interference, the researchers developed a model to explain how local electrical imbalances at grain boundaries change the movement of lithium ions and electronic charge carriers. They tested the model in a common solid electrolyte material called lithium lanthanum zirconate, or LLZO, using techniques including electron microscopy, machine learning modeling, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, which measures how easily a charge moves through a material.</p><p>They found the cores of the boundaries carry a local electrical charge, building up local electric fields that lead to enhanced ionic resistance while causing a build-up of electrons in the boundary region, where they can reduce lithium ions, leading to lithium metal dendrite formation.</p><p>“For the last 30 years, the world has been dominated by lithium-ion batteries, but there is a growing recognition that other battery types are needed for batteries used in a variety of uses,” Rupp explains. “This work gives us the fundamental understanding of the space charge interface at the grain boundary. If understood properly, we can come up with engineering concepts to increase cycle life, transference of ions over electrons at these interfaces, and ultimately a better battery.”</p><p><strong>Better battery materials</strong></p><p>The researchers used their observations to adjust the material processing conditions of the LLZO electrolyte material and minimize the negative charges at the boundaries, finding they could ease the movement of lithium ions and reduce the leakage of electrons.</p><p>The modifications allowed them to create an electrolyte that had a critical current density more than 300 percent higher than a baseline sample. Higher current density allows for faster charging and discharging. It should also delay short circuiting to extend the life of batteries.</p><p>“Fires are currently a huge issue in the battery industry,” Rupp says. “By showing how to engineer these space charges in a controlled way, which is new in the field, we can have a strong impact on safety. It’s a new way to turn up the notch and get these batteries to charge faster and last longer before they break.”</p><p>The findings, along with the researchers’ engineering work, present a roadmap for battery researchers to accelerate the development of high-performance, longer lasting solid-state batteries.</p><p>“We showed we can control the initiation of these dendrites to maximize solid state batteries’ high performance,” Chu says. “In this paper, we started with a theory for how these dendrites form, then we did the material characterization to support that theory, then we did the engineering to apply the findings and actually improve battery performance.”</p><p>The work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.</p> MIT and Technical University of Munich researchers uncovered tiny electrical imbalances between crystals of solid electrolyte material that hurt the performance of solid-state batteries. Image: MIT News; iStock Batteries Energy storage Materials science and engineering DMSE School of Engineering Research National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/building-scholarly-community-shass-faculty-fellows-0702 The SHASS Faculty Fellows Program, administered by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative, is fostering new research projects and creating space for supportive and interdisciplinary discussion. Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/building-scholarly-community-shass-faculty-fellows-0702 Benjamin Daniel | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences <p dir="ltr">On a Wednesday afternoon in April, a cohort of scholars from the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) gathered in MIT’s Lewis Music Library.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">This group of seven professors are the inaugural&nbsp;<a href="https://shass.mit.edu/meet-our-community/faculty-academic-staff/faculty-fellows-awardees/">SHASS Faculty Fellows</a>, a semester-long&nbsp;<a href="https://shass.mit.edu/for-faculty-staff/faculty-fellows/">program</a> launched this past spring. The faculty represent a variety of disciplines across the school. They met biweekly through the spring to connect over lunch and present updates on their respective research projects.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">At this particular meeting, associate professor of music Emily Richmond Pollock presented some of her work — a chapter about an opera festival in Sarasota, Florida — which, she says, started from “my own curiosity about how American institutions relate to opera’s traditions and practices.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">After Pollock’s presentation, the group discussed and provided a sounding board for her work. It’s precisely the type of scholarly environment the SHASS Faculty Fellows program was designed to foster.</p><p dir="ltr">“The fellows program is a recognition of the fact that not only do we benefit from being in conversation with other scholars, but even more so when in conversation with scholars who do things differently than we do, who approach problems with different opening questions and methodologies,” says Anne McCants, the Ann F. Friedlaender Professor of History and Faculty Fellows Program Committee chair.</p><p dir="ltr">Along with committee member and literature professor Arthur Bahr, McCants serves as a kind of moderator during the discussions, asking pointed questions and interrogating participants’ assumptions.</p><p dir="ltr">“A small group of people coming from diverse scholarly backgrounds meeting regularly to share a meal and sustained conversation can have a truly outsized impact on their scholarship,” McCants adds.</p><p><strong>Time to focus and connect</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Faculty must apply to take part in the program, and are selected by the program committee. The program is administered by the <a href="https://mithic.mit.edu/">MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC)</a>.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Participants take advantage of opportunities to share and discuss ideas with students, too. Volha Charnysh, a Faculty Fellow and the Ford Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science, presented research on the effects of large-scale humanitarian aid to the&nbsp;<a href="https://shass.mit.edu/for-students/burchard-scholars-program/">Burchard Scholars</a>. The Burchard Scholars program connects faculty and promising MIT sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated excellence in some aspect of the humanities, arts, or social sciences.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Projects can run the gamut. Participants might develop scholarly articles, develop book manuscripts, or dig deeper into existing research.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“The Faculty Fellows Program has two primary aims: to enrich faculty members’ scholarly programs, and to foster collegial community within the school,” says Heather Paxson, associate dean for faculty in SHASS, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Anthropology, and MITHIC faculty co-lead. “Participants in the program gain a better sense of the breadth and depth of our school’s scholarly contributions, and some may forge lasting connections with colleagues they might not otherwise have gotten to know.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">For Pollock, the fellows program this past spring was an opportunity to focus on her current research.</p><p dir="ltr">“I’m working on a book about a set of five opera festivals in the United States,” Pollock says of the project, “Opera on Uncommon Ground: Five American Festivals.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“These are annual, seasonal opera companies where rare repertoire is often performed alongside canonical works, in places that are outside of major cities, and performed in unusual spaces.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“I hope that anyone who loves opera will be able to read and enjoy my book,” she says, including “opera ‘superfans’” Pollock says she has in mind while writing.</p><p dir="ltr">Pollock says the program gave her the space she needed to continue her project. “This semester [in the program] has been wonderful so I could get back to drafting and really concentrate on a book I am excited to write.”</p><p><strong>“I am so inspired each week when we meet”</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Faculty Fellow Richard Nielsen, associate professor of political science, faculty director of the&nbsp;<a href="https://cis.mit.edu/regions/mena">MIT-MENA Program</a>, and a&nbsp;<a href="https://ssp.mit.edu/">Security Studies Program</a> affiliate, is hard at work on his project, “Fighting War with Divine Intervention,” a book about how combatants’ beliefs affect wars. Using material from a diverse set of cases — the Islamic State, the Confederate States of America, and the current U.S. engagement with Iran — he wants to understand when claims about divine intervention motivate fighters and citizens to fight harder and longer for victory, even when the state of the battlefield strongly suggests they have lost already.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“We understand a lot about how religion might shape the conditions for war and peace, but religion matters during wars, too, and we understand surprisingly little about how religious claims affect leaders and fighters in combat,” he says.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Nielsen lauds the collegial atmosphere available in the fellows program, citing the importance of engagement with scholars outside his research area as a significant draw. “The best part has actually been the engagement with a diverse set of fellows,” he notes, “pursuing a dizzying variety of humanist and social science projects. I am so inspired each week we meet, and every single project has me exclaiming ‘I wish I was writing this!’”</p><p dir="ltr">“It adds a regular ongoing conversation with scholars not like yourself who will push you, likely accidentally, in unexpected directions,” McCants says of the fellows’ meetings. Conferring with other participants about their projects, meanwhile, helps Nielsen “return to my research with fresh eyes and enthusiasm,” he says.</p><p dir="ltr">Pollock appreciates the camaraderie available as a program participant. “I value my colleagues so highly — the other fellows and mentors are people I really admire and respect — and it’s been fun to trade work and get to read work in progress far outside my field,” she says.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Twelve professors have been named SHASS Faculty Fellows for the&nbsp;<a href="https://shass.mit.edu/twelve-professors-selected-for-2026-27-cohort-of-shass-faculty-fellows/">2026-27 academic year</a>, with six taking part in the fall and another six in the spring.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">The inaugural group of fellows included:&nbsp;</p><ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="e8f3b0a586b1c92e936852da203a332a7">Héctor Beltrán, the Class of 1957 Career Development Associate Professor of Anthropology;&nbsp;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="e480bb8e48121e4d96529249c5a88b436">Volha Charnysh, the Ford Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science;&nbsp;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="e24efe60de250b79694af317d4fcafbae">Kevin Dorst, associate professor of philosophy;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="ee2a5aff3437a387b9b13dce2a60d74de">Richard Nielsen, associate professor of political science;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="e6c6221d61c3bdf4d98dc8357e05750b5">Emily Richmond Pollock, associate professor of music;&nbsp;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="edcabf016d8670da392efbbb10c57b72e">Jessica Ruffin, assistant professor of literature; and&nbsp;</li><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1" data-list-item-id="ee5650e5c10b039db259b02c1f8ca2475">Robin Scheffler, associate professor of science, technology, and society.</li></ul><p dir="ltr">Applications for the next cohort of fellows will open this fall.</p> Political scientists Rich Nielsen and Volha Charnysh and philosopher Kevin Dorst (seated, from left) discuss music professor Emily Richmond Pollock's (foreground) project. Each is a member of the inaugural SHASS Faculty Fellows cohort. Photo: Hanley Valentin School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences Anthropology Literature Music and theater arts Philosophy Political science Program in STS Security and military studies Faculty Community Research https://news.mit.edu/2026/why-are-some-bacterial-genes-high-purines-0702 In certain species of bacteria, the answer lies in shielding RNA transcripts from a quality-control factor called Rho. Understanding the requirements for expressible sequences is critical for expression engineering of therapeutic agents. Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/why-are-some-bacterial-genes-high-purines-0702 Lillian Eden | Department of Biology <p dir="ltr">In the study of bacteria, a longstanding dogma held that two molecular machines — RNA polymerase, which leads the way in transcribing DNA into RNA, and ribosomes, which bring up the rear translating RNA into proteins — worked so closely in tandem that they were effectively attached.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">This close coupling of transcription and translation in bacteria was thought to be fundamental to gene expression in part because the trailing ribosome could shield nascent gene products from an effective and omnipresent quality-control protein called Rho.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">In bacteria that exhibit something called runaway transcription, however, the polymerase instead speeds ahead, unhitched from its protective ribosome. Inexplicably, however, in bacteria that exhibit this runaway transcription, such as&nbsp;<em>Bacillus subtilis</em>, Rho targeted primarily noncoding, useless RNA products.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">New research from the Department of Biology reveals that the secret to Rho’s quality-control specificity lies in the sequence composition of nucleotide bases that make up coding strands of DNA.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“We started with a hypothesis that Rho was regulated by sequence, but the fact that the sequence alone was enough to protect any gene in the entire&nbsp;<em>B. subtilis</em> genome from Rho was really surprising,” says Julia Dierksheide PhD ’26, a graduate student in <a href="https://biology.mit.edu/profile/gene-wei-li/" target="_blank">the Li Lab</a> and first author of a paper&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-026-02389-1" target="_blank">recently published in <em>Nature Microbiology</em></a>. “That’s a really diverse range of sequences — what sequence feature is shared by every single gene in the genome?”&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Barricading with bias</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Rho serves as a termination factor, meaning that it is a crucial mechanism for preventing bacteria from wasting precious resources by making RNA transcripts that serve no purpose.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">All the information a bacterial cell needs is encoded in its DNA, which is made up of two strands of nucleic acids. These strands twist together to form a double helix, with genetic information codified in pairs of bases: purines guanine and adenine are matched with pyrimidines cytosine and thymine, respectively. Any sequence that gives rise to RNA transcripts is stored in complement to a parallel, noncoding strand, meaning that a large portion of genetic material is transcriptionally useless.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Coding DNA strands in certain bacteria were known to be significantly higher in purines guanine and adenine compared to the rest of the bacterial genome. The researchers found that this purine bias alone shields productive mRNA transcripts from Rho-mediated termination.</p><p dir="ltr">“I love having a big, complicated dataset and trying to reduce that to biological meaning,” Dierksheide says. “It seems like Rho itself has been broadly shaping the evolution of the&nbsp;<em>B. subtilis</em> genome to create these sequence composition biases.”&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Bacterial species that, over generations, have lost Rho no longer exhibit this strong purine bias.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Rho also serves as a regulatory factor in bacteria becoming motile, forming biofilms, or sporulating, all of which are critical for biology and survival. The purine bias could also provide a layer of protection against the insertion of foreign DNA, for example, when a viral bacteriophage infects bacteria.</p><p dir="ltr">“Bacteria exist as single cells, so everything that they do, they have to do through gene expression,” Dierksheide says. “Understanding the fundamental details about how gene expression works, how a cell encodes all the information it needs to survive in the nucleotide sequence of the genome, is really exciting.”</p><p><strong>Future directions</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Although the exact mechanism underlying Rho’s specificity remains unclear, these results crack an underlying code in the composition of bacterial genomes.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Dierksheide said she hoped to&nbsp;perform a similar screen to characterize Rho’s specificity in&nbsp;<em>Escherichia coli</em>, which diverged from&nbsp;<em>B. subtilis</em> on the evolutionary tree an estimated 2 billion years ago and still exhibits coupled transcription-translation, where the transcribing RNA polymerase is closely followed by a translating ribosome.</p><p dir="ltr">The high sequence specificity of&nbsp;<em>B. subtilis</em>&nbsp;Rho is crucial for the protection of its runaway RNA polymerase, in which that molecular machine speeds ahead of the ribosome. A systematic comparison to&nbsp;<em>E. coli</em>&nbsp;Rho could help reveal how this heightened stringency arose.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">This information will be critical for engineering diverse bacterial species for applications including the production of therapeutic agents. Other&nbsp;bacterial species, such as&nbsp;<em>B.&nbsp;subtilis</em>, may be better models for this process because they have abundant secretion pathways, according to Dierksheide, making it much easier to produce and isolate proteins in large quantities.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“Our findings reveal an important criterion for successful sequence design that must be considered in expression engineering,” says associate department head, associate professor of biology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator <a href="https://biology.mit.edu/profile/gene-wei-li/">Gene-Wei Li</a>, the lead author of the study. “There are so many cryptic messages in the genome, like the purine bias, and we are just beginning to be able to decipher what they mean.”</p> Rho (ring of blue and orange orbs) serves as a termination factor — a protein that halts the production of single-stranded genetic blueprints (red) that will serve no purpose. Rho’s specificity for dealing with this “transcriptional noise” was long a mystery, but MIT researchers found that a purine bias in coding gene sequences shields productive transcripts from Rho termination. Image: Lillian Eden/Department of Biology, with elements from AdobeStock School of Science Biology Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Bacteria DNA RNA Genomics Genetic engineering Research https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-media-innovating-and-educating-next-250-years-america During a "Washington Post Live" panel discussion with ASU President Michael Crow, President Sally Kornbluth explored how universities are preparing the next generation of scientists to lead in America’s rapidly changing technological landscape. Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:30:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-media-innovating-and-educating-next-250-years-america <p>Without federal support for curiosity-driven research, the innovation and talent pipeline that has helped ensure our nation’s prosperity and safety could run dry, warned President Sally Kornbluth during a <em>Washington Post</em> Live event.&nbsp;</p><p>During "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/washington-post-live/the-next-generation/2026/06/09/362f1de9-e3c2-4187-ad19-837b28d126d3_video.html">The Next Generation</a>," a panel discussion moderated by <em>Washington Post</em> reporter Zachary Goldfarb at <em>The Washington Post’</em>s “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/events/in-person/2026/06/04/building-america-summit-2026">Building America Summit</a>,” Kornbluth and Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow joined forces for a spirited discussion on the importance of curiosity-driven research, examining how universities are preparing the next generation of scientists to lead in America’s rapidly changing technological landscape.&nbsp;</p><p>“Many of the things we have in our everyday lives, whether they be medical advances, technological advances, a lot of these things came from 30, 40, 50 years of scientists just trying to figure out how things work,” emphasized Kornbluth.</p><p>Kornbluth pointed to MIT’s curriculum that focuses on teaching foundational skills that can be applied to a myriad of technological advances,&nbsp;skills that will be indispensable to leading in an AI-enabled world.</p><p>“I do not think that any of our traditional subjects are now outmoded [by AI]. It’s how you approach them,” said Kornbluth. “In our new curriculum, not only are we leaning into basic STEM fields. We really feel we have to resurrect some of the old, moral and civic and ethical educational goals much more strongly because we want all these kids that are learning to be leading-edge technologists, to come at it from a moral, civic and ethical perspective.”</p><p><strong>Artificial intelligence</strong></p><p>Key to Kornbluth’s mission is maintaining a human-centric approach to AI. Inspired by MIT’s motto, “mens et manus” (mind and hand), she shared: “We really want students to be able to use physical AI. We want our students to still be able to build things, but use AI as an augmentation tool.”</p><p>Kornbluth expressed the importance of teaching interested faculty and students how to best use AI as a tool and her commitment to uplifting student collaboration.&nbsp;</p><p>“We’re putting a big emphasis on things like teamwork. So, [students] need to be able to use these tools and come together towards goals, because you could imagine a situation that AI becomes your buddy instead of your study group. We don’t really want that to happen,” said Kornbluth.&nbsp;</p><p>Using AI effectively requires writing strong prompts. Kornbluth discussed how foundational knowledge in fields like math, physics, biology and chemistry, along with teaching students how to write and communicate clearly and effectively, enables students to use AI responsibly when it comes to applying these new technologies to scientific research.</p><p>Students need to be able “to take that knowledge and think about how they can use AI to the greatest good and also learn to write the right prompts,” said Kornbluth.&nbsp;</p><p>Kornbluth noted the MIT Sloan School of Management’s unique role in AI exploration. “It’s because the students are all coming with business experience and the demand out there in the field for them to have really strong AI knowledge is very high,” she said.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>The impact of frozen funds</strong></p><p>Federal funding fuels curiosity-driven research—the groundwork of medical, technological and countless scientific breakthroughs.</p><p>“It is very difficult to make a groundbreaking discovery that’s going to revolutionize human life because you want to do that. You really have to be figuring out how things work and traditionally that sort of research in this country has been funded by the government because it does not have an immediate return,” said Kornbluth.</p><p>Discussing issues with federal funding, Kornbluth said that although money has been appropriated for universities, it has not been released to them by and large.</p><p>“We’re really trying to figure out what the funding stream is going to be going forward,” said Kornbluth.&nbsp;</p><p>When asked about the consequences of these frozen funds, Kornbluth pointed to the long timeline required to develop life-saving treatments.&nbsp;</p><p>As one example, Kornbluth pointed to diabetes treatments.&nbsp;</p><p>“[Treatments] started with injections of insulin saving people and now it’s automated pumps and CGMs [Continuous Glucose Monitors],” said Kornbluth. “The next phase is going to be an actual functional cure, which is stem cell implantation—masking the cells so they’re not rejected by the immune system. But it takes a lot of basic work to be able to get there.”</p><p>“That [diabetes] is just one area. You can extrapolate that to cancer therapy,” said Kornbluth.&nbsp;</p><p>Investment in basic research can advance treatments such as immunotherapy.&nbsp;</p><p>“Immunotherapy is just in its infancy—it doesn’t work in every possible kind of cancer at this point. But all of the modifications that are being done now in basic science laboratories through to pharmaceutical companies and biotech are making it more and more broadly applicable so that pancreatic cancer is not absolutely a death sentence now,” Kornbluth emphasized.</p><p><strong>National impact</strong></p><p>Beyond research and AI, the president concluded by highlighting the strength of MIT’s student body, programs, and spinouts.&nbsp;</p><p>Kornbluth underscored the value of an MIT education for students and the greater economy.&nbsp;</p><p>Twenty percent of MIT’s class of 2029 were first-generation students. Education“is the best pathway to economic mobility,” said Kornbluth.&nbsp;</p><p>She continued: “MIT has spun out north of 30,000 companies. The economic impact of MIT on this country is equivalent to the 14^th largest GDP in the world. We are having a huge impact on the economy and we’re producing the next generation of talent.”</p><p>Though MIT is highly selective, Kornbluth noted it is financially accessible through its free tuition program for students with parental incomes under $200,000. She further highlighted&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-undergraduates-help-us-high-schoolers-tackle-calculus-0310">MIT for America,</a> an initiative expanding access to calculus, a required course for institutions such as MIT, in under-resourced high schools nationwide.</p><p>Kornbluth and Crow concluded the panel by highlighting how their respective universities learn from one another.</p><p>“What we [ASU] learn from MIT is, where’s the edge of technology<em>,”&nbsp;</em>said Crow. “We learn how master technologists, and master scientists work in small groups.” For ASU, which has a student population of over 150,000, “ it’s instructive to learn and then operate at a different scale and in a different way. There’s a lot of back and forth,” he said.</p><p>Kornbluth expressed her hope for MIT to continue its longstanding tradition of research and education in service of the nation’s next 250 years.</p><p>“As a smaller private institution, we’re putting a much stronger footprint in how we can impact people well beyond the MIT walls,” said Kornbluth, “as well as having a scientific impact on society through our discoveries.”&nbsp;</p> MIT President Sally Kornbluth and ASU President Michael Crow discuss how universities are preparing the next generation of scientists to lead in America’s rapidly changing technological landscape. Screenshot President Sally Kornbluth Research Curiosity Funding Artificial intelligence Students Education, teaching, academics Health https://news.mit.edu/2026/boleslaw-wyslouch-steps-down-director-laboratory-nuclear-science-0701 Wyslouch remains the director of the Bates Research and Engineering Center and will continue research on heavy ion collisions. Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:30:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/boleslaw-wyslouch-steps-down-director-laboratory-nuclear-science-0701 School of Science <p dir="ltr">After more than 10 years at the helm of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS), Boleslaw “Bolek” Wyslouch will step down to continue research in nuclear physics as director of the Bates Research and Engineering Center, a subgroup of LNS.</p><p dir="ltr">“LNS scientists, including Bolek himself, are world leaders in particle and nuclear physics,” says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics. “Bolek has ensured that LNS has flourished during his time as director, supporting our teams’ critical large-scale, international, collaborative research.”</p><p dir="ltr">The largest university-based program of its kind in the country, LNS was established in 1946 to provide support for basic research in the fields of nuclear and high-energy physics. Wyslouch has served as LNS director since 2015.</p><p>Since Bolek’s appointment as LNS director in 2015, he has helped significantly increase the Laboratory’s research volume. This growth reflects expansion across many areas of nuclear and particle physics, with LNS supporting several new faculty members. His vision was instrumental in bringing low-energy nuclear physics into the laboratory as a major new research area, the only subfield of nuclear physics in which the laboratory had not previously engaged.</p><p dir="ltr">“The leadership to inspire this capacity growth brought in young and vibrant faculty research groups, which helped lead to the expansion in LNS research volume,” says Rick Peterson, executive director of the lab. “Further, this new technical expertise facilitated new partnerships across the national laboratories, enabling LNS to develop and build a presence at all U.S.-based nuclear physics labs.” Most recently, LNS is engaged in an effort to compete for bids to the Department of Energy’s Genesis mission, a potential source of funding in the AI era.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">During his tenure, LNS saw the successful bid for the National Science Foundation-funded&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2020/nsf-announces-mit-led-institute-artificial-intelligence-fundamental-interactions-0826">AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions</a>, led by LNS scientists and supporting more than 25 physics and AI senior researchers at MIT and Harvard, Northeastern, and Tufts universities.&nbsp;Last year, the Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP), part of LNS, also received a&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/gift-supports-mit-theoretical-physics-research-education-0528">$20 million donation from the Leinweber Foundation</a> to create a Leinweber Institute within CTP.</p><p dir="ltr">“Perhaps most importantly, Bolek led LNS toward a culture where each individual is valued for their own contributions, regardless of their status within a lab group,” says Peterson, adding that he developed new pathways for postdoc support and sponsored other community-building activities.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">At Bates, Bolek has led and overseen a wide range of complex engineering and scientific projects. These include the development of advanced particle detectors for major international research facilities such as CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Jefferson Lab. Under his leadership, the laboratory established collaborations with industry partners on innovative technologies, including next-generation batteries, advanced accelerator systems, and medical applications of nuclear science. Through these efforts, the laboratory is helping advance both fundamental research and the development of technologies with broad scientific and societal impact.</p><p dir="ltr">In his own research, Wyslouch is one of the founders and leaders of the relativistic heavy ion program in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva.</p><p dir="ltr">Wyslouch studies the interactions between subatomic particles by looking at the very energetic collisions of heavy ions. The earliest runs of the LHC showed that hot plasma strongly suppressed production of high-energy jets, redistributing the jet energy among slow particles. Wyslouch’s CMS group further discovered surprisingly strong collective effects in ion-ion collisions, as well as in proton-proton and proton-ion collisions.</p><p dir="ltr">Before joining CMS, Wyslouch conducted high-energy and nuclear experiments at CERN and at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider facility, and took a leadership role at Brookhaven in creating PHOBOS, a project designed to create and study a quark-gluon plasma.</p><p dir="ltr">After completing his undergraduate work in physics at the University of Warsaw, Poland, in 1981, Wyslouch began his association with MIT as a doctoral student, earning a PhD in physics in 1987. After postdoctoral appointments at LNS and CERN, he joined the MIT faculty in the Department of Physics in 1991. He has also served as the head of the Nuclear and Particle Physics Division of the Department of Physics since 2013.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Wyslouch was recognized for his contribution to education at MIT with a 2004 William W. Buechner Teaching Prize. He was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2013, and as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024.</p> Boleslaw Wyslouch has served as LNS director since 2015. Photo: Justin Knight School of Science Physics Laboratory for Nuclear Science Faculty Leadership Research Department of Energy (DoE) https://news.mit.edu/2026/portable-ultrasound-system-could-make-reliable-breast-imaging-more-accessible-0701 The new technology, which generates high-resolution, 3D images of breast tissue, requires no expertise to operate and could be used at home. Wed, 01 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/portable-ultrasound-system-could-make-reliable-breast-imaging-more-accessible-0701 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>For people at high risk of developing breast cancer, yearly mammograms may not be enough to detect tumors early. To make earlier diagnosis easier, an MIT team has developed portable detectors based on ultrasound, which could be used much more frequently.</p><p>In a new paper, the team reports that they have improved the resolution of the images produced by their system, making it easier to spot potential tumors, as well as cysts and microcalcifications. The researchers also created a user interface that makes it simple to use the ultrasound probe, even for people with no expertise in ultrasonography.</p><p>This system, they believe, could not only enable earlier detection, but also allow for long-term monitoring following breast cancer treatment — either in a doctor’s office or at home.</p><p>“At each time interval, the computer interface guides you to position the device in exactly the same location, which is important for the longitudinal monitoring of a given tissue. It’s very intuitive and quite easy to use,” says Canan Dagdeviren,&nbsp;an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT and the senior author of the study.</p><p>Former MIT postdoc Md Osman Goni Nayeem and MIT graduate students Shrihari Viswanath and Hyeokjun Yoon are the lead authors of the paper, which <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74708-3" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Nature Communications</em></a>.</p><p><strong>Higher-quality imaging</strong></p><p>While many people receive annual mammograms to check for breast cancer, it is possible for cancer to develop in between these annual screenings. These cancers, known as interval cancers, tend to be more aggressive, and they account for 20 to 30 percent of all breast cancer cases.</p><p>After losing an aunt to an interval breast cancer in 2015, Dagdeviren was motivated to develop a screening technique that would be more effective on women with dense breast tissue and could be performed more often than mammography. She decided on ultrasound, which uses sound waves to create images of tissue. Ultrasounds are often used to follow up on abnormal mammograms, but current ultrasound technology requires large equipment and a trained operator.</p><p>Earlier this year, Dagdeviren’s lab published a&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2026/portable-ultrasound-sensor-may-enable-earlier-detection-breast-cancer-0202" target="_blank">study</a> in which they demonstrated a small ultrasound probe&nbsp;attached to an acquisition and processing module that is a little larger than a smartphone.&nbsp;This compact system can create a 3D image of the entire breast by scanning just two or three locations.</p><p>In the new <em>Nature Communications</em> study, the researchers reported several advances that allow for higher resolution imaging and greater ease of use.</p><p>One key advance is the addition of a “backing layer” to the ultrasound transducer. This layer helps to contain and focus the ultrasound waves, improving the resolution and quality of the resulting images. It also increases the range of soundwave frequencies that can be absorbed, and reduces both acoustical noise and electrical noise, further enhancing the images.</p><p>“With the backing layer, the device produces more accurate and sharper images, with a wider operating range of frequencies,” Nayeem says.</p><p>To further improve&nbsp;the quality of the images, the researchers designed an algorithm that adaptively performs a process called beamforming. This algorithm allows the system to compensate for differences in the speed at which sound waves travel through different types of tissue, such as skin and fat.&nbsp;</p><p>“What we are trying to do is predict the speed of sound properties of the tissue you’re imaging, and then use that to reconstruct the image more accurately. We see up to a 10 percent improvement in the resolution just by applying this technique,” Viswanath says.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers asked 10 volunteers, who were not experts in ultrasound technology, to use the system to try to identify small micro targets embedded in a “tissue phantom” — a gel-like material engineered to mimic human tissue.&nbsp;Participants had a much higher success rate locating the spheres when they used the new system than when they used a traditional ultrasound probe.</p><p><strong>A user-friendly system</strong></p><p>For the new version of this system, the researchers also created a user interface, displayed on a computer screen, that guides the user to place the probe in the correct location. This could be especially important for tracking progression of treatments such as neoadjuvent therapy, or long-term monitoring of known abnormalities such as fibroadenomas or microcalcifications.</p><p>In a trial with seven people, the researchers found that the users were able to accurately place the probe in the correct location each time they did a scan.&nbsp;</p><p>“Conventionally, you need an operator to move the probe around the breast, but we made a computer-vision interface for users to do it by themselves. This is very user-friendly and it shows live images on the screen,” Yoon says.</p><p>For future versions of this technology, the researchers hope to create an interface that could be used with a cellphone or tablet, making the system easier to carry. In addition to enabling earlier diagnosis, this type of system could make ultrasound more accessible to patients in areas where there aren’t enough trained ultrasound technicians, the researchers say.</p><p>Dagdeviren and some of her students now hope to form a company to work toward making the technology commercially available. While breast cancer diagnosis is their first target application, they hope to expand it to many others.</p><p>“The technology is so versatile that it can be used for any soft tissue imaging, from ovarian cancer to measuring endometriosis progression, or fetal monitoring,” Dagdeviren says.</p><p>The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, the MIT Media Lab Consortium, and a Tata Center Technology and Design Fellowship.</p> Four views of vivo ultrasound images show, from left to right: a cyst; breast implant; dense fibrous tissue; and solid mass. The top row shows the conventional 2D ultrasound images while the bottom row shows the corresponding 3D images, allowing for easier detection. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Cancer Diagnostics Sensors Media Lab School of Architecture and Planning National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-urban-design-leads-to-better-wellness-0701 An extensive study of U.S. cities identifies walkable neighborhoods, urban greenery, and access to amenities as key contributors to residents’ health. Wed, 01 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-urban-design-leads-to-better-wellness-0701 Peter Dizikes | MIT News <p>A new big-data analysis of the U.S. pinpoints how urban design aids the health of city residents — especially when cities provide walking opportunities, greenery, and mixed-use streets with a blend of commercial and residential activity.&nbsp;</p><p>The study examines tens of thousands of urban census-bureau tracts in the U.S., seeing how city features correlate with population health measures, while accounting for socioeconomic considerations as well.&nbsp;</p><p>“We found that on a very large scale, urban planning and design, such as the availability of different amenities and their spatial arrangement, plays a critical role in population health outomes,” says Winston Yap, a visiting scholar at the MIT Senseable City Lab, a postdoc at Cornell University, and co-author of a new paper outlining the study’s findings.&nbsp;</p><p>While there is not one design template for all locations, short and well-connected blocks with a variety of amenities, as well as the strategic placement of parks, all help well-being — physiologically and psychologically.&nbsp;</p><p>“We usually think about physical health first, but we also found a high correlation between good design and mental health,” says Fabio Duarte, an MIT researcher and co-author of the paper. “If you are walking more, it is not only a matter of physical fitness, but gives people a chance to avoid isolation, have serendipitous meetings with people, and at least see there are others around.”</p><p>The paper, “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00151-9" target="_blank">Urban motifs associated with population health</a>,” appears today in <em>Nature Health</em>. The authors are Yap; Duarte, who is associate director and a principal research scientist at MIT Senseable City Lab; postdocs Yu Zheng, Kee Moon Zhang, and Peng Luo, who is also an incoming assistant professor at the University of Iowa; Paolo Vineis, a professor at Imperial College, London; Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab; and Filip Biljecki, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.</p><p><strong>Only connect</strong></p><p>The researchers say they conducted the analysis not just due to an interest in cities, but out of recognition that health care systems are often swamped, and preventative health measures are ever-more important.&nbsp;</p><p>“We wanted to do this study because health care systems around the world are overloaded,” Yap says. “There’s a lot of burden on health care systems, and there is a need not just for treatment but for prevention as well, for obesity, high cholesterol, depression and other mental health issues, and more.”&nbsp;</p><p>To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed 28,323 census tracts, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau along with health data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They then used geospatial data, including more than 8 million street view images, to see how urban form related to the health status of residents in those areas. The study accounts for socioeconomic factors and other variables in building an assessment of the relationship between design and health. The study confimed that by themselves, socioeconomic factors are associated with urban health disparities; it then examined the relative impact of differences in urban design in those different settings.&nbsp;</p><p>“By bringing together open demographic, health, and environmental data, the study highlights the importance of open data accessibility for planning healthy cities,” says Ratti.</p><p>The scholars also applied a graph deep-learning model to the data, an emerging machine-learning technique they used to help understand which key factors in urban design are most connected to health outcomes.&nbsp;</p><p>The research reveals that in some cases, rectangularity in city blocks, and “building spread,” meaning structures that cover the full size of their lots, can enhance wellness. Examples of this include Manhattan or Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, where mixed-use buildings on relatively short blocks create many amenities and a variety of walking routes. That said, circular and curving street forms can also work, as long as they feature a lot of interconnectedness as well.&nbsp;</p><p>Urban greenery is almost always a significant factor in urban wellness, with parks scoring high as a facet of city design that helps resident health. Beyond that, expanding the tree canopy can also help urban health outcomes.&nbsp;</p><p>The presence of cultural institutions and restaurants are also linked to general health, while access to health care amenities are understandably connected to physical health improvements. In general, access to points of interest, broadly defined, whether cultural or commercial, is a significant factor in abetting better health, in cities across the country.&nbsp;</p><p>“One of the major contributions of the study is that we look at not only one or two cities, but the entire United States,” Yap says. “In a large-scale study, we were trying to find patterns that were consistent across different urban contexts, as well as populations with different characteristics. Just using this data, we can predict very confidently the population health outcomes for a neighborhood.”</p><p><strong>Knowing where to intervene</strong></p><p>The research also provides a kind of road map for urban planners and city officials when it comes to policy decisions and local improvements. Among other things, the study suggests where cities might see the greatest return on investment in urban improvements, in health terms. Improvements in lower-income neighborhoods, on aggregate, may generate about four times the added health benefits than the same level of investment in better-off areas that already realize the benefits of good urban amenities.&nbsp;</p><p>“It’s important to know where to intervene,” Yap says.&nbsp;</p><p>“I think for me it shows how intertwined different policies are,” Duarte adds. “Some funding for urban development could have a direct influence on health, and could be more inexpensive than [direct spending on health].”</p><p>The researchers regard the study as just one empirical step in this domain. As they note, additional studies could observe changes over time, to further enhance our picture of the connection between urban design and health. Still, as the authors write in the paper, “we believe that our broad picture provides an overarching scaffolding for the understanding of the social and material determinants of health and can guide [further] analytical studies.”&nbsp;</p><p>The research received support from the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) program of the National Research Foundation Singapore; the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART); and the MIT Senseable City Lab consortium. It is part of the Largescale 3D Geospatial Data for Urban Analytics project, supported by the National University of Singapore.</p> People relax on the Boston Common lawn beneath the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Image: iStock Research Cities Public health Mental health Sustainability Climate change Plants Urban studies and planning Policy School of Architecture and Planning https://news.mit.edu/2026/brain-language-network-more-extensive-than-previously-thought-0701 A new study reveals that parts of the brain located far from the canonical language-processing centers are also involved in language comprehension. Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/brain-language-network-more-extensive-than-previously-thought-0701 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>For decades, neuroscientists have known that specific regions in the brain’s left hemisphere are responsible for processing language. However, a new study by MIT researchers shows that language processing also occurs in many other parts of the brain.</p><p>Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from more than 700 people, the researchers identified 17 additional regions of the brain that appear to play a role in language. These regions are scattered across the brain, including parts of the <a href="https://mcgovern.mit.edu/2026/01/22/language-processing-beyond-the-neocortex/" target="_blank">cerebellum</a>, hippocampus, and cerebral cortex, and they make up about 5 percent of the total volume of the adult brain — about the size of a large strawberry.</p><p>“Even though there are all these distant components, it’s pretty restricted in terms of volume. You don’t need that much of the brain to do language,” says Evelina Fedorenko, an MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research,and the senior author of the study.</p><p>Exactly how these regions contribute to language processing is still to be discovered, although the researchers have made some progress toward determining the functions of the cerebellar regions that they identified.</p><p>MIT postdoc Agata Wolna&nbsp;is the lead author of the paper, which <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2026/06/24/JNEUROSCI.0638-25.2026" target="_blank">appears in the <em>Journal of Neuroscience</em></a>. Other authors include Aaron Wright, a K. Lisa Yang Post-Baccalaureate Research Scholar at MIT; Colton Casto, a graduate student at Harvard University; Samuel Hutchinson, a graduate student at MIT; and Benjamin Lipkin PhD ’26.</p><p><strong>Tracking language</strong></p><p>The brain’s language processing centers include Broca’s area, first discovered in the 1800s, plus additional regions in the left frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Scientists have found that some of the corresponding areas of the right hemisphere also contribute to processing language, especially the social-emotional components of language.</p><p>There have also been hints that other parts of the brain might be involved in language processing. Early in her career, Fedorenko’s language studies often showed active brain regions outside of the canonical language centers, but she says she was discouraged from including them in her papers.</p><p>“When we initially started looking at language, in the first couple of papers, I tried to be comprehensive and include anything that seemed consistent across participants, and there was a huge amount of resistance,” she says. “People would say things like, ‘Well, we know those are not language areas, so please focus on the language areas.’”</p><p>In the new study, she and Wolna wanted to revisit those brain scans and see if they could systematically identify language regions outside of the standard language-processing areas.</p><p>To do that, they analyzed data from 772 people who had been scanned in Fedorenko’s lab since 2013. Each of these participants underwent a task known as a language localizer, which is used to determine the location of language processing areas for each subject.&nbsp;</p><p>During the test, participants read or listen to sentences as well as sequences of nonwords. For each person, the researchers measure the difference in strength of response when reading real sentences or nonsense sequences. The brain areas that work harder during the sentence condition are considered to be doing something relevant to language, especially if they respond while both reading and listening to sentences.</p><p>“It’s a very simple paradigm that lets you identify this core language system in individual brains,” Wolna says.</p><p>When searching for language areas, the researchers usually use a relatively strict statistical threshold. In this study, they relaxed the threshold and also used some targeted searches in subcortical areas, in hopes of finding all areas that may contribute to language processing.“We always see this frontal temporal network, but there’s quite a lot of evidence that there are other regions that are also critical for language processing,” Wolna says. “By using a laxer threshold and zooming in on areas with weak MRI signal, we tried to maximize the chances of finding small and weakly responsive regions outside of this left frontal temporal system.”</p><p><strong>A widespread network</strong></p><p>For about 490 of the participants, the researchers also had data on how their brain responded during a spatial working memory task — remembering the locations of flashing squares on a grid. This task engages a brain network called the multiple demand system, which does not overlap with the core language areas.</p><p>This task allowed the researchers to ask whether any of the newly identified language-sensitive regions specifically respond to language and not more general cognitive processes.</p><p>Of the 17 new language sites that were revealed by this study, five are located in the cerebellum, which is mainly involved in coordinating the body’s movement. In a&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2026/satellite-language-network-in-the-brain-0205" target="_blank">study</a> published earlier this year, researchers led by Casto found that three of those cerebellar regions also became engaged during some nonlinguistic cognitive tasks, which was also seen in the new study.</p><p>“Those areas that respond to both language and some other tasks could be really interesting and important because they may be doing something like integrating information from different cortical systems,” Fedorenko says.</p><p>They also found language-selective regions in the medial frontal cortex, the bottom surface of the left temporal lobe, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. The researchers now plan to further study how these brain regions might contribute to language processing.</p><p>“We can now test some ideas from past work, and also more rigorously characterize these regions across different kinds of language manipulations, and different kinds of nonlinguistic tasks, to try to understand what it is that they’re doing,” Fedorenko says.</p><p>The research was funded by the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, the McGovern Institute, MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence.</p> MIT scientists have found that parts of the brain outside of traditional language processing regions also respond selectively to language, including parts of the medial cortex (shown in red). Credit: MIT News; figure courtesy of the researchers Research Brain and cognitive sciences Neuroscience Learning McGovern Institute School of Science https://news.mit.edu/2026/interdisciplinary-mit-teams-win-top-honors-nasa-competition-0630 Three MIT teams took five top awards in the 2026 NASA RASC-AL Competition for designing critical elements for the moon base and future missions to Mars. Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:30:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/interdisciplinary-mit-teams-win-top-honors-nasa-competition-0630 Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics | System Design and Management <p dir="ltr">Three teams comprising 35 students across eight different MIT departments and Wellesley College have been at work since fall 2025, designing critical early infrastructure elements that a moon base would require. This June, their designs were recognized with five awards at NASA’s 2026 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts — Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Forum.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Among 75 submissions and 14 finalists, the MIT teams earned first and second place in the competition, as well as three best-in-theme awards. The Exploration-Class Lunar Integrated Power SystEm (ECLIPSE) team won first place overall and first in its theme category, lunar surface power. The communications and navigation constellation team, MELIORA, won second place overall and first in its theme category on Mars communications, position navigation and timing, which included a strategy for proving the design at the moon. And CHEESEBURGER, a campaign to mine and process lunar regolith into oxygen, metals, and bricks, won first in its theme category, lunar technology demonstrations.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“NASA spent the spring telling the world what critical early infrastructure their upcoming permanent moon base will need,” says George Lordos, a research scientist and lecturer in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and in System Design and Management (SDM), who co-advised all three teams. “Over 30 MIT students spent this academic year designing much of the moon base — systems for generating, storing, and distributing power; robust systems for positioning, navigating, and communicating; and early experiments with essential technologies to live sustainably off the moon’s own dirt.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>A power grid for surviving lunar night and winter</strong></p><p dir="ltr">The hardest constraint on NASA’s moon base is staying powered, because a failure in life-support power would doom the crew within hours. ECLIPSE is a reference design for a lunar grid engineered to stay up for more than 99.995 percent of the time — fewer than 27 minutes of downtime a year in the worst-case scenario, the standard demanded of the most critical data centers on Earth. It pairs two power sources that fail in different ways: banks of 20-meter solar masts in the sunlit highlands near the south pole, and, for the roughly 18-day stretch each year when the sun drops below the horizon, a pair of buried 20 kilowatt microreactors the team named CARROT, (Compact Autonomous Regolith-shielded Reactor Operating for Ten years). The CARROT reactor, a novel design developed independently by the ECLIPSE team, ended up being similar in design to NASA’s SR-1 reactor for the 2028 mission to Mars, both aiming to maximize speed-to-deployment.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“Burying each reactor 1.3 meters down shrinks the keep-out zone from kilometers to meters, so crews can work nearby, and it saves tons on required shielding mass,” says Taylor Hampson, a PhD student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and ECLIPSE team co-lead.</p><p dir="ltr">The full design delivers an initial 120 kilowatts using a grid of buried aluminum cables and shielded direct-current power equipment. Laser-equipped rovers provide “Frontier Power” capability, beaming up to 10 kilowatts to sites beyond any cable, from a shadowed crater to a new outpost before its own grid exists. Patrick Riley, a graduate student in the Department of AeroAstro and ECLIPSE team co-lead, says the design’s point is to put reliability ahead of mass: “We sized it so the most likely failures never reach the moon base inhabitants, and so it scales from a first crew of six up to industrial demand without interrupting a commercial lunar economy.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>A network for exploring the moon and Mars, and calling home</strong></p><p dir="ltr">MELIORA acts as the base’s relay and GPS. Although RASC-AL framed the communications, positioning, navigation, and timing competition sub-theme around Mars, the team also proposed a plan to validate their design in lunar geometry first, in step with the agency’s strategy to prove technology on the moon before extending it to Mars. To find the best design, the team ran a trade study across 5,764 candidate constellation geometries. The result grows from an initial three satellites to 23, returns more than 100 megabits per second to Earth-orbiting data networks over free-space optical links, and pins a user’s position to within 10 meters. For the Mars design, four relay satellites parked at gravitationally stable Lagrange points keep the link alive even during solar conjunction, the weeks when the sun sits between the two worlds and ordinarily cuts communication. On the surface, a user needs only a portable radio terminal and a chip-scale atomic clock — a timekeeper the size of a matchbox.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“You should never have to think about whether the network is there — it just is, the way you don’t think about a cell tower,” says Ekaterina Tiukhtikova, an undergraduate studying both AeroAstro and electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), and a MELIORA team co-lead. “We put almost all the complexity up in orbit, so everything on the surface stays portable and simple,” adds Clayton Lieberman, a graduate of the SDM program and team co-lead who wrote his thesis on MELIORA.</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Making oxygen, metal, and bricks from lunar dirt</strong></p><p dir="ltr">After power and communications, the third essential pillar of a lunar base is living off the land. The moon’s own regolith can supply oxygen to breathe and burn, metal to build with, and shielding to hide behind for protection from deadly radiation. CHEESEBURGER is a campaign of five robotic payloads that prove the supply chain one link at a time, followed by integration of the five into the first end-to-end lunar industry.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">The payloads carry a kitchen’s worth of names: SWISS prospects for the richest ore, BRIOCHES digs and sorts the regolith, BACON casts it into bricks, GRILLED MEAT melts it electrically to pull out metal and oxygen, and AVOCADO is the robotic builder that stacks the products into structures, including interlocking Moon&nbsp;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/AERO63441.2025.11068677">BRICCSS</a> that shield a habitat from radiation. The food theme was born during a January team outing at Sandwich, Massachusetts. “Naming the prospector SWISS and the metal extractor GRILLED MEAT turned a wall of acronyms into something the whole team could enjoy,” says Cesar Meza, a graduate student in AeroAstro and CHEESEBURGER co-lead. “It sounds like a joke until you see that each acronym clearly describes a serious piece of hardware doing one job in the pipeline.”</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>Thirty students, eight departments, and three teams for one moon base</strong></p><p dir="ltr">More than 30 students contributed across the teams, from AeroAstro, SDM, Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), EECS, Mechanical Engineering (MechE), the Technology and Policy Program, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), along with a student from Wellesley College. Several student mentors and faculty advisors worked across more than one team, which is why ECLIPSE’s grid is sized to power CHEESEBURGER’s processing, CHEESEBURGER’s regolith handling is used to bury and shield ECLIPSE’s grid, and all three projects are designed to translate moon base lessons for a future mission to Mars. The teams were advised by Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems and interim department head of AeroAstro, who led ECLIPSE; Kerri Cahoy, the Sheila Evans Widnall Professor of Aerospace Engineering, who led MELIORA; Jeffrey Hoffman, professor of the practice in AeroAstro and a former NASA astronaut, who led CHEESEBURGER; Koroush Shirvan, Atlantic Richfield Career Development Professor in Energy Studies in Nuclear Science and Engineering, who co-advised ECLIPSE; and Lordos, who co-advised all three. Much of the day-to-day mentorship work is led by PhD student volunteers and runs through the&nbsp;<a href="https://spaceresources.mit.edu/">MIT Space Resources Workshop</a>, which Lordos founded in 2019.</p><p dir="ltr">“The winning teams demonstrated how academic innovation can support Artemis mission goals,” says Daniel Mazanek, RASC-AL program sponsor and senior space systems engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/prizes-challenges-crowdsourcing-program/center-of-excellence-for-collaborative-innovation-coeci/nasa-announces-winners-of-2026-university-innovation-competition/">NASA's announcement</a> of the awards. “Their work highlights the important role student research plays in shaping future space exploration.”</p><p dir="ltr">NASA expects astronauts living on the lunar surface for months at a time by the early 2030s — the window ECLIPSE, MELIORA, and CHEESEBURGER were designed for. The picture the three teams had worked toward is unified: a crew at the lunar south pole, the lights on through the winter night, the network always up, and the first oxygen and bricks coming out of the ground beneath them.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">“A permanent base is no longer a slide in a strategy deck; NASA begins landing the first elements in 2027,” says de Weck. “Studies like these three let the agency see, before the concrete sets, how its power, communications, and resource choices depend on one another. That is precisely when independent, integrated architecture work has the most influence on the real plan.”</p><p dir="ltr">RASC-AL is administered by the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA. MIT has a long record in NASA’s student design competitions, with recent winning teams including the&nbsp; <a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/hydration-iii">HYDRATION</a> Mars water production system, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/pale-red-dot">Pale Red Dot</a> Mars homesteading architecture, the deployable lunar tower&nbsp;<a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/self-deploying-lunar-tower">MELLTT</a>, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/martemis-mars-architecture-research-using-taguchi-experiments-on-the-moon">MARTEMIS</a> lunar Mars analog campaign, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/maple-MIT-autonomous-pathfinding-for-lunar-exploration">MAPLE</a> autonomous lunar robot pathfinding system, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/cerberuz-composites-for-extraterrestrial-recycling">CERBERUZ</a> lunar recycling project, and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.georgelordos.com/content/thermos-translunar-heat-rejection-and-mixing-for-orbital-sustainability">THERMOS</a> cryogenic fluid management system. This work was supported in part by NASA, the Massachusetts Space Grant, MIT AeroAstro, and the MIT Space Resources Workshop. One student was supported by a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity Fellowship.</p><p dir="ltr">The full teams:</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>ECLIPSE</strong> — Team leads: Taylor Hampson (graduate student, Nuclear Science and Engineering) and Patrick Riley (graduate student, AeroAstro). Reactor team: Liliana Arias, Sydney Menne, Julian Rocher and Pavel Shilenko (graduate students, NSE). Power management and distribution team: Evrard Constant and Mary Foxen (graduate students, AeroAstro), Janhavi Joglekar and Asma Patel (undergraduate students, AeroAstro). Solar and architecture team: Zachary Dawson (graduate student, System Design and Management), Sreeja Akula and Ian Jimenez (undergraduate students, AeroAstro; EAPS), Yohan Lim (graduate student, AeroAstro/Technology and Policy Program), CJ Taglienti (graduate student, AeroAstro/MBA). Student co-advisors: Yana Charoenboonvivat, Lanie McKinney (AeroAstro), Palak Patel (MechE). Industry mentor: Sully Marigliano-Crevecoeur (Technetics). Faculty: Olivier de Weck (lead) and Jeffrey Hoffman (AeroAstro), George Lordos (AeroAstro and SDM), and Koroush Shirvan (NSE).</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>MELIORA</strong> — Team leads: Clayton Lieberman and Katiyayni Balachandran (System Design and Management), Ekaterina Tiukhtikova (undergraduate, AeroAstro and EECS), Celvi Lisy (AeroAstro). Team members: Thomas Harrington and Zachary T. Barnes (SDM), Asael Acosta (undergraduate, AeroAstro). Student co-advisor: Lanie McKinnery (AeroAstro). Faculty: Kerri Cahoy (lead), Jeffrey Hoffman and Olivier de Weck (AeroAstro), and George Lordos (AeroAstro and SDM).</p><p dir="ltr"><strong>CHEESEBURGER</strong> — Team leads: Cesar Meza (graduate student, AeroAstro) and Elizabeth Romero (undergraduate, AeroAstro). Team members: Rachel Dunphy, Shreya Kothnur, Hailey Polson (undergraduates, AeroAstro), Christopher Kwon, Jose Soto, Lanie McKinney (graduate students, AeroAstro), Marvin Martinez (undergraduate, MechE), Ananda Santos Figueiredo (graduate student, Technology and Policy Program), Evangeline Haiqi Wang (undergraduate, Computer Science and Psychology, Wellesley College). Faculty: Jeffrey Hoffman (lead) and Olivier de Weck (AeroAstro), and George Lordos (AeroAstro and SDM).</p> Three MIT teams took five top awards in the 2026 NASA RASC-AL Competition for designing critical elements for the moon base and future missions to Mars. Photo courtesy of NASA and the National Institute of Aerospace. School of Engineering MIT Sloan School of Management Aeronautical and astronautical engineering EAPS Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Nuclear science and engineering System Design and Management NASA Space Spaceflight Planetary science and exploration Satellites Energy Nuclear power and reactors Solar Infrastructure Supply chains Robotics Contests and academic competitions Awards, honors and fellowships Research Collaboration Students Sustainability Technology and society https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researchers-advance-toward-greater-bandwidth-more-energy-efficient-0630 The FUTUR-IC research program integrates electronics and photonics in microchip systems. Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researchers-advance-toward-greater-bandwidth-more-energy-efficient-0630 Elizabeth A. Thomson | Materials Research Laboratory <p>An MIT-led research program aimed at creating future microsystems capable of sustainably transmitting data with greater bandwidth and higher efficiency than is possible today has made several significant advances since it was established in 2022.&nbsp;</p><p>These include the invention of devices within systems that can much more easily integrate electronics — manipulating data with electricity — with photonics, which does the same with light. The microsystems, the first of their kind, also promise to be cost-effective because, among other advantages, they can be manufactured using existing equipment in traditional electronics foundries and packaging houses.</p><p>“Our disruptive electronic-photonic integrated solutions will enable us to leap from [transmitting data at] hundreds of terabits per second to greater than 1 petabit per second,” said Anu Agarwal, who leads MIT’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcm3eIeBMws">FUTUR-IC</a>, at an April webinar titled, “Shaping the Future of Semiconductors: Power, Performance, and Possibility.” The event was sponsored by the MIT Industrial Liaison Program and Startup Exchange.</p><p>An advanced system using co-packaged optics can provide improved bandwidth and energy savings compared to what is used today, which is electronics-only or pluggable optics.</p><p><strong>Toward sustainability</strong></p><p>The microchips behind everything from smartphones to medical imaging can be traced to about 500 megatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent lifetime emissions in 2021, and every year the world produces more than 50 million tons of electronic waste. Further, the huge data centers necessary for complex computations like on-demand video are growing, and will require close to 10 percent of the world’s electricity by 2030.</p><p>“This is neither scalable nor sustainable, and cannot continue,” Agarwal has reiterated over the years. FUTUR-IC, funded by the National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator, was created to address these resource-efficiency issues.</p><p>For example, integrating photonics with the electronics that underpin today’s microchips could address energy use because the transmission, or communication of data, using light is much more energy efficient. “Our mantra is to use electronics for computation and photonics for communication to bring this energy crisis under control,” says Agarwal.</p><p>Currently, however, it is difficult and expensive to connect electronic chips with their photonic counterparts within a single package. That’s partly because the supply-chain ecosystem for co-packaged optics is still immature.</p><p><strong>New devices</strong></p><p>Enter two new devices developed through FUTUR-IC aimed at making it easier — and less expensive — to integrate photonic chips with microchips. One,&nbsp;<a href="https://mrl.mit.edu/article/new-mit-device-could-be-key-to-faster-computing-and-communications">the evanescent coupler</a>,&nbsp;was featured on the cover of <a href="https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15272648/2025/27/4"><em>Advanced Engineering Materials</em></a> last year. Another, known as the graded index coupler (GRIN), was reported in the March 2026 print issue of the <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7647/ae1648"><em>Journal of Physics: Photonics</em></a>.&nbsp;</p><p>A third new coupler was developed by an MIT team led by Professor Juejun Hu of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. It was reported in a 2023 issue of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/lpor.202200025"><em>Laser &amp; Photonics Reviews</em></a>. That work was supported by the Department of Energy.&nbsp;</p><p>The three couplers are the first optical equivalents of “solder bumps,” or the tiny dots of metal that allow chip-to-chip or chip-to-substrate connections for electron flow. Until this MIT work, there were no analogous “optical bump” options for photonics.</p><p>And if photonics is to be integrated with electronics, “you’ll need both metal bumps and optical bumps, because there are devices on your photonics chip that will require both an electrical signal and an optical signal,” says Drew Weninger PhD ’25, first author of the papers on both the evanescent and GRIN couplers. Weninger is now at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.</p><p>As with electronics, many options of optical bumps will be necessary, as “each type has substantial trade-offs,” wrote Weninger and colleagues in a review article in <em>Nature&nbsp;</em>about coupler advances <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-025-02048-w">published earlier this year</a>.</p><p>For example, the GRIN coupler can be used over a wider spectrum of light than is possible with the evanescent coupler, Weninger says. The evanescent coupler, however, is easier to fabricate and can be packed in tighter to form a higher number of connections.</p><p><strong>Additional advances</strong></p><p>FUTUR-IC is organized into three dimensions: Technology (the coupler work is a good example), Value Chain Innovation, and Workforce.&nbsp;</p><p>Under the Value Chain sector, researchers developed a new tool to support companies’ decisions toward sustainability. <a href="https://www.earthster.org/">Earthster</a> provides a visual model for quickly determining the energy, materials usage, and environmental sustainability across a company’s products. For example, says Agarwal, “looking at [Earthster], a supplier can tell right away their hot spots for carbon emissions, and start working to minimize them.”</p><p>FUTUR-IC has also developed several programs aimed at developing a future workforce for next-generation microchips. For example, “it is introducing an online course on semiconductor resource efficiency,” Agarwal says. “We also offer gamified digital learning and problem-based learning, plus a summer academy and a hands-on bootcamp.” For K-12 awareness, FUTUR-IC has created TED-Ed videos.</p><p>Agarwal concluded her April webinar by acknowledging the range of industries FUTUR-IC aims to help. “If you’re a packaging vendor, a materials vendor, or you are in the supply chain for data centers, FUTUR-IC can provide value.”</p><p>Additional authors of the paper on the GRIN coupler are Agarwal; Lionel Kimerling, the Thomas Lord Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering; Christian Duessel BS ’25, now at SiLC Technologies, a silicon photonics company; and Samuel Serna, professor of physics, photonics, and optical engineering at Bridgewater State University.</p><p>Additional authors of the <em>Nature&nbsp;</em>review paper are Serna; Luigi Ranno PhD ’25, now at Ayar Labs; Kimerling; and Agarwal.</p> FUTUR-IC, funded by the National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator, was created to address resource-efficiency issues. For example, integrating photonics with the electronics that underpin today’s microchips could address energy use because the transmission, or communication of data, using light is much more energy efficient. School of Engineering DMSE Materials Research Laboratory Electronics Photonics Computer chips Energy Sustainability Research Invention National Science Foundation (NSF) Department of Energy (DoE) https://news.mit.edu/2026/scientists-find-ozone-depletion-began-decades-before-ozone-hole-discovery-0629 Using modern tools, they also determined that carbon tetrachloride, used as a dry-cleaning and degreasing agent as early as the 1930s, was at the root of early ozone loss. Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/scientists-find-ozone-depletion-began-decades-before-ozone-hole-discovery-0629 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>The Antarctic ozone hole was discovered in 1985, when scientists observed a severe depletion in the Earth’s protective layer of stratospheric ozone. Industrial chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), then widely used as refrigerants, propellants, foam-blowing agents, and solvents, were at the root of the ozone depletion. After concerted global effort to phase out the use of CFCs, ozone today is recovering, especially in the Antarctic.&nbsp;</p><p>The discovery of the ozone hole was possible thanks, in part, to the measurement tools that were available at the time. Advances in those tools, along with satellites and other monitoring technologies, have since allowed scientists to track ozone’s recovery.&nbsp;</p><p>But what if today’s tech was available much earlier? Would scientists have been able to spot even earlier signs of human-induced ozone depletion? And if so, when would those first signs have popped up, and where?&nbsp;</p><p>MIT scientists now have some answers. The team, led by atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon, has carried out a thought experiment in which they consider a hypothetical world where today’s atmospheric monitoring capabilities were available throughout the last century. In this scenario, they simulated the atmosphere’s chemistry through history and discovered not only when the earliest sign of ozone depletion would have been detectable, but also where, and why.&nbsp;</p><p>In a study <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2608286123" target="_blank">appearing today in the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em></a>, the scientists suggest that the first signs of ozone depletion appeared as early as 1957 — about 30 years before the ozone hole was discovered. And, this first signal of ozone loss popped up not in the Antarctic, but in the upper stratosphere of the tropics. What’s more, the cause of this early depletion was not due to CFCs, but to another industrial chemical: carbon tetrachloride.&nbsp;</p><p>“What we’ve learned from textbooks is that CFCs result in ozone depletion,” says the study’s first author, Jian Guan, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “It turns out there was another compound that caused ozone depletion much earlier than CFCs. This was a big surprise.”</p><p>For Solomon, who was an early pioneer in the study of ozone’s effects on the atmosphere, and who was the first to show that CFCs were the main agent eroding Antarctic ozone, the new results were a complete shock.&nbsp;</p><p>“The fact that ozone depletion would have happened as early as the late 1950s, which is much earlier than I would have thought, just absolutely blew my mind,” says Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry at MIT. “This study shows it’s really important to keep monitoring so that we can fully understand how the atmosphere responds and recovers.”</p><p>The study’s MIT co-authors include Peidong Wang, Yaowei Li, and Kane Stone; along with Benjamin Santer of the University of East Anglia; Qiang Fu of the University of Washington; Rolando Garcia, Douglas Kinnison, and Jun Zhang of the National Center for Atmospheric Research; Jean-Francois Lamarque of Climate Modeling and Analysis LLC; and Gabriel Chiodo of the Spanish National Research Council.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Chlorine connection</strong></p><p>Ozone is a highly reactive molecule, made from three oxygen atoms, that exists naturally in the upper layers of the atmosphere. In the stratosphere, ozone acts as a shield, absorbing the sun’s rays and reducing the harmful ultraviolet radiation that can reach the Earth’s surface.&nbsp;</p><p>In the late 1980s, after scientists first observed signs of ozone depletion in the Antarctic, Solomon led expeditions to the region to measure the stratosphere’s composition. Those measurements confirmed that ozone’s agent of destruction was CFCs — the chemicals which were used globally in refrigeration, air conditioning, and aerosol propellants, among other uses.&nbsp;</p><p>Specifically, Solomon measured higher-than-expected levels of chlorine dioxide in the Antarctic stratosphere. The presence of this molecule, in the same place where ozone depletion was observed, had only one chemical explanation: Ozone was being broken apart by rogue atoms of chlorine. At the time, chlorine-heavy CFCs were in wide use, and MIT chemist Mario Molina proposed that if CFCs drifted up to the stratosphere, photons from the sun could break apart the molecules and release atoms of chlorine, which would then be free to break apart ozone’s oxygen atoms.&nbsp;</p><p>Molina’s work, and Solomon’s measurements, were key in showing that CFCs could deplete ozone — a discovery that earned Molina a share of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Soon after, nearly every country in the world signed the Montreal Protocol, which ultimately led to the successful phase-out of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances. In recent years, as a result of that global cooperation, scientists have observed initial signs of ozone recovery.</p><p>“We know what we have now, and ozone is starting to recover,” Solomon says. “But no one has ever really documented where and when and why the first ozone depletion would have happened.”</p><p><strong>Signal over noise</strong></p><p>For their new study, Solomon, Guan, and their colleagues took a “what-if” approach, posing the question: What if the past had the monitoring capabilities of the present? When would we have been able to detect the earliest sign of human-induced ozone depletion?&nbsp;</p><p>Today’s monitoring tools are sensitive to a certain signal to noise, meaning they can identify patterns of ozone loss that are more likely a “signal” of human-induced depletion (such as from CFCs), versus ozone loss that is due to “noise,” such as random fluctuations from weather and natural phenomena.&nbsp;</p><p>With this in mind, the team looked to reproduce the chemistry of the atmosphere over the last century to see whether they could see a signal over the noise, based on the sensitivity of today’s monitoring tools.&nbsp;</p><p>The team used 16 different model runs, each of which simulates varying conditions and dynamics of the atmosphere at various latitudes and altitudes, as well as the concentrations and interactions of ozone and other molecules. Ozone is affected by not only human-caused chemicals but also natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and El Niño weather patterns. Each model run simulates ozone’s response to these natural phenomena, which the team combined to establish a range of “noise,” or ozone depletion that likely is due to natural variability.</p><p>They added to each model the various industrial chemicals that were known to have been produced at various times over the last century.&nbsp;</p><p>“Year by year, we have estimates from industry of how much of these chemicals were made and sold globally, and the emissions of all these chemicals, which the models include,” Solomon explains. “And in the case of carbon tetrachloride, the really cool thing is, we also have ice core data.”</p><p>Ice cores are drilled-out cylinders of deeply buried ice, that had formed in the Antarctic and Arctic from the falling and layering of snow over hundreds of years. Ice cores contain the remnants of snow, as well as whatever trace chemicals in the atmosphere the snow originally fell through. Scientists can therefore use ice cores to estimate the composition of the atmosphere through history.&nbsp;</p><p>“We actually see in the ice cores that carbon tetrachloride starts increasing already by the 1940s,” Solomon notes.&nbsp;</p><p>The team incorporated industrial and ice core data into their models, then looked to see whether a signal of human-induced ozone loss stood out from the noise of natural fluctuations. Their analysis revealed that a signal did appear, as early as 1957. Not only did they see when the signal appeared, but also where: in the tropics, rather than the Antarctic.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers say that human-induced ozone loss was likely occurring globally, but was easier to spot in the tropical upper stratosphere, since that is the region where the range of natural fluctuations is the smallest, and therefore where a signal can stand out better.</p><p>Finally, the analysis indicated that carbon tetrachloride, and not CFCs, was the cause of the earliest ozone depletion.&nbsp;</p><p>“That’s the only ozone-depleting substance that was increasing that early,” Solomon says. “We started using carbon tetrachloride in the 1930s as a dry-cleaning agent, and as a degreasing solvent. We didn’t start using CFCs until quite a bit later.”</p><p>Carbon tetrachloride has since been phased out of use in most of the world, initially due to its health concerns; the chemical can cause nervous system disorders with prolonged exposure and is a suspected carcinogen. Since the Montreal Protocol began to tightly limit its use in the 1990s, the molecule’s concentrations in the atmosphere have been on a decline. Still, Solomon says the new study highlights the need for vigilance in monitoring carbon tetrachloride, CFCs, and other ozone-depleting substances that may have been phased out but can still linger for decades.</p><p>“We’ve gone through a big effort to get rid of these chemicals,” Solomon says. “Don’t we have an obligation to keep monitoring to make sure the atmosphere responds the way we think it should?”</p><p>This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the European Commission.</p> “The fact that ozone depletion would have happened as early as the late 1950s, which is much earlier than I would have thought, just absolutely blew my mind,” says Susan Solomon. Image: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT Research Chemistry Ozone Climate Climate change Earth and atmospheric sciences Emissions Environment Global History of science Pollution Sustainability EAPS School of Science National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/two-mit-faculty-members-named-2026-pew-biomedical-scholars-0629 Cell biologist Whitney Henry and immunologist Harikesh Wong will receive four years of flexible funding to advance early-career research on ferroptosis and immune decision-making. Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/two-mit-faculty-members-named-2026-pew-biomedical-scholars-0629 Nina Tamburello | Nikolay Kolev | Koch Institute | Ragon Institute <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://biology.mit.edu/profile/whitney-henry/" target="_blank">Whitney Henry</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://biology.mit.edu/profile/harikesh-s-wong/" target="_blank">Harikesh Wong</a> have been named 2026 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences. The Pew Charitable Trusts announced the 21-member class of early-career researchers, which includes the two MIT scientists as well as two alumni, on June 16. Each scholar will receive four years of funding&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pew.org/en/projects/pew-biomedical-scholars" target="_blank">to pursue cutting-edge research into human health and disease</a>. Xin Gu PhD ’22 of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Christina Tringides ’15 of Rice University were also selected as scholars.</p><p dir="ltr">Henry, the Robert A. Swanson (1969) Career Development Professor of Life Sciences and a faculty member at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, will use the Pew scholarship to examine how a stress-induced cell death program called ferroptosis contributes to injury and regeneration in the liver. Wong,&nbsp;assistant professor of biology at MIT and core member at&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://ragoninstitute.org/" target="_blank">Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard</a>,&nbsp;will use his award to investigate how groups of immune cells reach a “communal decision” about whether to tolerate or attack a particular target.</p><p><strong>Whitney Henry</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Henry’s research centers&nbsp;<a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/a3KOEsT3hoU?si=pNpKTqngkrmR_Xk6" target="_blank">on ferroptosis</a> — an iron-dependent form of regulated cell death — and its role in shaping cell fate and tissue remodeling. Her lab investigates why some cells can withstand stress while others cross the threshold for ferroptosis, focusing on the molecular, metabolic, and tissue-level cues that shape ferroptosis vulnerability. The work draws on chemical biology, metabolomics, functional genomics, and in vivo models. By defining the mechanisms that govern ferroptosis susceptibility, Henry’s group aims not only to identify novel therapies that target the most dangerous subpopulations of cancer cells, those that are highly metastatic and resistant to conventional treatment, but also to advance understanding of diseases in which ferroptosis drives tissue injury, fibrosis, or impaired repair.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Harikesh Wong</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Wong investigates how groups of cells organize into networks that collectively process information and control immune responses within tissues. These networks must continually balance the body’s need to protect itself against pathogens and tumors with the need to preserve healthy tissue function. Combining the tools of immunology with high-resolution fluorescence microscopy, computational modeling, and gene manipulation, his lab seeks to map, model, and manipulate the cell-cell interactions that govern these decisions within intact tissues, revealing how subtle changes in multicellular organization and communication can shift immune responses toward pathogen clearance and tolerance, or toward autoimmunity, chronic inflammation, and cancer.</p><p dir="ltr">Pew scholars are chosen from applicants nominated by leading academic institutions across the United States. This year’s class of 21 was selected from 211 nominees. The incoming scholars join a legacy of more than 1,000 scientists supported by the program since 1985. During their time as scholars, they will meet annually with fellow Pew-funded scientists to build connections across a wide variety of disciplines.</p><p dir="ltr">“Scientific discovery is moving at a rapid pace, and now more than ever we need curious and creative researchers leading the charge,” says Lee Niswander, a 1995 Pew scholar and chair of the program’s national advisory committee. “These new biomedical scholars are prepared to meet that challenge, and I look forward to watching their research unfold.”</p> MIT scientists Whitney Henry (left) and Harikesh Wong have been named 2026 Pew Biomedical Scholars. Photos courtesy of the Koch Institute and the Ragon Institute. School of Science Biology Koch Institute Awards, honors and fellowships Faculty Health sciences and technology Immunology Cancer Research Alumni/ae Ragon Institute https://news.mit.edu/2026/graphene-can-hold-multiple-states-of-superconductivity-0629 What’s more, the superconducting states get stronger under conditions expected to kill them. Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/graphene-can-hold-multiple-states-of-superconductivity-0629 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>The ordinary graphite in pencil lead is proving to be surprisingly multifaceted at the microscale.&nbsp;</p><p>In a study <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10815-x" target="_blank">appearing today in the journal <em>Nature</em></a><em>, </em>MIT researchers report that a certain microscopic structure found in natural graphite can host multiple superconducting states. Superconductivity is an electronic state of matter in which electrons pair up and glide through a material with zero resistance.&nbsp;</p><p>While there are thousands of materials that are known to be superconductors, it is rare for one material to host multiple forms of superconductivity.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers discovered the multiple superconducting states in atomically thin exfoliations of graphite, known as graphene. Specifically, graphene is a single-atom-thin sheet of carbon atoms arranged precisely in a microscopic lattice. The team made its discoveries in samples of rhombohedral graphene, which is a natural structure within graphite consisting of a stack of four or five graphene layers.&nbsp;</p><p>Interestingly, the researchers found that several of the new superconducting states in rhombohedral graphene are able to persist in the presence of a magnetic field, which normally kills superconductivity.&nbsp;</p><p>And in a further surprise, these superconducting states even get stronger when exposed to a magnetic field.&nbsp;</p><p>Overall, the findings reveal a new family of unconventional superconducting states in one seemingly simple material.&nbsp;</p><p>“People might assume that this is a simple, boring carbon material,” says Long Ju, the&nbsp;Lawrence C. and Sarah W. Biedenharn Associate Professor of Physics at MIT. “But we can control this material by tuning certain&nbsp;experimental&nbsp;‘knobs,’&nbsp;such as electrical voltages. This is how a simple physical material can exhibit so many different superconducting properties.”&nbsp;</p><p>It’s still unclear exactly how each of the multiple superconducting states arise, or how they are able to persist under a magnetic field, when normally superconductivity should fade.</p><p>“From a fundamental physics point of view, it’s very exotic that a magnetic field doesn’t kill superconductivity, and instead it boosts it,” Ju says. “We have provided a lot of experimental results and provided the nutrition that people can absorb to try to think about what’s going on here.”&nbsp;</p><p>The study’s MIT co-authors include&nbsp;co-first authors Junseok Seo and Shenyong Ye,&nbsp;together with&nbsp;Tonghang Han, Zhenghan Wu, Wei Xu, Jixiang Yang, Emily Aitken, Prayoga Liong,&nbsp;Phatthanon Pattanakanvijit, Zach Hadjri, and Mingda Li. External collaborators&nbsp;are co-first author Armel Cotten and members of Dominik Zumbuhl’s group&nbsp;at the University of Basel in Switzerland, plus others at Florida State University, the University of Florida, Gainesville, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Natural steps</strong></p><p>Graphene and other atomically thin, two-dimensional materials can exhibit unexpected electronic, magnetic, thermal, and physical properties. And when two or more sheets of graphene are stacked and twisted at precise orientations, the “magic-angle” structure can suddenly host weird and exotic phenomena.&nbsp;</p><p>Ju’s group has been probing the exceptional properties of graphene. But rather than artificially stacking and twisting layers, they have looked for interesting behavior in naturally occurring graphene structures. In recent years, they have unearthed surprising electronic properties in rhombohedral graphene. This particular configuration consists of graphene&nbsp;layers&nbsp;stacked on top of each other, each one slightly offset from the last, similar to the steps in a staircase.&nbsp;</p><p>Rhombohedral graphene can be found naturally in ordinary graphite. But to find it first requires exfoliating a block of graphite (usually with Scotch tape), then searching the exfoliated sample for the telltale staircase-like pattern, which researchers can then isolate for further experimentation.&nbsp;</p><p>Using this approach, Ju and his colleagues have been able to isolate and probe samples of four- and five-layer rhombohedral graphene. They have so far discovered that the structure can host a rare,&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/mit-physicists-discover-new-type-superconductor-also-magnet-0522" target="_blank">“chiral” form of superconductivity</a>, as well as&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2024/electrons-become-fractions-graphene-study-finds-0221" target="_blank">fractional electron charge</a>, among other behavior.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>In the flow</strong></p><p>For their new study, the team took a slightly different approach in studying rhombohedral graphene. Previously, they electrically “doped” their samples, progressively adding electrons as they passed a separate electric current into the material. They then measured the voltage, or essentially the force that pushes the current through the material, and looked for instances when the voltage dropped to zero, indicating that the current was passing through without resistance.</p><p>In this way, the team has observed superconductivity when adding electrons to rhombohedral graphene. So they wondered: What might happen if they did the opposite, and took electrons away?&nbsp;</p><p>In their new study, the team looked for signs of superconductivity as they carefully removed electrons from rhombohedral graphene, progressively lowering the material’s electron density, as they applied a separate, external electric current to measure the electrical resistance. In these experiments, they also applied external magnetic field along directions parallel and perpendicular to the graphene plane. These experiments were carried out in collaboration with Zumbuhl’s group in Switzerland, who provided access to a laboratory setup in which graphene samples could be exposed to high magnetic fields and ultracold temperatures.&nbsp;</p><p>In these experiments, the researchers found that at certain electron densities, four different superconducting states emerged. What’s more, three of the states persisted in the presence of a relatively high magnetic field.&nbsp;</p><p>Normally, magnets destroy superconductivity by severing the bond between the paired electrons gliding through the material.&nbsp;</p><p>But in Ju’s experiments, the team observed three superconducting states that survived in a magnetic field up to around 9 tesla, which is about 180,000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field. In these instances, the magnetic field they applied was in a parallel orientation with respect to the plane of the material. When they switched the magnetic field to a perpendicular orientation, they discovered another surprise: At a certain electron density, superconductivity not only persisted, but increased. The material was able to continue superconducting, at higher temperatures than predicted.&nbsp;</p><p>Every superconducting material has a critical temperature below which electrons can conduct without resistance, and above which superconductivity cannot persist. But the team found that, at a certain electron density, and in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field, superconductivity in rhombohedral graphene was able to survive beyond the material’s critical temperature that corresponds to zero magnetic field.&nbsp;</p><p>“The superconductivity actually is enhanced, as in, the transition temperature goes from 55 millikelvin to probably 90 millikelvin,” Ju explains. “At the same time, the material can take another 50 or 60 percent extra current before superconductivity gets destroyed. And that is very unusual.”</p><p>The researchers are unsure of what microscopic behavior is enabling multiple and unconventional superconducting states, though they propose one idea. Conventional superconductivity emerges when electrons pair up. These “Cooper pairs” consist of electrons with opposite spin, and it’s thought that a magnetic field can pull the spins out of their opposite configurations, and as a result, break up superconductivity.&nbsp;</p><p>Instead, the team proposes that perhaps in rhombohedral graphene, and at certain electron densities, electrons can pair up with aligned spins. Any magnetic field would still pull on the spins, but in the same direction, preserving their alignment, and their superconductivity.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers acknowledge that the idea needs much more investigation, both experimentally and theoretically. For now, they see the results as a demonstration of what new and exotic phenomena can emerge in a seemingly simple material, with the right measurements and controls.&nbsp;</p><p>“We can control the simplest chemical and structural material— crystalline carbon— as part of the fun,” says lead author&nbsp;Junseok Seo, who is a graduate student in Ju’s group. “We’re not only dealing with what nature gives us, but we’re applying additional controls to change it to something that nature does not give us, but that can exist in the same material.”</p><p>This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Device fabrication was carried out, in part, at MIT.nano.</p> This graphic illustrates three different ways that electrons can pair up and flow through rhombohedral pentalayer graphene without resistance. The three different superconducting states (represented by different colors) surprisingly persist, and can even be boosted in a magnetic field, which normally kills superconductivity. Credit: Amy Pan, RLE Carbon materials Magnets Materials Research Laboratory Physics Research Research Laboratory of Electronics School of Science Superconductivity MIT.nano https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-data-centers-can-better-manage-energy-use-0626 A new study suggests flexibility in the timing of electricity consumption could lower consumer costs. Fri, 26 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-data-centers-can-better-manage-energy-use-0626 Peter Dizikes | MIT News <p>The number of U.S. data centers is growing, largely to power artificial intelligence programs. That has led to concern about the environmental consequences of data centers — and their impact on the energy grid itself. What will happen if scores of new data centers come online?&nbsp;</p><p>A new study by MIT researchers indicates that the impact of data centers could vary significantly, depending on how their energy use is structured.</p><p>Specifically, if data centers move a significant portion of their energy consumption to non-peak hours, it might actually help lower average energy costs. The environmental impact, in terms of type of energy consumed, would differ by location, with some places likely seeing a greater buildout of renewables and others experiencing a relative increase in fossil fuel use.&nbsp;</p><p>“The key with data centers is: How can we add them to the network without adding a lot to our peak usage?” says Christopher Knittel, an economist in the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of a new paper detailing the study. “One way for data centers to do that — to add to average usage but not the peak usage — is if they provide some grid flexibility during those high-cost periods. And that’s what we’ve been interested in understanding.”</p><p>Specifically, the paper finds that a flexible arrangement for data-center energy consumption, compared to an inflexible one, would produce cost savings of up to 5 percent in Texas, 4 percent in the Mid-Atlantic region, and 2 percent in the western U.S. states. To achieve that, data centers would have to move more than 20 percent of their consumption — sometimes more like 50 percent — to non-peak hours.&nbsp;</p><p>The paper is titled “<a href="https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(26)01872-9" target="_blank">Flexible Data Centers Reduce Power System Costs But Can Increase Emissions</a>,” and appears today in the journal <em>iScience</em>. The authors are Juan Ramon L. Senga, a postdoc in MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research; Shen Wang, a postdoc in MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research; and Knittel, who is the George P. Schultz Professor at MIT Sloan and the associate dean for climate and sustainability at MIT.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>The 20 percent solution</strong></p><p>The expansion of data centers has raised questions about additional stress for the U.S. grid, the global effects of increased fossil-fuel consumption, and the local environmental effects of data centers. The current study examines the first two of these issues.&nbsp;</p><p>To conduct the research, the scholars extensively simulated scenarios in which data centers expand, using the so-called “Gen X” model of the U.S. power grid, for a year’s worth of energy use.&nbsp;</p><p>The study focused on the grid systems in three areas: Texas, the Mid-Atlantic region, and the “Western Interconnect,” comprising the 11 large western states in the lower 48 states of the U.S. The researchers studied these regions because they collectively host most of the country’s data centers — about 82 percent of U.S. data centers by 2030, according to one analysis.&nbsp;</p><p>A bit counterintuitively, the researchers found that adding data centers could lower energy costs in some scenarios. Typically, about 60 percent of grid expenses are fixed costs, like power lines, while about 40 percent consists of energy costs. Adding data centers to the grid could, in effect, apportion the fixed costs over a higher volume of energy use.&nbsp;</p><p>“It’s really just math,” Knittel says.&nbsp;</p><p>But there is a catch. Lower costs might only happen if data centers increase their average consumption faster than their peak-hours consumption, when energy is most expensive. As it happens, most data centers do have flexibility built into their energy-use patterns, since they usually run at about 80 percent capacity.</p><p>In the study’s modeling, that flexibility often consists of shifting use from early-morning and early-evening peaks, to more midday energy consumption, when the energy load is lower and solar is at full capacity. The simulations show this makes a difference.</p><p>“There are two dimensions that data centers have to make decisions about,” Knittel says. “One is how much of their load in any one time period is flexible. And two, how many hours, plus or minus, can they move that computation?”</p><p><strong>Pretty soon, real money</strong></p><p>Additionally, data centers have different amounts of flexibility based on the types of AI-related computation they host. Data centers being used for AI training data tend to consume energy at a steady rate, but as a result could provide more flexibility for shifting power loads compared to inference data centers, which are used more for online search queries. In the latter case, consumption is driven more by end-user Internet habits.</p><p>Overall, Knittel emphasizes, the magnitude of cost savings suggested by the study, ranging from 2 percent to 7 percent, is significant.&nbsp;</p><p>“Three percent is a big number,” Knittel says. “When you’re talking about the grid, 3 percent or 6 percent doesn’t sound like a lot. But when you’re multiplying it by 100 billion dollars, it becomes real money.”</p><p>When it comes to environmental impact, the&nbsp;modeling finds that the projected level of data center growth by 2030 would be very significant in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. Compared to a world with no data center growth, the study finds those emissions would rise by 58 percent in Texas, 20 percent in the Mid-Atlantic region, and by 24 percent in the western U.S. That underscores the need to be strategic about data center consumption.&nbsp;</p><p>But the modeling also finds that the implications of data center buildout for clean-energy use vary by region. In Texas, where 54 percent of grid power is wind energy, having more data centers with flexible patterns of energy use could reduce emissions, by increasing demand for wind energy. The study finds that in this scenario, there could be 40 percent fewer CO₂ emissions.&nbsp;</p><p>However, in the Mid-Atlantic region, where there is a reasonable amount of solar energy but relatively less wind power, more data centers with flexible consumption patterns could increase both renewable energy and fossil-fuel energy consumption.&nbsp; Here the modeling suggests an increase in CO₂ emissions system-wide of 3 percent.&nbsp;</p><p>“When data centers provide some flexibility in that latter scenario, the data centers actually move hours to when sun and wind energy production is slowing, and that allows a coal plant to stay on,” Knittel observes. “So it doesn’t necessarily attract more renewable investment. It attracts more coal investment.”</p><p><strong>“That’s why we have policy”</strong></p><p>For any of this to happen, however, the data centers would have to implement the flexible energy-use schedules modeled in the study. And it’s not clear that companies using data centers would be motivated to do that. To Knittel, this suggests officials might have to craft regulations in this area.&nbsp;</p><p>“That’s why we have policy,” Knittel says.</p><p>More specifically, he adds, there is one big policy lever officials could use to achieve this goal: offering quicker initial hookups to the grid in return for time-of-use flexibility.&nbsp;</p><p>“One big concern about these data centers now is how long it takes for them to connect to the grid,” Knittel says. “One way to provide flexibility now is what’s called ‘connect and manage,’ which is, connecting you faster to the grid if you agree to provide flexibility. Tech firms would take that deal. They would rather connect a year earlier, and throttle down computation a few hours a day, than to have to wait. We do this with power plants too.”</p><p>Certainly, Knittel adds, as firms competing with each other, “Tech companies say they won’t provide flexibility alone. But if everyone in the industry has to, it’s okay.”&nbsp;</p><p>The current study is the first to examine the “end-to-end” implications of the centers for costs and emissions. The results, the scholars feel, bear further evaluation — and it is a topic they are continuing to model.&nbsp;</p><p>“Those are two dimensions I think we should all be considering here,” Knittel says. “The end result is really up to us, and up to policy.”&nbsp;</p><p>The research received support from the Future Energy Systems Center of the MIT Energy Initiative.&nbsp;</p> “There are two dimensions that data centers have to make decisions about,” Christopher Knittel says. “One is how much of their load in any one time period is flexible. And two, how many hours, plus or minus, can they move that computation?” Image: MIT News, iStock Research Policy Sustainability Government Energy Climate change Wind Renewable energy MIT Energy Initiative Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research MIT Sloan School of Management https://news.mit.edu/2026/llms-help-robots-understand-vague-instructions-and-focus-key-details-0626 To help robots do chores in places like homes and factories, a new approach from MIT uses one language model to clarify users’ instructions, then another to ignore irrelevant info. Fri, 26 Jun 2026 09:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/llms-help-robots-understand-vague-instructions-and-focus-key-details-0626 Alex Shipps | MIT CSAIL <p dir="ltr">Imagine working at a warehouse or office sometime in the near future, and you’re asked to help a new trainee learn the basics of their job. The catch: It’s a robot. To teach them, you might want to play a game of “show and tell” — that is, physically showing how to do something a few different ways, while also explaining what you’re doing.</p><p dir="ltr">Let’s say you asked the robot to place some coffee on your desk without disturbing you during a Zoom call. You’ll prefer that the robot doesn’t get too close to you and the laptop so that it doesn’t interrupt your meeting. To enable this behavior, the robot should be trained with data that clearly demonstrates the full task. Computer scientists have attempted to explain manipulation tasks to robots by recording lots of physical demonstrations or writing extensive directions. But if you don’t have both, the machine is likely to misunderstand what it needs to do.<br><br>It’s laborious for humans to do all that showing and telling, so researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have automated the process of teaching a robot, while clarifying instructions automatically and using nearly five times less demonstration data. Their “Masked Inverse Reinforcement Learning” (Masked IRL) approach uses a large language model (LLM) to elaborate on ambiguous prompts based on the data collected from a user’s demo. Another LLM then narrows down which details an algorithm should incorporate into a motion plan, so that a robot can safely complete chores in homes, offices, and factories.<br><br>“Our approach could come in handy when a human interacts with a robot but doesn’t want to spell out all the details of a task,” says MIT PhD student and CSAIL researcher Minyoung Hwang, who is a lead author on a&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14565">paper</a> presenting the project. “We’re minimizing human effort by enabling machines to get to the bottom of what users really want.”</p><p dir="ltr">According to Hwang, Masked IRL can help robots safely maneuver in settings where there are elements a human might not describe in a prompt, but that are crucial nonetheless. For example, a machine grabbing you a snack from the kitchen may not know to avoid bumping into your laptop. Likewise, a factory robot placing items into different boxes must carefully navigate around shelves.</p><p dir="ltr">To learn new tasks in these situations, Masked IRL uses the robot’s sensors to capture information about its surroundings. These components also log each movement of a kinesthetic demonstration — a training approach where a human physically moves a robot to do a specific action. It’s sort of like being the machine’s physical therapist, bending joints in a particular direction to show a robot how to grab, move, and place objects.</p><p dir="ltr">MIT’s system then calls on an LLM to compare this sequence of motions (called a trajectory) to the shortest possible path. The model also elaborates on what might be unclear in a prompt, turning a request like “stay close” into “stay close to the surface of the table.” Using the trajectory comparison and clarified directions, the LLM begins to understand why the motions it was trained on are important to the task.&nbsp;<br><br>A second LLM then evaluates details of the environment, such as the position of obstacles and the shape of the robot’s target object. During this process, it “masks” (in other words, ignores) the elements it deems irrelevant to the task at hand, scoring each one as either a “1” (important) or “0” (not so much). For example, whether or not a user was leaning on a table during a demonstration would be a “0,” making it irrelevant. Any detail considered a “1” is incorporated into the final action plan by an algorithm.<br><br>These masks gave Masked IRL a key advantage over comparable baselines in both 3D and real-world demos because it taught a robot which information to prioritize. Thanks to the researchers’ system, virtual and real robots alike were able to skillfully maneuver objects around obstacles, such as moving a coffee mug around a laptop to different spots on a table. In these tasks, Masked IRL correctly identified users’ preferences, which they didn’t explicitly state in their prompts, up to 15 percent more often than comparable baselines.<br><br>During simulation experiments, CSAIL researchers also found that Masked IRL was a fast learner. It required fewer demos to understand how to move the mug than its baselines. They also found that the robots performed better when an LLM cleared up instructions, instead of having the machine try to follow a vague request.<br><br>This more focused approach also translated well to a real robotic arm, executing prompts the system hadn’t seen during its training phase. After being trained on 50 kinesthetic demonstrations, the robot carefully moved a cup toward a human while avoiding colliding with a user’s computer — an obstacle it learned to avoid by elaborating on a more general request to “stay away.” It also wiped a table down while “staying close” to it, and handed a user a bag of chips while “staying away” from both a human and a table.</p><p dir="ltr">Masked IRL senses and explains what users leave unsaid, but soon, it might “see” it too. CSAIL researchers plan to make their approach more dynamic by equipping it with cameras, allowing a robot to take images of its surroundings. Then it could highlight and focus on specific elements nearby. For example, if you asked the machine to pick up a toy, it might see some bananas nearby and ignore them before handling its target object.</p><p dir="ltr">Hwang wrote the paper with three CSAIL colleagues: PhD student Alexandra Forsey-Smerek ’20, SM ’22; postdoc Nathaniel Dennler; and MIT Assistant Professor Andreea Bobu, who is a member of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and CSAIL. Their work was supported, in part, by the Tata Group via the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium Award, and the Department of Defense. They’ll present the project at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in June.</p> “Masked IRL” helps a robot understand ambiguous instructions so it does chores safely. An LLM first elaborates on users' prompts based on demonstration data, then another narrows down which details an algorithm should incorporate into a motion plan. Image: Gabriel Maragaño School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Aeronautical and astronautical engineering Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Computer science and technology Artificial intelligence Machine learning Algorithms Natural language processing Robotics Automation Research https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-media-exploring-how-curiosity-driven-science-essential-ingredient-americas-success “Scientific American” showcases the history and future of America’s scientific engine, highlighting promising young scientists and icons at MIT and beyond. Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-media-exploring-how-curiosity-driven-science-essential-ingredient-americas-success <p>Over the past 80 years, America’s bold, sustained investment in scientific research, and the<strong>&nbsp;</strong>discoveries, ideas and innovations that flowed from it made America a world leader. The nation’s scientific leadership has been essential to our shared prosperity and national security, and delivered real benefits for all Americans.</p><p>On June 16, <em>Scientific American</em> released a special section, “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/young-american-scientists-2026/">The Young American Scientists</a>,” which celebrates early-career professionals actively engaged in scientific research, and features commentary from MIT faculty on why they continue to be so devoted to curiosity-driven science, demonstrating how their hard work and dedication make Americans safer, healthier, and more prosperous. Among the section’s profiles are many MIT faculty, students, and alumni, who share their advice for young scientists and their reasons for optimism in uncertain times.</p><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sally-kornbluth/">President Sally Kornbluth emphasizes</a> the importance of curiosity-driven research, noting that discovery “is part of our American DNA and has yielded vast returns to the citizens of this country and the world.” She adds, “what’s needed is a rededication to public investment in American science. Even if I were not the leader of a premier scientific institution, this is what I’d say. Investing in American science is not a gamble; if you look back in time, there is no question about the benefits.”</p><p>Adds <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/robert-langer/">Institute Prof. Robert Langer</a>: “What American science has done over the past 50, 100 years has been remarkable.”</p><p><em>Scientific American</em> notes that at MIT, that commitment to discovery is reflected in initiatives such as <a href="https://curiositymission.org/">Curiosity on a Mission</a> and the <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/introducing-mit-generative-ai-impact-consortium-0203">Generative AI Impact Consortium</a>, which are aimed at finding “solutions to real-world problems in a way that is beneficial to society.” “On one hand, we’re at a time, technologically, where things could not be more exciting [and] our science [could not be] more cutting-edge. At the same time, we’ve never seen a situation where people felt so uncertain about the continuity of science funding, particularly when it comes to the basic discovery science that fuels the economy and will fuel societal impact a decade or two from now,” says Kornbluth.</p><p><strong>The first sparks</strong></p><p>Witnessing invention can spark a lifelong fascination with science. After the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, Prof. Alan Lightman “became entranced with the idea of building a rocket” of his own. In his essay “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alan-lightman-on-his-childhood-in-science/">My childhood in science</a>,” Lightman describes how these early scientific memories and experiments have shaped him to be a well-rounded writer and physicist.</p><p>“Now more than ever, when much of the world, including the U.S., has lost its moral compass, leading to a dog-eat-dog mentality, we need science combined with literature, philosophy, history and art. We need to discover not only the physical world but also our own humanity,” writes Lightman.</p><p>Likewise, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/john-urschel/">Prof. John Urschel</a>, a former NFL player, emphasizes the importance of collaboration and having a wide range of interests.&nbsp;</p><p>“A lot of good research happens when people can draw on tools, techniques and insights from different areas, disciplines and even fields. I hope we can encourage promising young scientists to establish strong, broad backgrounds and to communicate frequently with those outside their particular areas,” says Urschel.</p><p><strong>Invention and discovery</strong></p><p><em>Scientific American&nbsp;</em>highlights students and alumni looking to better the world by doing everything from investigating neurological disease to securing our energy future.&nbsp;</p><p>At MIT, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alice-stanton/">Visiting Scientist Alice Stanton</a> developed miBrain, a 3D tissue model of the human brain, to help scientists develop personalized treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Stanton has developed a miniature version of miBrain, a brain-on-a-chip, to better test therapeutics.</p><p>Stanton notes “the road to effective treatments is long and bumpy,” compounded by cuts to federal funding. “When we have a loved one who gets sick, we want a treatment—we want something to cure them. It doesn’t come out of thin air,” she explains.</p><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bob-mumgaard/">Bob Mumgaard</a> PhD ‘08, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems is working to commercialize fusion power. “Whether in areas such as fusion—or in drugs by design for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s or in [the creation of] materials we never thought possible—our ability to use new tools to tackle some of these big, meaty problems is super exciting,” Mumgaard emphasizes.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alex-l-zhang/">Graduate student Alex Zhang</a> tackles context rot: the phenomenon when AI language models degrade as they produce more information. To solve this issue, Zhang develops recursive language models (RLMs) that enable the model to work with itself to reevaluate reasoning.</p><p>“The types of research that I want to work on are things that I think should be shared for the benefit of people in general,” says Zhang.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>The benefits of scientific collaboration&nbsp;</strong></p><p>What happens when scientific disciplines join forces at MIT?</p><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/emery-brown/">Prof. Emery Brown</a> highlighted the MIT <a href="https://heals.mit.edu/">Health and Life Sciences Collaborative</a> (HEALS), noting that the effort brings together scientists and engineers from a variety of backgrounds to tackle the most pressing health challenges of our times.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Brown explains that with President Kornbluth’s support, HEALS encourages “faculty to look more deeply into solving health care problems. The enthusiasm for HEALS has been contagious across the campus.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lucy-jones/">MIT alumna Lucy Jones PhD ‘81</a>, who is known for her work advancing public safety during earthquakes and for developing the first American earthquake drill called the Great ShakeOut, shared the necessity of collaboration in developing scientific solutions for pressing real-world problems.</p><p>&nbsp;“Solutions have to be done in collaboration, which means spending time with policymakers,” says Jones.&nbsp;</p><p>Jones also shares how scientific advances in computing have helped make Americans around the country safer when the ground starts to shake.</p><p>“My first year in grad school, I was reading paper seismograms. Now everything is computerized. We used to do field deployments; now we have permanent networks. We’re starting to use fiber‑optic cables as seismometers,” says Jones. “Computers have changed everything, including science.”</p><p><strong>The state of American science&nbsp;</strong></p><p>Within the profiles, interviewees were asked what needs to change in American science right now. Many expressed concerns with federal funding.&nbsp;</p><p>“I’m fortunate to work with extraordinary students and postdocs, but the infrastructure that lets them do their best work is under real stress: funding instability at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, immigration uncertainty for international scientists and an erosion of public trust in expertise,” says <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/feng-zhang/">Prof. Feng Zhang</a>.</p><p>Zhang developed CRISPR-based genome editing tools, which could increase our understanding human diseases and lead to new treatments. “We can lose the lead rapidly if we do not protect our innovation ecosystem,” he says.</p><p>Positive developments include the progress <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alan-guth/">Prof. Alan Guth</a> has witnessed in cosmology.&nbsp;</p><p>“With new techniques, we’re able to unravel, to make sense out of, what we’re observing,” says Guth. “A lot of progress has been made on those lines, so in terms of the physics of the field, I think things are going great. But to me, the real problem is the prospects for future funding.”</p><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/robert-langer/">Langer</a> shares his faith in the durability and strength of America’s science and innovation ecosystem.&nbsp;</p><p>“I look at the history of American innovation and education over the past 250 years, and it’s been spectacular,” says Langer. “Plenty of times there’ve been setbacks. We’ve had world wars, you know, we’ve had depressions, and people keep persisting and keep learning. They keep discovering and they keep inventing. So that gives me a lot of cause for hope. This is not the worst time by any means.”</p> Bikers on the MIT campus. Jake Belcher President Sally Kornbluth Curiosity Funding MIT Sloan School of Management School of Engineering School of Architecture and Planning School of Science Research MIT Schwarzman College of Computing School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences Comparative Media Studies/Writing Physics Mathematics Brain and cognitive sciences Picower Institute Broad Institute Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Artificial intelligence Quantum computing Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Bioengineering and biotechnology Space exploration Health sciences and technology https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-architecture-influences-political-activity-0625 In Ghana, semi-communal “compound houses” affect how much people vote and participate in political activity, new research shows. Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-architecture-influences-political-activity-0625 Peter Dizikes | MIT News <p>Could the precise architectural form of your residence influence how much you participate in politics?&nbsp;</p><p>A new study by MIT scholars finds this to be exactly the case — at least in Accra, Ghana, where many people live in semi-communal structures known as “compound houses,” often sharing kitchens, bathrooms, and common living-room spaces, while having private bedrooms.</p><p>The detailed study of homes in Ghana’s capital finds that residents of compound houses are more likely to vote, attend rallies, and take part in political campaigns, compared to people with more private forms of housing.&nbsp;</p><p>“The overarching pattern we find is that if you compare people who live in compound houses to residents of other housing types, like single-family homes or self-contained apartments, there is a pretty big difference in political actions,” says Noah Nathan, an MIT political scientist and co-author of a newly published paper detailing the study’s results. “People seem to vote more, and there are more other types of political behavior, like going to rallies, participating in campaigns, and contacting politicians.”</p><p>While those differences could stem from factors other than housing, the highly granular study suggests the architecture itself really matters. The researchers examined the specific floor plans of compound houses and found variations&nbsp;in people’s political information and social connections — key factors that existing studies show predict political activity —&nbsp;that map to differences in where people live within compound houses.</p><p>“We show that those kinds of social relationships and exchanges of political information seem to vary systematically with people’s individual locations within the layouts of the buildings they live in,” says Nathan, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Political Science. “That’s consistent with architectural design leading you to have different levels of political participation.”</p><p>The open-access paper, “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/vernacular-architecture-and-grassroots-urban-politics-how-politics-is-embedded-in-residential-design/A4BE461A4E87807398DCFDCBE9704083" target="_blank">Vernacular Architecture and Grassroots Urban Politics: How Politics Is Embedded in Residential Design</a>,” appears in the <em>American Political Science Review</em>. Nathan’s co-author is Paige Bollen PhD ’23, an assistant professor of political science at Ohio State University.</p><p><strong>Compound effects</strong></p><p>Compound houses are a common form of residence in Ghana, much of West Africa, and some other parts of the world. They tend to house lower-income people who construct them out of inexpensive local materials. Trying to understand their effects is part of taking seriously the idea that place, and space, influence how people live.&nbsp;</p><p>“Rather than just thinking of cities as big agglomerations of people, we should evaluate cities through their actual built forms and designs,” Nathan says. “Space affects politics because people interact with each other in space. It’s not just that people are near each other, but the designs force them to interact or talk in ways that affect how information is exchanged and how social networks form, and that can aggregate up into politics in terms of action and cooperation.”</p><p>To conduct the study, Nathan and Bollen used three forms of data to draw out the effects of compound houses on politics. Through pre-existing administrative and electoral data, they first show that polling stations in neighborhoods with a high proportion of compound houses have better electoral turnout than neighborhoods with fewer compound houses. And from existing national survey data, the researchers determined that residents of compound houses actively participate in politics more often.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers then conducted an original research survey of 1,272 residents in 391 compound houses in 30 neighborhoods of Accra, combined with mapping that showed the layout of those compound houses and where the survey participants lived within each one. In this way, they showed the effects of compound houses more precisely: Living in parts of them with especially high exposure to other people actually increases the amount of social network ties people report, as well as the amount of political information they obtain.</p><p>Quantitatively, changes in the centrality of people’s locations within compound houses seem to make a bigger difference in political engagement than other fundamental non-housing factors, such as changes in employment or measures of socioeconomic status.&nbsp;</p><p>“We leverage that variation to show that even within compound houses, the people with more exposures to neighbors have different social network ties and different forms of information than neighbors who live in more private locations,” Nathan notes.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Encouraging participation</strong></p><p>As the scholars discuss in the paper, the effects of architecture on civic involvement are hardly immutable, but likely depend very much on the type of political state in question.&nbsp;</p><p>“We think under different conditions, this kind of architecture could have different effects,” Nathan says. “If you live in an authoritarian regime with an active police state, inhabiting an architecture in which you’re constantly on display to your neighbors is probably going to have the exact opposite implications from what we find in the study.”</p><p>However, he adds, since Ghana has a generally healthy democracy and is not a repressive state, “In this context, where there are not such high costs to participating in politics, we think these effects are going to break in the direction of more political participation.”</p><p>The study itself is an outgrowth of long-running, overlapping research interests on the part of Nathan and Bollen. Nathan is currently developing a book project about urban form, architecture, and politics both in Ghana, where he has conducted research for many years, and in other cities across the African continent. Bollen conducted her PhD research at MIT on public spaces, interactions, and political dynamics in Ghana and South Africa; her advisor was MIT Professor Evan Lieberman.</p><p>Sociologists, management experts, architects, and planners have all studied the effects of building design on human behavior, but have often focused on issues such as workplace productivity. Some political scientists, including MIT Associate Professor Bernardo Zacka, have also highlighted the salience of architecture to politics. But few political scientists have undertaken quantitative empirical studies of the subject. If they do, Nathan thinks, the results might surprise some people.&nbsp;</p><p>“There’s a famous idea that cities can be anonymizing,” Nathan says. “I think that’s actually not true. When you go to urban Ghana, people know each other, and there is a great deal of social capital and social connections. And I think part of the reason is that many people live in architectures that are not anonymizing.”</p> An aerial view of compound housing in Atwima, Ghana. “The overarching pattern we find is that if you compare people who live in compound houses to residents of other housing types, like single-family homes or self-contained apartments, there is a pretty big difference in political actions,” says Noah Nathan. Credit: iStock Research Voting and elections Government Policy Architecture Cities Developing countries Political science Africa Global School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences https://news.mit.edu/2026/improving-ai-agent-speed-and-energy-efficiency-0625 A new system, known as Murakkab, optimizes the design and deployment of multistep workflows that power AI applications. Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/improving-ai-agent-speed-and-energy-efficiency-0625 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>Agentic workflows are artificial intelligence-powered software systems that chain together multiple models and external tools to tackle complicated tasks, like analyzing a video and answering questions about it.</p><p>But the way these highly fragmented systems are designed and deployed often causes inefficiencies that can lead to wasted computation, energy, and cost.&nbsp;</p><p>To improve efficiency, researchers from MIT and Microsoft developed an intelligent system that streamlines the process of designing agentic workflows and automatically optimizes how those workflows are implemented.&nbsp;</p><p>With this new method, a developer can describe what they want the agentic workflow to do in plain language, without needing to specify all the details of their application in advance.&nbsp;</p><p>The system automatically figures out the best models and tools to use, as well as the ideal hardware configuration and computational resource allocation when the workflow is executed by a cloud provider.</p><p>It adjusts those configurations on the fly based on each user’s priorities, such as minimizing costs or maximizing speed.</p><p>When tested on several agentic workloads, this new system reduced the number of computational units needed for deployment, significantly cutting energy requirements and costs compared to traditional approaches without hampering performance.</p><p>“Agentic workflows are getting very complicated and quickly becoming the backbone of what cloud providers are doing. Energy usage is a huge concern, so we need to be very careful about how efficient these workflows are. It is very easy to over-allocate resources, wasting energy and money. Enabling a cloud provider to intelligently make these workflows more resource-optimal is a win for everyone involved,” says Gohar Chaudhry, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a <a href="https://goharirfan.me/publications/murakkab_osdi_2026_paper.pdf" target="_blank">paper on this system</a>.</p><p>He is joined on the paper by Adam Belay, an associate professor of EECS and a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; senior author Ricardo Bianchini, technical fellow and corporate vice president at Microsoft Azure; and others at Microsoft Azure. The paper will be presented at the USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation.</p><p><strong>A configuration conundrum</strong></p><p>An agentic workflow is a system composed of several autonomous AI agents that collaboratively use various models and tools, like databases or Python programs, to dynamically complete a multi-step task, such data processing or code generation.&nbsp;</p><p>These workflows can serve as behind-the-scenes processes that power user-facing applications.</p><p>Typically, developers must hard-code all technical choices upfront. They need to define which AI agents, models, and tools to use, and the order in which to use them. They also must specify the hardware that runs the workflow and how to balance tradeoffs like speed versus cost.&nbsp;</p><p>This is especially challenging because agentic workflows bring together multiple black-box models and diverse tools, each with their own configuration options, which may be offered by different companies.&nbsp;</p><p>If a new AI model is released that would improve the application’s accuracy or efficiency, the developer would need to start from scratch to implement it.</p><p>“Even if you wanted to do all this manually, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to configure the workflow optimally because the space of possible configurations is so large,” Chaudhry says.&nbsp;</p><p>In addition, the cloud data center that deploys the application for customers can’t see inside the workflow to allocate its hardware resources in the most efficient manner at the time of the user’s request.&nbsp;</p><p>With this new system, called Murakkab (an Urdu word that means a composition of things), the researchers sought to optimize the entire agentic workflow process.</p><p><strong>Dynamic decision-making</strong></p><p>First, Murakkab enables developers to create an agentic workflow by describing their intent for the application in high-level terms, rather than detailing how<em>&nbsp;</em>the many components of that workflow should be combined.&nbsp;</p><p>For instance, a developer might describe a video Q&amp;A application that extracts key frames, generates a transcript, and then answers user queries about the video.&nbsp;</p><p>“There are many ways to do this, and all these different models and tools have implications on how fast the application can finish the task,” he says.&nbsp;</p><p>Murakkab takes the developer’s straightforward specifications and automatically identifies the best existing models and tools to put together into the workflow.&nbsp;</p><p>It also determines which components need to run sequentially and which can be run in parallel to boost performance.&nbsp;</p><p>“The platform makes configuration decisions dynamically over time, so if a new model or GPU accelerator comes out tomorrow, the developer doesn’t need to worry about that,” he says.</p><p>When the cloud provider deploys that application for a customer, Murakkab optimizes the workflow by configuring its components to meet the user’s constraints, such as prioritizing accuracy while meeting a latency requirement.&nbsp;</p><p>It adaptively identifies ideal hardware allocations and deployment schedules to maximize efficiency in real time, then generates a workflow that is ready for the cloud provider to execute.</p><p>“Our system also gives cloud providers visibility into multiple workloads, so the provider can share computational resources in the most efficient manner while satisfying the constraints of users,” he says.</p><p>When tested on diverse agentic workflows for video Q&amp;A and code generation, Murakkab met user requirements while using only about 35 percent of the computation required by other methods. It consumed only about 27 percent as much energy for less than 25 percent of the cost.</p><p>The dynamic nature of Murakkab also enables users to balance tradeoffs. In one instance, the system lowered energy consumption of an agentic workflow by more than an order of magnitude with only about a 2 percent drop in accuracy for the customer.</p><p>The system was also able to identify an unexpectedly ideal configuration for a model that selects video frames, optimizing performance for a video Q&amp;A task. This type of optimization would be nearly impossible for a developer to do manually, Chaudhry says.&nbsp;</p><p>Next, the researchers plan to expand their system to more complex workflows and larger computing clusters while exploring opportunities to optimize new agentic applications.&nbsp;</p><p>“There is a lot of potential to make these workflows more resource-optimal so they consume far less energy, but we need to be thinking about this at the scale of major cloud platforms,” says Chaudhry.</p><p>This research was supported, in part, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.</p> “Agentic workflows are getting very complicated and quickly becoming the backbone of what cloud providers are doing,” says Gohar Chaudhry. Image: iStock Research Computer science and technology Artificial intelligence Machine learning Algorithms Data Electronics Sustainability Software Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) https://news.mit.edu/2026/when-environmental-change-outpaces-life-ability-to-adapt-0624 A new model links Earth’s mass extinctions to mismatches between rates of environmental change and biological adaptation. Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/when-environmental-change-outpaces-life-ability-to-adapt-0624 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>When an animal’s environment changes faster than the animal can adapt, its chances of survival can flat-line. The same is true for populations, and even entire species.&nbsp;</p><p>Now, scientists at MIT and the University of Leicester have found that this connection between evolutionary adaptation and the pace of environmental change holds up at the global scale as well — and can determine life’s susceptibility to mass extinction. The researchers developed a theoretical model of this phenomenon, which they present in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/62jn-xgqy" target="_blank">paper appearing today in <em>Physical Review Letters</em></a>.</p><p>The team compared the model with available data from past major mass extinctions, including how fast the global environment changed at the time of each event. The model successfully predicted the severity of most mass extinctions in Earth’s history, or the fraction of life that was unable to adapt, and therefore went extinct.&nbsp;</p><p>Interestingly, the researchers found that the range of adaptation rates across animal groups is broadly similar to the range of rates at which the environment can change.</p><p>“What we’re beginning to see is a certain level of organization, and ways in which life behaves that are consistent with the ways in which the environment behaves,” says study author Daniel Rothman, professor of geophysics and co-director of the Lorenz Center at MIT. “It may be that life has evolved so that its range of adaptabilities matches the range of stresses that it meets.”</p><p>Rothman’s study co-author is Sergei Petrovskii, professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leicester in England.</p><p><strong>A catastrophizing connection</strong></p><p>The connection between extinction and environmental change is not new. In the late 18th century, the French naturalist Georges Cuvier, who is often referred to as the founding father of paleontology, was the first to propose the concept of “catastrophism.” He had discovered fossil bones near Paris that didn’t match any animal known to exist at the time. Cuvier concluded that the bones were from a group of giant mammals that existed at one time but was no longer around. He proposed, then, that an entire species could disappear, or go extinct, likely due to a widespread catastrophe.&nbsp;</p><p>“That itself was a major idea, that a species could go extinct,” Rothman says. “And he had suggested it was an environmental catastrophe that had caused it.”</p><p>The concept of catastrophism later gave way to the view that Earth’s history was shaped mainly by slow, gradual processes. But in the mid-20th century the American geologist Norman Newell revisited the problem. In seeking the cause of extinctions, he proposed what Rothman and Petrovskii call the “rate-mismatch” hypothesis, the notion that extinction occurs when the rate of environmental change is higher than the rate at which a species can evolve to adapt.&nbsp;</p><p>Biologists have since observed Newell’s hypothesis play out in many cases where changes in the environment have driven the extinction of individual species. Rothman and Petrovskii wondered: Could the hypothesis also apply at the global scale?</p><p>“We know that individual species go extinct when environmental change outpaces their ability to adapt,” Rothman notes. “But it hasn’t been clear whether this same idea applies at the scale of global extinction events.”</p><p><strong>Finding a mismatch</strong></p><p>For their new study, the researchers looked to test the rate mismatch hypothesis at the global scale. They wanted to see whether mass extinction events in history can be explained by a mismatch between the rate of global environmental change and the rate at which life around the world can adapt.&nbsp;</p><p>To do so, at least in theory, they would have to compare two sources of data: the rates at which the global environment has changed over time and the rates at which different groups of organisms adapt to environmental change. The first can be found in geological records, which scientists have used extensively to infer how the Earth’s climate changed through history. The second, however, is almost impossible to record.</p><p>“We’re talking about the rates at which organisms adapt to major environmental change at effectively geologic timescales, from thousands to millions of years,” Rothman says. “And that doesn’t lend itself to direct observation.”</p><p>In place of actual data, the researchers aimed to construct a general mathematical theory to describe the range of adaptation rates across animal groups around the world. In this context, “adaptation” refers to any change within a species, over time periods that are much longer than a generation, that enable the species to persist as its environment changes.&nbsp;</p><p>It is generally understood in evolutionary theory that a species can successfully adapt only when multiple conditions are met. For instance, there needs to be variation in the population, these variations must be heritable, some variations enable an organism to adapt better than others, and the organisms that adapt better should leave more offspring. If all these conditions are met, the entire species should be able to adapt to a given environmental change. However, if any one condition fails, the population will go extinct.&nbsp;</p><p>Rothman and Petrovskii recognized that in this case, a species’ probability of successfully adapting multiplies with every condition that it meets. And it turns out that this pattern can be described mathematically as a very simple, bell-shaped curve. Such a curve essentially describes what fraction of the world’s animals can adapt at given rates, from the slowest to the fastest adapters, and how this fraction changes nonlinearly with the rate of adaptation. This curve generally shows that most animal groups can adapt at intermediate rates, while fewer animal groups adapt at the slowest and fastest rates.&nbsp;</p><p>After they established this general pattern of adaptation rates, the researchers looked to see how this pattern compares to recorded rates of environmental change, and how these two rates match, or don’t match, at times of mass extinction.&nbsp;</p><p>To do so, they considered paleontological and geochemical data from 27 episodes over the last 450 million years where the carbon cycle experienced significant change — a measure that is generally understood to reflect global environmental change. They then compared rates of environmental change with the fraction of animal groups that went extinct during each episode — numbers that were established previously in a well-regarded study by paleobiologist John Alroy.&nbsp;</p><p>In the end, Rothman and Petrovskii observed that indeed, for almost every mass extinction event in the last 450 million years, there was a mismatch in the rates at which the environment changed and at which animals could adapt; mass extinctions occurred when a significant fraction of animals could not adapt fast enough to match the changing environment. Their results confirm that the rate mismatch hypothesis applies at the global scale.</p><p>What’s more, this mismatch in rates could predict the severity of extinction events, or the fraction of animal life that went extinct given the rate at which the environment changed.&nbsp;</p><p>In the case of the end-Permian extinction, it’s likely that the rapid acidification of the ocean outpaced organisms’ ability to evolve adequate protections, leading to the extinction of over 80 percent of the world’s marine species.&nbsp;</p><p>The team’s work focuses on applying the new model to past extinction events. But the work could also provide a framework for understanding modern extinction risk.&nbsp;</p><p>“Carbon dioxide levels in the ocean are increasing today at a rate which, when appropriately re-scaled, is similar to rates of carbon-cycle change that are just lower than those associated with major extinction events in the past,” Rothman says. “It suggests that modern environmental change may be approaching rates beyond which adaptation becomes increasingly difficult.”&nbsp;</p><p>This research is supported, in part, by&nbsp;Schmidt Sciences, LLC; the MIT Climate Grand Challenges; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the European Space Agency; and the London Mathematical Society.</p> Crinoid fossils from the Permian Period. A new model suggests that the end-Permian and other mass extinctions on Earth may occur when environmental change outpaces the ability of species to adapt. Credit: iStock Research Climate Earth and atmospheric sciences Ecology Environment Climate change Evolution Mathematics Natural disasters EAPS School of Science National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/computer-model-could-enable-less-material-bridges-buildings-0624 MIT researchers developed an approach for generating more buildable structures, bridging the gap between optimized design and real-world construction. Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/computer-model-could-enable-less-material-bridges-buildings-0624 Zach Winn | MIT News <p>In 2022, global production of construction materials accounted for <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/breakthrough-agenda-report-2023/buildings" target="_blank">more than 7 percent</a> of total carbon emissions. But how many of those materials were truly necessary to build houses, buildings, and bridges?</p><p>A technique called topology optimization can design structures that reduce the amount of material used, in some cases by as much as 90 percent, which would represent a multi-gigaton reduction in building emissions. Unfortunately, topology optimization is mostly used by researchers for applications like 3D printing rather than by engineers designing at the scale of buildings and bridges.</p><p>That’s because topology optimization doesn’t create structures that can easily be built on time and budget, which are the things builders really care about.</p><p>Now MIT researchers have created a way to make topology optimization designs more buildable. Their framework, described in a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926580526003262" target="_blank">new paper in <em>Automation in Construction</em></a> today, allows users to apply constraints to algorithmically generated structures to limit their complexity. For instance, the approach allows users to limit how many components meet at each point of their design and how small they want their smallest parts. It also builds on previous work by designing structures with multiple materials and taking into account materials’ properties to distribute load and specify part connections.</p><p>“There’s an interplay between the materials you’re using, the constructability of designs, and the optimization of the structure,” says senior author Josephine Carstensen, MIT’s Gilbert W. Winslow (1937) Career Development Professor in Civil Engineering. “You need to be able to address all three at the same time. That’s what we tried to do here.”</p><p>The researchers used their approach to design steel, wood, and multimaterial truss structures that support loads in buildings and bridges, showing the carbon emissions associated with materials changed significantly when different constraints were applied. They hope their framework will move topology optimization closer to being used in real-world construction.</p><p>“In the literature, there’s sometimes been a disconnect between the carbon savings you can achieve on a computer and the realistic carbon savings you can achieve for built structures — especially when it comes to design technologies like topology optimization,” Carstensen says. “The problem lies in the lack of constructability of designs. These designs have been perceived as too difficult to make with conventional methods, so they are never even attempted. That’s what is exciting about our approach: We can add constraints so that you will never be in a situation where the design that comes out is too hard to make.”</p><p>Joining Carstensen on the paper is first author and civil and environmental engineering PhD student Zane Schemmer.</p><p><strong>More buildable designs</strong></p><p>Computer-based topology optimization has been around for decades. It uses computer programs to optimally distribute material in a given space, for instance creating the strongest possible structures at the lowest weight. The resulting designs are often complex, spider web-like structures that would be a challenge for even the most capable engineers to build.</p><p>“A big question Josephine and I were asking is why isn’t industry using it?” Schemmer recalls. “What are the obstacles that prevent industry from designing things more efficiently, and how can we fill the gaps between research and real life?”</p><p>In recent years, several researchers have developed ways to make topology optimization easier to use. For their study, Schemmer and Carstensen wanted to bring those approaches together and add new capabilities, like creating designs that use multiple materials, which has been another challenge in the field.</p><p>“A big aspect of sustainability going forward will be not only using less material, but also implementing materials efficiently based on considerations like where you are in the world, your access to materials, and each of their associated carbon costs,” Schemmer says.</p><p>To build their framework, they used a class of equations called mixed integer algorithms that help make binary decisions about things like materials and connections.</p><p>“You can’t have a part that’s 72 percent timber and 28 percent steel,” Schemmer says. “Instead, it says, ‘This truss or cable is going to be made out of this,’ and then based on that decision, how do we make sure all of these connections meet their strength standards?”</p><p>The system’s decisions also take into account material properties. For instance, steel struts can withstand compressive loads, but steel cables cannot. The model also has more realistic modeling of how parts connect than previous approaches.</p><p>“In 3D printing, the way things come together is easy,” Carstensen says. “In construction, that’s not the case. If you’re building with timber there’s a certain rule set, versus steel has a different rule set.”</p><p>Users can also decide how complex they want their design to be by specifying the maximum number of connections at each joint and the minimum angle between connected components. The model also creates minimum size limits for parts, further improving its constructability.</p><p>“It’s tough to give a contractor these complex, intricate designs because it’s going to be super difficult to build,” Schemmer says. “A lot of times contractors won’t pick up a project like that to begin with.”</p><p>The researchers compared structures designed with their approach to structures designed with conventional topology optimization, showing dramatic differences in final designs that transformed how the structures would be built. Using the Lockport “Upside-Down Bridge” near Buffalo, New York, as an example, they applied individual constraints, like a minimum angle on part connections or minimum part sizes, to the bridge’s truss design, to better understand how each constraint impacted final designs.</p><p>Finally, they made truss designs that used wood only, steel only, and combined wood and steel, showing how different projects offered tradeoffs with respect to environmental impact and constructability.</p><p>“We saw how the system knew that you could design a bridge of pure steel, but that might not be best from a carbon standpoint,” Schemmer says. “Or you could design a bridge out of purely timber, but that might not be the strongest. But these materials can work together, so you use timber for the carbon savings and steel where you need extra strength, and there’s a balance you can find in these structures.”</p><p><strong>From research to industry</strong></p><p>The researchers say their approach is more computationally intensive than some others, but they were able to use a MacBook Pro to run the programs in their experiment, and they believe it’s practical for most civil engineering firms.</p><p>“It’s computationally a little tougher to solve, but there’s a lot of tools coming out nowadays that make these problems a lot more feasible,” Schemmer says. “This approach has been avoided by industry in the past, but now we think it’s a practical way to solve problems dealing with variable constraints.”</p><p>If users have more computational resources, the researchers say their approach could work with a long list of materials and far bigger structures than homes, small buildings, and bridges.</p><p>Moving forward, Carstensen says the team plans to build scaled-down structures designed by the model to further validate its predictions. They also want to add constraints to their model to make it even more seamless for civil engineers to use when designing the world’s infrastructure.</p><p>“As a structural engineer by training, I was never taught how to design for low-carbon,” Schemmer says. “To tackle a problem as big as climate change, addressing the built environment is a great place to start. One of the most tangible things we can do is work at the layer of construction, at the design stage, because that’s a fundamental step that we can control. There’s a lot of decisions we make early on that lead us to use extra material we don’t need.”</p><p>The work was funded by the MIT Morningside Academy for Design.</p> On top left is the Lockport truss bridge passing over the Erie Canal near Buffalo, New York. Researchers mimicked this structure, highlighted in teal blue, and created multiple timber-only designs (top left), steel-only designs (bottom left), and timber-steel designs. Image: Courtesy of the researchers School of Engineering Civil and environmental engineering Sustainability Climate change Emissions Materials science and engineering 3-D printing Carbon dioxide Design Research Algorithms Concrete Startups MIT Morningside Academy for Design Cleaner industry https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-chip-could-help-tiny-robots-traverse-complex-environments-0623 Researchers combined an efficient algorithm with dedicated hardware to rapidly generate 3D maps for navigation using minimal memory and power. Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-chip-could-help-tiny-robots-traverse-complex-environments-0623 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>A new chip developed by MIT researchers could help tiny, low-power UAVs avoid obstacles as they zip around tight corners inside an industrial HVAC system to check for gas leaks.</p><p>The chip allows small autonomous robots and other battery-limited devices to construct detailed 3D maps of their environments in real-time using only about as much power as a single LED. A robot could use such a map to plan a collision-free path to reach its goal.</p><p>Typically, generating such thorough maps requires power-hungry systems and a great deal of memory to build and store 3D representations of the obstacles in a robot’s environment.</p><p>The MIT researchers took a different approach by combining an extremely efficient mapping algorithm with specialized hardware designed to accelerate its workload, which minimizes memory and power consumption.&nbsp;</p><p>This system-on-a-chip consumes only about 6 milliwatts of power, a fraction of the power required by other systems.&nbsp;</p><p>This low-power operation could also make the chip well-suited for lightweight augmented reality headsets that can be worn for extended periods, for applications like educational medical simulation or detailed repair and assembly work.</p><p>“This paper showcases a key example of how you can leverage co-design of the algorithm and hardware to really push energy efficiency. While there has been a lot of work looking into compact 3D maps, what stands out about this work is that it also ensures that the process to generate those maps is as efficient as possible. Our chip allows you to store very large maps in a very small space, and do it in a very energy efficient manner,” says Vivienne Sze, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and senior author of a <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.29005" target="_blank">paper on the chip</a>.</p><p>She is joined on the paper by co-lead authors and MIT graduate students Zih-Sing Fu and Peter Zhi Xuan Li as well as Sertac Karaman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and the director of LIDS. The work was recently presented at the IEEE Very Large-Scale Integrated Circuits Symposium.</p><p><strong>A more compact map</strong></p><p>For a robot, generating a 3D map that includes the obstacles in its environment usually demands a lot of power because it must store images captured by its camera, and process all the 3D pixels in each image multiple times.</p><p>Instead of representing the environment using 3D pixels, which are cubes called voxels, the MIT researchers utilized a technique that maps the obstacles in space using ellipsoid blobs called Gaussians.&nbsp;</p><p>The size, shape, and thickness of these ellipsoids can be smoothly adapted, so they match the shape of curved objects more efficiently than if one uses rigid, cube-shaped voxels.&nbsp;</p><p>Importantly, the map captures&nbsp;the obstacles and free space around the robot,&nbsp;and together these let the robot plan a safe, collision-free path. Mapping obstacles and free space with voxels typically consumes a lot of memory, which makes traditional methods power-hungry. Because Gaussians can flexibly fit the geometry, a single elongated ellipsoid can represent a region that would take many voxels, so occupied surfaces and free space are captured far more compactly.</p><p>For their new system-on-a-chip, called Gleanmer, the researchers employed an&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.03740" target="_blank">algorithm their lab developed called GMMap</a> that efficiently generates a 3D map of the robot’s environment using Gaussians to represent obstacles.&nbsp;</p><p>With traditional approaches, a robot would need to load and process each depth image several times to adjust the size and shape of the ellipsoids. The system would usually construct Gaussians by comparing all the pixels in an image to each other. But the amount of memory and power needed to do this remains too high for many edge devices.</p><p>To solve this problem, the MIT researchers invented a technique that can generate highly accurate Gaussians from depth images with only one pass, after which they can discard the images,&nbsp;so the chip never has to store an entire image at once.&nbsp;</p><p>Instead of comparing each pixel to every other pixel in the 3D image, their algorithm assumes that nearby pixels belong in the same Gaussian, so it only needs to compare each pixel to its neighbors.</p><p>“At any point in time, we only need to store a few pixels in memory, which significantly reduces the memory footprint our algorithm requires,” Li says.</p><p><strong>Leveraging co-design</strong></p><p>But as the robot moves through the space, it usually sees the same object from different viewpoints. When it generates Gaussians, some will overlap because they represent the same object. This can make the 3D map too large to store on an edge device.</p><p>Fusing overlapping Gaussians makes the map more compact, but doing so typically requires the algorithm to process many raw pixels stored in memory. The researchers developed a novel technique to perform this fusion process directly on overlapping Gaussians, without needing to revisit the original pixels. Since Gaussians are more compact than pixels, this significantly reduces memory and power requirements.</p><p>The same principle runs through their algorithm — most computations operate directly on compact Gaussians rather than the original pixels, enabling energy efficiency.</p><p>The researchers exploit this principle to design a chip that keeps the Gaussians it is actively working on within small, fast on-chip memory right beside the computational units. This is only possible because the Gaussian map is so compact.</p><p>The Gaussians the robot needs to work on next are waiting in the on-chip memory units, so they don’t need to be fetched from more distant, power-hungry, off-chip storage.&nbsp;</p><p>“By having a dedicated memory that just stores the objects you’ve seen in the previous few frames, you can access the data much more efficiently,” Fu explains.</p><p>They tested the system-on-a-chip by reconstructing a range of diverse, pre-existing 3D environments. The chip can also reconstruct obstacles and free space directly from live data streamed from an iPhone camera.</p><p>Gleanmer generated detailed 3D maps in real-time while consuming about 6 milliwatts of power. It required only about 2.5 percent of the power that the best existing chip for map construction would need.&nbsp;</p><p>By reusing compact Gaussians along the path as it plans, the chip lets a robot chart a safe trajectory using only about 20 percent of the energy it would otherwise need.</p><p>“We reduce the memory consumption by making sure the algorithm is efficient. Then we accelerate the workload that is performed by that efficient algorithm, so in the end, our chip is as efficient as possible,” Li says.</p><p>The researchers plan to further improve energy efficiency by moving the processing units on the chip closer to the sensors that gather environmental data. They could also explore additional applications, such as the use of Gaussians to represent schematics. This could help AI systems reason about complex blueprints more efficiently.</p><p>“Real-time 3D mapping has been the missing piece for small autonomous systems. A drone inspecting a pipeline or a pair of AR glasses navigating a room both need to understand the space around them — instantly, continuously, and at almost no power cost. Gleanmer makes that possible for the first time in a chip you can hold between your fingers,” says Karaman.</p><p>This work is supported, in part, by the MIT-MathWorks Fellowship, Amazon, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and Intel.&nbsp;</p> A new chip developed by MIT researchers could help tiny, low-power robots avoid obstacles as they navigate around tight corners inside an industrial HVAC system to check for gas leaks. Credit: iStock Research Computer science and technology Algorithms Artificial intelligence Machine learning Robotics Autonomous vehicles Augmented and virtual reality Computer chips Memory Energy Research Laboratory of Electronics Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Aeronautical and astronautical engineering School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing National Science Foundation (NSF) Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) https://news.mit.edu/2026/better-way-to-model-metal-alloys-behavior-0619 MIT researchers’ approach captures subtle atomic patterns, improving predictions of material properties. Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/better-way-to-model-metal-alloys-behavior-0619 Zach Winn | MIT News <p>Companies working at the frontier of aerospace, energy, and computing are constantly looking for new materials to improve performance. But in order to understand how those materials will actually behave once they’re inside rockets or on computer chips, companies first have to make the material and then test it. That’s because even the most powerful simulation techniques struggle to model the complex chemical arrangements in most of today’s solid materials. The problem adds costs and time to materials innovation.</p><p>Now a team of MIT researchers has created a way to accurately model the behavior of metals, regardless of the complexity of their chemical arrangement. At the center of the approach are machine-learning models that make simulations of materials faster and more accurate. The researchers improved those models by building training datasets that capture the diversity of atomic environments in chemically disordered materials.</p><p>In a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aea9951" target="_blank">new paper in <em>Sciences Advances</em></a>, the researchers showed their approach could be used to accurately predict material properties for a diverse group of metal alloys under a range of conditions. They also showed how the approach could be used to develop new materials, especially in scenarios where experimentation is expensive.</p><p>“The focus of the paper is metallic alloys, which is the field I work in, but this could be adapted to other types of materials, like semiconductors,” says senior author Rodrigo Freitas, MIT’s TDK Career Development Professor in Materials Science and Engineering. “This is not specific to any one application — you could use this approach to create new sustainable steels, new materials for aerospace, and more. That’s what makes this exciting.”</p><p>Joining Freitas on the paper are first author Killian Sheriff PhD ’26; MIT PhD students Daniel Xiao and Yifan Cao; and University of Sheffield Senior Lecturer Lewis R. Owen.</p><p><strong>Modeling metals</strong></p><p>Material properties are mostly determined by the internal arrangement of their chemical elements. Even if two materials have the same mix of chemical elements, different chemical arrangements can make the difference between a brittle material and one that deforms without breaking.</p><p>Capturing that distinction requires simulating materials atom by atom. To do that, researchers rely on models that describe how atoms interact with each other. Over the last two decades, machine learning has become the most accurate way to build those models. Such models work well when the chemical arrangements inside materials follow highly ordered patterns, but that’s not the case with most solid materials, whose atomic chemical arrangements are disordered and vary from one region to another.</p><p>“The real challenge in our field is modelling these chemically disordered phases,” Freitas says. “Chemical disorder means there’s a huge variety of local chemical environments, which is hard for the machine-learning model to learn. This is a problem because every single metal we use in practice is chemically disordered.”</p><p>The problem comes down to a lack of representative training data for those atom-by-atom simulations. The current leading approach for creating such data works by brute force, often requiring more than 100,000 hours of computation to create the training data for a single material. Even then, it does not transfer well when researchers change the material’s composition.</p><p>In <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2024/machine-learning-unlocks-secrets-advanced-alloys-0718" target="_blank">previous work</a>, Freitas’ group had developed a way to measure the chemical complexity of solid materials by analyzing the frequency and spacing of tiny groups of atoms. For this study, the researchers used that capability to build better training datasets. They used a mathematical approach known as information theory to generate training datasets that capture a wider variety of local chemical environments inside disordered materials. The method works by swapping out atoms from samples to reduce repetition and expose the model to chemical environments it might otherwise miss.</p><p>“We kept optimizing the training set so it captured as many different local environments as possible,” Freitas says. “If the same kind of environment showed up many times, we replaced redundant examples with ones the model hadn’t seen before. That makes the training set much more informative because each example adds something new.”</p><p>When trained on the researchers’ datasets, the models predicted material properties more accurately than models trained using random sampling or another popular sampling method.</p><p>“The starting point for all these atom-by-atom simulations is: Are you able to accurately describe the chemical bond between atoms?” Freitas explains. “If not, it can still teach you about materials in general, but it doesn’t tell you what will happen to specific materials in the real world. This approach makes the simulations high fidelity in terms of their chemistry, to better reflect what’s happening to materials.”</p><p>The researchers applied their technique to create machine-learning training datasets for a group of chemically diverse metal alloys. Using a set of machine-learning models, they showed the models trained on their datasets are more accurate than much larger models created by companies like Google and Microsoft.</p><p>“We got to a point where we were convinced it worked without using these expensive brute-force methods,” Freitas says. “I told Killian, ‘This is a good paper. But if you can show that simulations with these models can now accurately predict useful materials properties, then it becomes a very good paper.’ Killian took that to heart and tested this as widely as he could.”<br><br>Sheriff worked with Xiao and Cao to test the approach across different alloys and properties. The team also drew on Owen’s experimental data to compare the simulations against real measurements of atomic ordering in alloys.</p><p><strong>From the lab to industry</strong></p><p>The method works, in part, by capturing hidden patterns in the sample data. The researchers describe the patterns in the paper as “subtle energetic biases toward certain local chemical configurations.”</p><p>Those small energetic differences matter because they determine which phases form in an alloy, how those phases change with temperature and composition, and ultimately which properties the material will have. As one test, Daniel Xiao led simulations showing that the team’s models could predict phase diagrams that closely matched experimental data. Phase diagrams map which phases are stable across different temperatures and chemical compositions, and they are a central tool for designing and processing alloys.</p><p>“Phase diagrams are one of the main ways people connect materials modeling to real processing decisions,” Freitas says. “If you are welding, casting, or heat-treating an alloy, you need to know which phases are likely to form under different conditions. Our goal is to make these kinds of predictions accurate enough, and accessible enough, that they become part of how people design materials.”</p><p>The researchers are now using the approach to study how changing an alloy’s composition affects mechanical properties and radiation tolerance, with the goal of designing materials that remain strong and damage-tolerant in harsh environments. They are also working to make the method easier to use with the kinds of tools and workflows materials engineers already rely on.</p><p>“Industry isn’t going to change the way they do things if what you’re creating doesn’t fit into their existing operating procedures,” Freitas says. “The goal is to make these predictions useful in the places where materials decisions are actually made.”<br><br>The research was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.</p> MIT researchers created a technique that captures chemical arrangements across materials to improve predictions of how metal alloys and other complex materials will behave. This figure compares a random sampling approach to the researchers’ new motif-based sampling. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Materials science and engineering Machine learning Chemistry Chemical engineering Computer modeling Artificial intelligence Computer science and technology DMSE School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-media-future-tech-massachusetts-can-absolutely-lead Leaders, faculty across MIT discuss fostering innovation and talent in Greater Boston in special series of articles published alongside the outlet's annual list of 'Tech Power Players' Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-media-future-tech-massachusetts-can-absolutely-lead <p>On June 9, <em>The Boston Globe&nbsp;</em>released its <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/tech-power-players/2026/">2026 “Tech Power Players” list</a>, recognizing 50 influential local leaders in technology and business across Massachusetts. The list includes eight MIT affiliates including President Sally Kornbluth, Prof. Daniela Rus (director of CSAIL), Prof. Regina Barzilay, Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, Prof. Max Tegmark, Ana Bakshi (executive director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship), Katie Rae CEO and Managing Partner of Engine Ventures), and Senior Lecturer Brian Halligan, along with a number of MIT alumni.</p><p>In addition to recognizing individual leaders, the Power Players coverage highlights MIT’s research labs, its culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, industry connections, new AI initiatives, and the Institute’s deep commitment to maintaining Massachusetts’ technological leadership.</p><p>“Massachusetts can absolutely lead in this next wave,” <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/tech-power-players-boston-ai/">says President Kornbluth</a>, noting that the future is bright with burgeoning opportunities to advance technologies in fields from manufacturing, life and health sciences to quantum technologies and energy in service of Americans across the country.</p><p><strong>Advancing AI and entrepreneurship&nbsp;</strong></p><p>When it comes to AI,&nbsp;MIT is “working to drive artificial intelligence forward in sectors where the region is strongest, from biotechnology and robotics to defense and clean energy. It’s also trying to broaden entrepreneurship through a ‘dorm-to-startup’ push, creating a pipeline of support services — from hack-a-thons to venture funding — to help students to start companies between classes,” writes <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/massachusetts-higher-education-colleges-universities-tech-pipeline/">Robert Weisman for <em>The Globe</em></a>.&nbsp;</p><p>Looking ahead, <em>The Globe</em> highlights how MIT aims to remain a central driver of AI advancement within higher ed.&nbsp;</p><p>“President Sally Kornbluth is reinvigorating the school’s support of the local innovation ecosystem,” <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/massachusetts-ai-silicon-valley/">writes Aaron Pressman</a>, noting how MIT is “unveiling new online classes dedicated to AI — with free entry-level classes for anyone — and encouraging more entrepreneurship on campus.”</p><p>MIT’s free, online AI courses could help local tech leaders in their challenge “to ensure people, not only corporations, benefit from the technology,” writes Pressman.</p><p>And when it comes to applying AI technologies to real-world problems, MIT aims to ensure the greater Boston area remains a leader.</p><p>“Some schools in Massachusetts, including MIT, are carving out a specialty in applied AI — sometimes called ‘AI+X’ — deploying the technology to help businesses, hospitals, and research institutions to supercharge productivity, innovation, and scientific breakthroughs,” explains Weisman.</p><p>Aman Narang ‘04, CEO of Toast, adds: “The superpower has always been the university system. The best thing Boston can do is keep these people around.”</p><p>MIT startups are a key driver of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. To ensure the greater Boston area remains a hub for innovators and to respond to growing student interest, MIT is looking to build upon its existing entrepreneurship resources for students, including the more than 150 courses and 85 centers and programs dedicated to fostering an entrepreneurial community. Additionally, President Sally Kornbluth and Provost Anantha Chandrakasan recently formed the Committee on Accelerating Translation and Entrepreneurship (CATE) to explore anew how the Institute can best support, remove barriers to, and accelerate the movement of ideas from MIT’s research and innovative discoveries into new ventures.&nbsp;</p><p>Further, reflecting on the optimism surrounding the Greater Boston tech scene, <em>The Globe</em> describes how applications for The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship’s startup accelerator program have doubled from last year, and nearly one-fifth of MIT undergraduates — about 800 students — attended a recent startup career fair.</p><p><strong>Innovating change beyond MIT</strong></p><p>The simple worm could drive the future of AI. This might sound like a squishy premise, but that’s the idea behind MIT startup Liquid AI,&nbsp;which is developing AI models inspired by the brain structure of a simple worm and could significantly reduce AI energy consumption. Liquid AI’s models, “which can uncover financial fraud and pilot autonomous drones, require far less electricity to operate than large language models, saving energy and water, which is used to cool data centers,” <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/massachusetts-ai-silicon-valley/">Pressman explains</a>.</p><p><em>The Globe</em> highlights how Liquid AI recently signed a deal with Mercedes-Benz to incorporate its technology into the onboard systems of cars sold in North America.</p><p>To power new AI technologies – and ensure Americans across the country can have reliable and affordable energy sources – researchers at MIT and a number of alumni are also turning their attention to the future of energy.&nbsp;</p><p>In Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang’s lab, researchers are developing batteries that can store more electricity over longer periods, creating “more opportunities for wind, solar, and other clean energy sources.”</p><p><a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/massachusetts-higher-education-colleges-universities-tech-pipeline/">Weisman highlights</a> how “Chiang’s lab and other MIT research centers are also working on innovations in microchips, critical minerals, fusion technology, and defense tech. All are examples of ‘tough tech’ projects combining science and engineering, which Chiang says ‘are in the sweet spot of the Boston ecosystem.’“</p><p>Soon, 80 MIT students will work as summer interns and employees at GE Vernova, thanks to the MIT-GE Vernova Climate and Energy Alliance, a collaboration aimed at advancing research and education that will accelerate the global energy transition.</p><p><a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/ge-vernova-ceo-scott-strazik/">GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik wanted his organization</a> to “plug into the city’s innovation culture,” particularly the MIT campus and community. The company announced it would dedicate $50 million over five years to fund internships and research projects in which students and faculty work alongside GE Vernova engineers and technicians.</p><p><strong>The most promising area for the Greater Boston tech scene</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/09/business/boston-tech-sector-promise-leaders/"><em>The Globe concludes</em></a> by asking each Power Player what the most promising thing about the Greater Boston tech scene is right now.</p><p>For Rus, the answer is: “talent. Boston has the best AI researchers in the world, and they're producing genuinely new ideas, not incremental ones,” she explains.&nbsp;</p><p>When it comes to realizing the potential of fusion energy, Bob Mumgaard SM ’15, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, explains that he couldn’t have built the company anywhere but Massachusetts thanks to the region’s expertise in engineering, designing, and manufacturing hardware and equipment and access to university researchers.</p><p>“The ecosystem has the building blocks,” says Mumgaard. “Massachusetts is the strongest in the nation in innovation in energy.”</p><p>President Kornbluth points to quantum.</p><p>“There isn’t a more important technological field right now than quantum science and technology, and the Boston area has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world,” Kornbluth emphasizes.</p> The MIT campus. Gretchen Ertl President Sally Kornbluth Faculty Research Cambridge, Boston and region Technology and society Computer science and technology Artificial intelligence Startups Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Alumni/ae Energy Quantum computing https://news.mit.edu/2026/flexible-cryogenic-cables-solve-challenge-in-quantum-system-development-0617 A prototype wiring system for dilution refrigerators could advance the realization of practical quantum computers. Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:35:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/flexible-cryogenic-cables-solve-challenge-in-quantum-system-development-0617 Dorothy Ryan | MIT Lincoln Laboratory <div><div><p>By harnessing the unique properties of quantum mechanics, scientists and engineers worldwide seek to enable systems with extraordinary capabilities. Many of them are working on the highly anticipated development of quantum computers capable of completing complex calculations at unprecedented speeds. These computers could meet the growing computational demands of both scientific research and data-intensive industries like finance, cybersecurity, and medicine. &nbsp;</p><p>Necessary for quantum system development is an environment in which the fragile nature of quantum bits (qubits) is stabilized and the thermal noise (fluctuations in current/voltage) inherent in superconducting electronics is dampened. That environment requires cryogenic temperatures, those ranging from 5 to 10 millikelvins, colder than the extreme temperatures encountered in space. Dilution refrigerators create this needed cryogenic condition.</p><p>Dilution refrigerators used for quantum R&amp;D need a wiring system that can operate in cryogenic temperatures, maintain a power-efficient direct current, and support high-speed data transmission. Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory prototyped flexible, ribbon-like, low-frequency (LF) cables that not only meet these demands, but also are compatible with commercial circuit-board manufacturing processes. <a href="https://www.maybellquantum.com/">Maybell Quantum</a>, a Colorado-based company supplying hardware for developing quantum systems, licensed the design for these cables and is adapting them for use in their dilution refrigerators.</p><p>"We’re planning to integrate Maybell LF CryoTrace, the ribbon wiring system transferred from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, across all thermal stages of our dilution refrigerators. Initially, the cables will be used for LF services, such as thermometry, heaters, and sensors, with feasibility studies planned for additional functions," says Lasse Nielsen, strategy and operations lead at Maybell Quantum. "After qualification testing, LF CryoTrace is planned for the next iteration of our internal wiring across the Maybell product family."</p><p><strong>Motivation for invention</strong></p><p>To support government initiatives in quantum computing, the Lincoln Laboratory research team investigated alternatives to conventional coaxial cables for use in hardware like dilution refrigerators. Coaxial cables can generate heavy heat loads for cryogenic hardware to address. And, as the number of qubits in quantum computers will increase, so will the number of coaxial cables in the infrastructure, making it difficult to fit stiff, bulky cable arrays into hardware supporting superconducting qubits. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The team chose a stripline cable configuration with conductive layers positioned between flexible polymer layers that shield against electromagnetic interference (also known as crosstalk). Striplines offer consistency across different frequencies and minimal signal loss. The new cables were designed to accommodate large numbers of simultaneous signal transmissions; support direct-current operation without warming the cryogenic environment; and, importantly, provide easier integration into hardware than achievable with brittle coaxial cables.</p><p>"The main innovation is that the laboratory's cables can be fabricated by a traditional printed-circuit-board manufacturer. They're cheaper to fabricate and easier to install than traditional coaxial cables," says John Cummings, a principal investigator in the flexible cables project of the Lincoln Laboratory <a href="https://www.ll.mit.edu/r-d/advanced-technology/quantum-enabled-computation">Quantum-Enabled Computation Group</a>.</p><p>Citing ease of installation and durability as two factors making these cables attractive, Maybell Quantum says the ribbon format is mechanically robust, reducing handling-related breakages common with thin coaxials and improving repeatability in production. The supple flex cables allow assembly tasks that took days to complete to be done in a few hours.</p><p>"Over time, we think ribbonized, quantum-specific internal wiring can reshape manufacturing norms: faster and more consistent builds, easier field service, and more modular upgrades," Nielsen says.</p><p><strong>Future outlook</strong></p><p>Maybell Quantum is looking toward supporting quantum computing's transition from a laboratory-based capability to an industrial, commercially viable one. The huge gap between the current highly specialized quantum-laboratory environment and the robust infrastructure required for future industrial quantum computing lies in the hardware promoting the development of functional chips.</p><p>Maybell's mission is to develop reliable tools that commercial developers of quantum computers can use with ease and without the high costs and expert training associated with the equipment in today's quantum labs. The flex cables and Maybell's continued R&amp;D into their capabilities and integration into various tools will foster a future infrastructure that could enable industry to scale manufacture of quantum computers to a level at which these powerful machines could cost-effectively find use in myriad enterprises.</p><p>"If you want to scale to hundreds of chips, you need interconnects that can handle more signals more reliably. That’s why the Lincoln Laboratory cables are so exciting for us — they enable true scalability," says Kyle Thompson, founder and chief technology officer of Maybell Quantum. "We believe this technology will materially improve our systems and strengthen the broader U.S. quantum ecosystem by moving federally funded innovation into American manufacturing."</p></div></div> A prototype of Lincoln Laboratory's flexible cryogenic cables — visible as the copper-colored band — is installed inside a dilution refrigerator for quantum system testing. Photo: Nicole Fandel/Lincoln Laboratory Research Quantum computing Invention Lincoln Laboratory Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) MIT intellectual property https://news.mit.edu/2026/could-ai-tell-you-where-you-left-your-keys-0617 A new spatial memory system for robots efficiently captures details about the objects they see while exploring their environment. Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/could-ai-tell-you-where-you-left-your-keys-0617 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>An auto factory worker can remember the storage bin where she left a partly assembled component the night before, and quickly return to that spot to pick it up. But robots that may work side-by-side with her would struggle to develop and access this same type of “spatiotemporal” memory.</p><p>Now, MIT researchers have developed a long-term memory framework that allows robots to rapidly form and recall a detailed mental model of complicated, large-scale environments.</p><p>In the future, this advance could allow the factory worker to send a robotic assistant to fetch the item, simply by asking it to “go and grab the component we started assembling last night.”</p><p>This new method combines advanced map representations with rich descriptions of the environment that the robot gathers as it travels over a long period of time. The robot can quickly access this memory to answer complex queries about its environment in plain language.</p><p>This memory framework, which answers questions more accurately than state-of-the-art methods, runs fast enough for a mobile robot to use in real-time.</p><p>In addition to its potential uses in robotics, this method could have applications in augmented reality systems that aid maintenance workers in anomaly detection or assist commuters in wayfinding.</p><p>“If we want robots to work side-by-side with humans and interact better with humans, they must speak the same language. The robot must be able to reason about time and space the same way humans do. That is essentially what our method is doing. It is turning a traditional map into a language-based map that is easier for the robot to think about and access using language,” says Luca Carlone, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), principal investigator in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), and director of the MIT SPARK Laboratory.</p><p>He is joined on the <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.00565" target="_blank">paper</a> by lead author Nicolas Gorlo, an MIT graduate student; and Lukas Schmid, a former research scientist at MIT and now professor at the University of Technology Nuremberg in Germany. The research was recently presented at the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR).</p><p><strong>Spatiotemporal memory</strong></p><p>Memory allows an artificial intelligence system, like a chatbot, to answer complex questions and reason about previous interactions with its user.</p><p>“We want to design a new type of memory, a spatiotemporal memory, that enables an AI-powered robot to remember real interactions and sensor observations. Like ChatGPT, but grounded in the real world and capable of answering any question about the environment, like ‘Where did I leave my wallet?’” Carlone says.</p><p>To develop such a memory framework, the MIT researchers bridged two lines of work: computer vision and robotic mapping.</p><p>Multimodal computer vision models can understand and richly describe the objects in a scene, but they often only process a single annotation at a time. On the other hand, robotic mapping frameworks create 3D maps of an environment, like an entire apartment or university campus, but usually lack detailed descriptions of objects or are computationally expensive.</p><p>The method the MIT researchers created, called Describe Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, at Any Moment (DAAAM), takes the best of both approaches.</p><p>Using DAAAM, as a robot traverses its environment, it attaches rich descriptions to objects it sees. For instance, the robot may note that a particular building on the MIT campus is called the Stata Center and is designed with a certain type of architecture, or that a bike rack holds five bicycles and the red one has a flat tire.&nbsp;</p><p>It stores this detailed information in a 3D map-based representation that is arranged spatially, so objects will be grouped into separate regions. In this way, the robot can remember that the red bicycle with the flat tire is in the bike rack outside the Stata Center.</p><p>But existing techniques that capture such rich descriptions typically take a few seconds to annotate a few objects. This is too slow for real-time performance, since a robot might see hundreds of objects during a few minutes of exploration.</p><p>“The faster the robot can form this spatial memory, the more efficient it will be performing actions in the environment,” Carlone adds.</p><p><strong>Streamlining the process</strong></p><p>To speed things up, DAAAM aggregates nearby objects as it travels and uses an optimization method to select key frames to annotate. These are images with the clearest view of multiple objects, allowing the system to thoroughly describe several items in parallel, speeding up computation tenfold.</p><p>As the robot explores the space, it attaches each batch of annotations to multiple objects in a particular location on the 3D map.</p><p>“We annotate every object only once, so our framework can run in very large-scale environments in real time. And by clustering objects into regions, it can answer a wide range of queries about objects and locations in the environment,” Gorlo explains.</p><p>Once the system builds this spatial memory, it must retrieve information from an enormous database of objects and descriptions in an efficient manner.&nbsp;</p><p>To enable this, the researchers used an LLM that calls on various tools, which can quickly retrieve specific information in a way that reduces hallucinations. This allows DAAAM to answer a user query accurately in only a few seconds.&nbsp;</p><p>For instance, if one asks a robot about a certain sculpture it saw near an MIT campus building, DAAAM can use a semantic search tool to retrieve information based on the word “sculpture” or a different tool to retrieve information based on the location of the building.</p><p>When tested and compared with other methods, DAAAM was between 21 percent and 53 percent more accurate, depending on the question type.&nbsp;</p><p>In the future, the researchers want to expand DAAAM so the system can capture significant events that happened in the environment. They are also working to incorporate confidence levels into the system’s responses.</p><p>“Ultimately, we want to have robots that can help with any sort of tasks. With this framework, we are trying to create the foundations to enable a generalist agent that can do anything you ask,” Gorlo says.</p><p>This research was funded, in part, by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. Carlone is currently on sabbatical as an Amazon Scholar; this article describes work performed at MIT and is not associated with Amazon.</p> MIT researchers have developed a long-term memory framework for robots that combines advanced map representations with rich descriptions of the environment. Here, a moving robot attaches detailed descriptions to the bicycles it sees at it explores. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Computer science and technology Algorithms Artificial intelligence Machine learning Robotics Computer vision Autonomous vehicles Aeronautical and astronautical engineering Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-to-create-distinguishable-states-for-quantum-systems-0615 Researchers establish key insights for reading and writing information for quantum sensing, communication, computing, and control. Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:55:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-to-create-distinguishable-states-for-quantum-systems-0615 David Chandler | MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems <p>Researchers around the world are racing to develop new quantum-based systems for sensing, communication, computing, and control that have the promise of outperforming traditional systems. Creating stable, measurable, distinguishable quantum states, which would be the heart of any such system, is a daunting task.</p><p>Quantum states possess unique properties that can be exploited for developing novel information processing systems. Two key properties, stability and distinguishability, are hard to achieve, however. Extracting information from a quantum system depends on the distinguishability of quantum states, an intrinsic property associated with a property known as orthogonality. Nevertheless, no two Gaussian states (a widely studied class of quantum states) are orthogonal, and this yields an unavoidable error when attempting to distinguish them.&nbsp;</p><p>In addition, present quantum devices tend to remain stable only for a fraction of a second, and require complex protocols to distinguish states. Now, researchers at MIT and the University of Ferrara have found a new approach for creating easily distinguishable states that could help to enable the development of these new quantum-based devices.</p><p>The new approach is described in a <a href="https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/ffbg-4897">paper published today in the journal <em>Physical Review A</em></a>, by Moe Z. Win and Peter L. Falb at MIT with Andrea Giani and Andrea Conti at the University of Ferrara. The team found a way of translating between quantum states of light and algebraic varieties (a mathematical structure from abstract algebra), making the analysis more manageable by reducing it to solvable mathematical equations.</p><p>“Quantum systems can provide performance that is significantly better than classical counterparts,” Win says, “but this doesn’t come for free.” To develop practical devices for producing and detecting different states, “one needs to carefully engineer the quantum states in which they encode information.”&nbsp;</p><p>Traditional computers typically use different voltages in a solid-state device to encode ones and zeros, while optical systems may use the presence or absence of a pulse of light. In quantum devices, the states might have to do with the spin state of a single atom, or the excitation level of a group of electrons.</p><p>Win adds that “we have been studying how to design distinguishable quantum states, which translates directly into improved performance for sensing and communication.” In the jargon of the field, they are improving the orthogonality — that is, the distinguishability — of different states.</p><p>The particular kinds of states studied in this theoretical analysis had to do with energy levels of photons, or particles of light. Giani explains that they used an operation called photon variation. This can take two forms: photon addition, in which photons are excited to a higher energy state, or photon subtraction, in which photons are annihilated (i.e., removed from the system). These operations change the quantum state from Gaussian to non-Gaussian states; it’s the non-Gaussian states that seem most useful, the team concluded.&nbsp;</p><p>“The domain of non-Gaussian states is quite big,” Giani says, “but among them, we are looking into non-Gaussian states that are easier to implement with current technologies, because if we want to make the transition to the quantum world, we need to take into account realistic experimental challenges.”</p><p>Unlike some kinds of cutting-edge technologies being studied for possible quantum applications, Giani explains, “these kinds of photon-varied states have already been produced in the laboratory, and there is much interest in this kind of operation.”</p><p>These types of states are relatively new, Conti says, and so “there was a need for a theoretical characterization for these states,” The theoretical characterization this team derived, based on underlying mathematical properties, makes it possible to design states with higher levels of distinguishability.&nbsp;</p><p>With this work, Win says, “we have a theory that gives us a blueprint to go design these non-Gaussian states, rather than just, ‘try this and that, and let’s hope they’re somewhat distinguishable.’ Our theory tells us exactly how to go about designing orthogonal non-Gaussian states.”</p><p>The findings result from the connection between the algebraic equations and the underlying physics, Win says, “That was the important connection between different disciplines — bringing algebraic geometry to the table.”&nbsp;</p><p>“The equations to be solved for determining the orthogonality” of the quantum states “happened to be polynomial equations,” Falb says. “It just happened that there was the appropriate mathematics to solve them.”</p><p>Now that the principles have been established through this work, implementation should be relatively straightforward, the researchers say. There already are some optical setups that can be used to implement these kinds of states.&nbsp;</p><p>“In principle,” Giani notes, “you can just put the parameters that you find by solving these equations directly into your physical apparatuses and produce these kinds of states. I don’t think this requires some more-advanced technology.”&nbsp;</p><p>Conti adds that “as soon as this paper is published, we hope that experimentalists can try these methods.”</p><p>But that’s just the beginning, Win emphasizes. “We are getting momentum, and it’s very exciting,” he says. “The approach that we are taking here is to ask more general questions than just, ‘here’s a particular setup, how do you tune it to get a performance gain?’ Rather, we’re looking at a class of signal design problems, and then finding keys that really unlock these, so that hopefully the answer will not just be applied to only one particular setup, but something significantly broader.”</p> Researchers at MIT and the University of Ferrara have devised a framework to help in the design of new quantum-based devices for sensing, communication, computing, and control by improving the distinguishability of quantum states. Image: iStock Research Quantum computing IDSS Communications Quantum physics Computer science and technology Aeronautical and astronautical engineering Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) MIT Schwarzman College of Computing School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/tiny-ingestible-sensor-can-measure-temperature-inside-body-0615 After being swallowed, the devices could offer continuous monitoring of patients who are sick or at risk of hypothermia. Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/tiny-ingestible-sensor-can-measure-temperature-inside-body-0615 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>In a hospital or at home, temperatures are usually taken using an oral or forehead thermometer, but these do not always accurately reflect the core body temperature. Measuring core temperature from within the body could make it easier to determine whether someone is sick, and whether they’re at risk of spiking a dangerous fever.</p><p>To make it more feasible to obtain core body temperature measurements, MIT engineers have developed an ingestible sensor that can send continuous temperature updates from the GI tract.&nbsp;</p><p>The sensor is shaped like a tiny blueberry, 6 millimeters in diameter and 4 millimeters in height. That makes it much smaller than existing ingestible temperature sensors, which are more difficult to swallow and pose a potential risk of obstructing the GI tract.</p><p>“A sensor like this gives us&nbsp;the ability to monitor infections and identify them early,” says Giovanni Traverso,&nbsp;an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “That’s very relevant, particularly for at-risk populations like people who are immunosuppressed from chemotherapy treatments or immunosuppressive drugs.”</p><p>Ingestible sensors could also enable more accurate temperature measurements for fertility tracking, and for monitoring people during anesthesia.</p><p>Traverso and Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s provost and&nbsp;the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,&nbsp;are the senior authors of the new study. MIT postdoc Saransh Sharma&nbsp;is the lead author of the paper, which <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-026-01643-y" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Nature Electronics</em></a>.</p><p><strong>Ingestible electronics</strong></p><p>A handful of ingestible temperature sensors have become commercially available in recent years, but most are the size of a multivitamin or slightly larger, making them more challenging to swallow. Their size can also increase the risk of obstructing the GI tract.</p><p>Those capsules tend to be large due to the complex circuits they include, which require a great deal of power. That power is provided by relatively large, on-board batteries that make up much of the bulk of the capsule.</p><p>The MIT team wanted to design sensors that could measure temperature accurately, but at a much smaller size.</p><p>“The reason for them to be small is safety,” Traverso says. “We want something that is so small that the risk of any blockage or obstruction is highly mitigated, and also so that it can be easily ingested.”</p><p>To create a smaller device, the researchers set out to reduce the size of all of the main components — the temperature-sensing circuit, the antenna that relays temperature data, and the battery.</p><p>For the circuit, they created their own customized circuit that can fit onto a 1-square-millimeter silicon chip. To reduce the chip’s power consumption, the researchers designed an oscillator based on leakage current — the small current that flows through a circuit when it’s off. The frequency of this current varies depending on the temperature of the chip’s surroundings.</p><p>This circuit, which can detect temperature with an accuracy of 0.01 degrees Celsius, requires very little power — about 10 nanowatts. This means that it can be powered with a 1.55-volt coin cell battery, which is 4.8 millimeters in diameter and about 1.6 millimeter thick.</p><p>The new design further cuts energy consumption by using a communication strategy known as backscattering. This approach allows most of the power requirements to be outsourced to an external antenna that is located outside the body, within a foot or two of the sensor. The external antenna emits an ultra-high-frequency radio wave, which is then modulated by a tiny antenna within the sensor and sent back to the external antenna. By interpreting the changes in the radio wave, the external antenna can calculate the temperature value.</p><p>“We combined all of these different pieces together — the silicon chip, the battery, and the antenna — and we made it into an ingestible capsule, which is the smallest ingestible capsule that we have seen for temperature-sensing paradigms,” Sharma says.&nbsp;</p><p>The internal antenna sends out a temperature reading once every second, allowing for continuous monitoring of temperature.</p><p><strong>Tiny thermometers</strong></p><p>The researchers envision that this kind of sensor could be useful in several scenarios, including monitoring infection and observing patients during and after anesthesia. Anesthesia often disrupts the body’s normal temperature regulation mechanisms, which can put patients at risk of hypothermia.</p><p>This type of device could also be used at home, for monitoring fevers in children, or measuring core body temperature as a marker of ovulation, for fertility purposes. It could also be useful for monitoring athletes, soldiers, or anyone else who might be exposed to extreme temperatures.&nbsp;</p><p>To explore these possible uses, the researchers tested the sensors in animals while they were under anesthesia, and found that they could accurately detect and transmit temperature information. They also obtained accurate readings from animals that were awake and actively moving.</p><p>The researchers are now working on combining the temperature sensor with other sensors that could measure vital signs such as heart rate. They hope to begin testing these types of sensors in clinical trials within the next few years.&nbsp;</p><p>If proven effective for people in high-risk situations,&nbsp;Traverso believes such sensors could become widely used by anyone who needs to monitor their temperature.&nbsp;</p><p>“I think this&nbsp;could replace all thermometers, because it’s the most accurate way of taking temperature,” he says. “If we have miniature systems that can be easily swallowed and give very accurate data that’s superior to the current data, I think it can be helpful in so many ways.”</p><p>Other authors of the paper include Yubin Cai, Injoo Moon, Zhenming Yang, Peter Chai, Niora Fabian, Kailyn Schmidt, Alison Hayward, Andrew Pettinari, Maria Platero, Benedict Laidlaw, and Ashley Guevara.</p><p>The research was funded by the 711^th Human Performance Wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which notes that the views and conclusions contained in this article are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the United States government.</p> “We combined all of these different pieces together — the silicon chip, the battery, and the antenna — and we made it into an ingestible capsule, which is the smallest ingestible capsule that we have seen for temperature-sensing paradigms,” Saransh Sharma says. Image: Courtesy of the researchers; MIT News Research Mechanical engineering Medicine Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-engineers-find-way-to-deliver-drugs-directly-to-esophagus-0612 Their new gel-like drug formulation can coat the esophageal lining and release drugs that could help treat inflammatory conditions affecting the esophagus. Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-engineers-find-way-to-deliver-drugs-directly-to-esophagus-0612 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>There are few treatment options available for people with disorders of the esophagus. Delivering drugs directly to this part of the body is difficult, so patients are usually treated with systemic drugs, which can have unwanted side effects.</p><p>To overcome that challenge, MIT engineers developed a gel-like oral drug formulation that can coat the mucosal lining of the esophagus after being swallowed, allowing drugs to pass through the tissue.</p><p>The formulation, which includes a hydrogel and other key ingredients that promote rapid drug absorption, could be used to deliver antibodies including infliximab, used to treat a number of autoimmune diseases, or other types of antibodies or small-molecule drugs.</p><p>“There are many people with esophageal disease, and if you look at drugs for these conditions, they’re very limited in their ability to target this part of the body and it’s very difficult to develop them. We hope this platform will make it easier to develop systems that can help patients suffering from these conditions,” says Giovanni Traverso,&nbsp;an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.</p><p>Traverso is the senior author of the new study, which <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-026-01685-9" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Nature Biomedical Engineering</em></a>. Former MIT postdoc Christina Karavasili, now an assistant professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, is the paper’s lead author.</p><p><strong>Direct delivery</strong></p><p>One of the most common disorders of the esophagus is eosinophilic esophagitis, a type of inflammation that is caused by food allergies and leads the esophagus to close up, making it impossible to swallow food. Crohn’s disease can also cause inflammation of the esophagus.&nbsp;</p><p>These disorders are usually treated with systemic drugs, including infliximab, an antibody that neutralizes an inflammatory protein called tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha). However, this drug is an immunosuppressant that can lead to a higher risk for infections and other health problems.</p><p>Delivering the drug directly to the esophageal tissue could reduce those side effects, but this is inherently challenging because drugs taken orally pass through the esophagus so quickly. Adding to the difficulty, the esophagus is lined by a layer of tissue called stratified squamous epithelium, which is very impermeable to drugs.</p><p>Injecting drugs into the esophageal tissue is another option, but that is uncomfortable for patients and inconvenient because it has to be done at a doctor’s office.&nbsp;There is also at least one anti-inflammatory steroid drug that is formulated as a thick mixture, allowing it to remain in the esophagus longer after being swallowed, but the drug still has some difficulty passing through the impermeable squamous layer.</p><p>In this study, the researchers set out to develop new drug formulations that would include molecules that could increase the permeability of those esophageal cells, allowing more of the drug to pass through.&nbsp;</p><p>To identify molecules that would enhance permeability, the researchers designed a screening system that mimics the structure of the esophagus. This system contains esophageal tissue pressed between two vertical plates. Drug formulations can be poured into the top of the system, simulating oral ingestion. The researchers can then measure how much of the drug passes through the tissue and is collected by wells in one of the plates.</p><p>Using this system, the researchers were able to measure how different excipients — inactive ingredients that help enhance drug effects — affect the permeability of the esophageal tissue. First, they tested about 100 different compounds and identified several top candidates. Then, they tested pairs of these excipients and found that the most effective combination was a pair of bile salts called sodium chenodeoxycholate and sodium cholate.</p><p>These salts appear to work together to loosen up the cell-cell junctions that normally act as a barrier to drug molecule entry. The researchers added those bile salts to a polysaccharide-derived hydrogel, which has a viscous consistency that allows it to lightly coat the lining of the esophagus.</p><p>“The hydrogel helps the formulation remain on the esophageal surface for longer, while the bile salts help increase transport across the tissue,” Karavasili says. “Our data suggest that the bile salts temporarily loosen these cell–cell junctions, mainly by interacting with calcium ions that help maintain junction integrity. This creates a more permissive pathway between the cells, allowing larger molecules to move into the mucosal tissue more efficiently.”</p><p><strong>Minimizing side effects</strong></p><p>In tests in animals, the researchers showed that this formulation could be used to effectively deliver infliximab to the esophagus. They also found that the loosening of the cell-cell junctions was temporary, and the cells returned to normal within three days.</p><p>This kind of delivery could help to avoid the side effects that patients sometimes experience when infliximab is given systemically, the researchers say.&nbsp;</p><p>“We were interested in delivering anti-TNFs as a model drug, but also to help people who suffer from conditions like Crohn’s disease to have options that could be delivered to the site,” Traverso says. “If we have the possibility of site-directed delivery, we may be able to mitigate systemic side effects from these immunosuppressing agents.”</p><p>The researchers are now working on further optimizing the formulation for potential testing in humans. One key goal is to ensure that the gel adheres for long enough to deliver the drugs, but not so long as to cause discomfort for patients. The researchers are also exploring the possibility of using this approach to deliver other types of drugs.&nbsp;</p><p>“This is a platform to enable the development of drug-delivery systems for the esophagus, which hasn’t been possible before because the tools haven’t existed,” Traverso says.</p><p>The research was funded by the Karl van Tassel Career Development Professorship, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, the Division of Gastroenterology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the U.S.&nbsp;Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which notes that the&nbsp;views and conclusions contained in this article are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies of the United States government.</p> In these images of human esophageal tissue, green staining shows E-cadherin, a protein involved in maintaining connections between epithelial cells. In untreated tissue (top row), the E-cadherin signal is strong, reflecting an intact epithelial barrier. After treatment with a gel-like drug formulation (bottom row), the E-cadherin signal is reduced, suggesting a temporary loosening of cell–cell junctions. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Medicine Drug delivery Mechanical engineering School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/would-you-return-favor-scientists-say-it-depends-0611 A new study shows people expect reciprocal generosity only in interactions with friends or others of equal social status. Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/would-you-return-favor-scientists-say-it-depends-0611 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>When a friend buys you a cup of coffee, it’s likely that next time, you’ll return the gesture. This type of reciprocal generosity has been well-documented in behavioral economic studies.</p><p>However, anthropologists and other social scientists have known for decades that in the context of relationships where one person has more power, status, or influence, reciprocal generosity is usually not the norm.&nbsp;</p><p>Researchers at MIT have now experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, that&nbsp;small changes to the relationship context can dramatically change people’s actions and expectations of&nbsp;reciprocal generosity.&nbsp;</p><p>During interactions between people of different social status, people tend to expect that generosity will flow one way, and it can be either up or down. It may be that a professor always buys coffee for her students, or that a student always offers to help carry groceries for his resident advisor. Once the precedent is established, it is expected to continue.</p><p>One interpretation of the findings is that keeping track of whose turn it is to do a favor is the exception in social interactions, not the rule. That is, it is extra work that we do when we want to maintain equal relationships.</p><p>“In many intimate relationships, hierarchical relationships, or other kinds of role-based relationships, you don’t put in the work of trying to keep track of turns,” says Rebecca Saxe, the John W. Jarve Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and associate dean of science at MIT. “Under this interpretation, we just follow precedent because following a precedent is easier. We all know what to expect, and we don’t have to keep track of what happened last time.”</p><p>Saxe is the senior author of the study, which <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/opmi/article/doi/10.1162/OPMI.a.357/137050/Expectations-of-Reciprocal-Generosity-Are-Specific" target="_blank">appears in the journal&nbsp;<em>Open Mind</em></a>. MIT graduate student Alicia Chen is the paper’s lead author.</p><p><strong>Changing expectations</strong></p><p>Most experimental studies of generosity have been done in the context of behavioral economics and game theory. In such experiments, people are usually paired with a stranger and asked to play games that require coordination. Such studies have found that people tend to use turn-taking and reciprocity as their default strategies. These scenarios, however, are stripped from any social context that might exist between people in the real world.</p><p>Saxe and Chen wanted to see if they could measure the effects of social context by incorporating relationships into the type of experiments used to evaluate people’s expectations regarding generosity.</p><p>“Where generosity becomes hard and complicated is when it starts to occur in the context of existing relationships, because it changes the terms of the relationships,” Saxe says. “What’s expected of you is very different within a relationship than outside of one.”</p><p>To study these effects, the researchers designed experiments in which participants read stories about different types of interactions. In some of the scenarios, the subjects of the stories were described as having either symmetric or asymmetric relationships.&nbsp;In others, they were given specific social relationships such as aunt-niece or manager-employee.</p><p>Each story described interactions that might be seen in typical daily life, such as buying coffee for a co-worker or preparing a meal for one’s family. Participants were then asked to predict what would happen the next time the interaction occurred.</p><p>In all of these scenarios, the researchers found that people expected that generous acts would be reciprocated when they occurred between individuals in symmetric relationships such as friends, cousins, or co-workers of equal rank. However, their expectations changed for asymmetric relationships, where each person has a different social status. In those cases, people expected that&nbsp;any precedent that was set&nbsp;would continue in the future.</p><p>One possible explanation for this is that reciprocity is not the norm but an exception that only occurs in the interactions between equals or strangers, the researchers say. Many of our interactions are with people with whom we have asymmetric relationship, and to maintain those relationships, it’s simply easier to follow precedent.</p><p>“If there’s no need to keep track of our equal status, then in some ways it’s the default to fall back on following precedents,” Saxe says.</p><p><strong>Maintaining relationships</strong></p><p>The study showed that in asymmetric relationships, generosity could flow in either direction. Once that direction was established, it was expected to continue. For example, after an older brother bought concert tickets for a much younger brother, the study participants expected that the older brother would also buy the tickets for the next concert.&nbsp;</p><p>“We found that when people know the relationship is asymmetric, they don’t expect reciprocity; they expect the same action to keep on going,” Chen says. “If the lower-rank person acts generously, people expect that to continue, and if the higher-rank person acts generously, people expect that to continue.”</p><p>Following precedents is not only easier, but keeping up these actions may help solidify and define existing relationships. For example, anthropologists have long known that gift-giving helps to construct and maintain social relationships.&nbsp;</p><p>“Following a precedent can be a way of actively maintaining relationships and hierarchies, when the asymmetry of the exchange truly reflects the asymmetry of the relationship,” Saxe says.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers are now working on creating computational models that could be used to analyze different factors that people take into account when they’re considering whether someone might reciprocate a generous act. In addition to the factors examined in this study, others could include how much each person will benefit, what type of relationship they’re in, and culturally specific expectations of how people should act in different situations.</p><p>“One really powerful thing about these models is that we can build in existing theories, add things to the models, and then compare how much these extra factors, like considerations related to social relationships, matter in terms of explaining what people are doing,” Chen says. “This allows us to quantitatively compare the different theories to each other.”</p><p>The research was funded by the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.</p> “We found that when people know the relationship is asymmetric, they don’t expect reciprocity; they expect the same action to keep on going,” Alicia Chen says. Image: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT; iStock Research Behavior Brain and cognitive sciences Behavioral economics McGovern Institute School of Science https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-imaging-system-sees-through-murky-waters-0611 The “Sonar-MASt3R” combines sonar and visual data to create real-time 3D maps, even in cloudy water. Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-imaging-system-sees-through-murky-waters-0611 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>For remotely operated underwater vehicles, cloudy and turbulent waters are often a no-go. When vehicles settle on the seafloor or dig through a sandbed, they can kick up clouds of sediment that make it tough for onboard cameras to see through. Often, the only thing to do is to wait until the marine dust settles before a vehicle can safely proceed.&nbsp;</p><p>But a new underwater mapping technique developed by engineers at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) may allow vehicles to see through murky, low-visibility waters.&nbsp;</p><p>The method fuses visual images from optical cameras with acoustic data from sonar sensors. The combination enables a vehicle to quickly map the general shape of its surroundings using sonar, even in low-visibility waters. A vehicle can move toward certain shapes in the sonar-mapped environment, coming close enough for optical cameras to visually resolve specific objects in detail.&nbsp;</p><p>The technique is akin to pairing a dolphin’s echolocation with a sea turtle’s close-range vision to see and navigate through murky water, in real-time.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers tested the method in tank experiments where they could control the water’s degree of visibility. Even in the cloudiest conditions, the system was able to see through the sediment to map the tank’s environment and visualize centimeter-scale details of objects in the tank.&nbsp;</p><p>The team is further improving the technique, which they’ve named Sonar-MASt3R. They envision that the mapping method could safely guide underwater vehicles through murky environments for a range of applications, including scientific exploration, underwater construction and maintenance, and deep-sea recovery.&nbsp;</p><p>“We hope that this work enables us to do more operations in those challenging, low-visibility environments, and helps provide more coverage in areas that are difficult to operate in today,” says Amy Phung, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who led the work.&nbsp;</p><p>Phung presented a <a href="https://dspace.mit.edu/entities/publication/46d5fb92-afff-4f32-9cd4-16d988b2271d" target="_blank">paper detailing Sonar-MASt3R</a> this week&nbsp;at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).&nbsp;The paper’s co-author is Richard Camilli, senior scientist of applied ocean physics and engineering at WHOI.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>The best of both</strong></p><p>To see underwater, scientists have generally taken an either/or approach, using either optical cameras or sonar sensors to guide the way. Optical cameras can provide detailed visual imagery of a scene, but only in waters that are relatively clear and well-lit. In contrast, sonar sensors perform just as well in clear and murky water; by emitting acoustic waves and measuring the time and angle at which they return, sonar sensors can determine the exact shape, distance, and depth of objects in the environment, though a sonar map lacks any visual detail.&nbsp;</p><p>To get the best of both modes, scientists have looked to combine the two in a new approach known as “opti-acoustic fusion.” In a handful of prior works, research groups have merged sonar and optical data in mapping techniques that are mostly geared toward object recognition and reconstructing workplace environments. Most techniques require time to sync and process the data and therefore do not work in real-time, while only a few can map an environment in 3D. None have been applied to high-resolution mapping underwater in murky, turbid conditions.&nbsp;</p><p>Phung, who is a student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, and Camilli, her advisor, aimed to develop an opti-acoustic fusion technique that would generate detailed 3D maps of underwater environments in real time and in low-visibility conditions. The team was motivated, in part, by challenges in safely recovering unexploded underwater mines.</p><p>“There can be old explosives in areas that make it unsafe for ships to be in, and the ability to get rid of those safely is best done by robotics,” Camilli says. “But a lot of these explosives are set in surf zone environments where visibility adds to the challenge of doing this safely. That’s one of many applications that our technique can be used for.”</p><p><strong>Cloudy, with a chance of mapping</strong></p><p>The new method, Sonar-MASt3R, builds on an existing technique, MASt3R, that was developed by researchers in France. MASt3R is an image matching algorithm that is trained to take in visual images of the same scene and quickly estimate the relative depth of each pixel in the scene. In this way, MASt3R can generate a 3D map of the environment in real-time, based on a camera’s 2D images.&nbsp;</p><p>“The downside is that there is no sense of scale,” Phung says. “It will say ‘this pixel is five units closer than this pixel,’ but it can’t say whether that’s 5 meters or 5 feet.”</p><p>Luckily, sonar provides absolute measurements of scale. The timing of sonar reflections can be translated directly into a specific depth and distance of objects that the signals bounced off, as well as their shape and contour.&nbsp;</p><p>In their new work, Phung and Camilli used sonar data to correct MASt3R’s scaling and generate precise 3D maps of underwater environments. Even in murky water, the method’s sonar-corrected map would enable a vehicle to know the precise location of objects, and therefore how far to safely move in for a closer inspection, which the vehicle could then do using conventional optical cameras.</p><p>The team tested Sonar-MASt3R in experiments with a tank that they filled with water, sediment, and a variety of objects such as a small boulder, a coffee mug, and a packing crate. Inside the tank, they also set up a robotic arm, onto which they mounted an underwater camera, and a sonar sensor.&nbsp;</p><p>For each experimental run, they first carried out a sweep trajectory, in which the robotic arm slowly swept from one side of the tank to the other to capture sonar and visual data. With this first sweep, Sonar-MASt3R quickly creates a coarse sonar-based map of the shapes and contours of the tank and its objects. The coarse map is then used to record close-up camera images of the objects, which are used to improve the map resolution. A “keyframe” approach quickly compares each new image frame to the last keyframe. If a frame provides new information not contained in the last keyframe, the image is added as a new keyframe to the map. If it is similar, it is immediately discarded. In this way, the approach can quickly fill in the map with relevant visual detail, in real-time.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers tested their new approach underwater, testing eight different levels of turbidity, which they created by stirring up the tank’s sediment. Compared with other opti-acoustic fusion approaches, Sonar-MASt3R generated more accurate 3D maps and resolved smaller, centimeter-scale details, and in cloudier conditions. In the cloudiest condition, which the robotic arm’s cameras could not see through, its sonar sensors were able to generate a rough map of the tank’s hidden objects. This initial map enabled the arm to move safely through the murk and closer to specific objects, which its underwater camera could then visualize in more detail.&nbsp;</p><p>“An analogy would be if you were to go into a china shop in the dark, and try to pick your way around to find a specific coffee mug without knocking things over,” Camilli offers. “This would allow you to do that.”</p><p>The team plans to test the approach in natural underwater conditions, where they suspect that the mapping task should be more straightforward.&nbsp;</p><p>“In a tank, it’s like an echo chamber,” Camilli says. “It’s like trying to do this in a funhouse mirror setting where you get all these distortions and reverberations and ghost images that really complicates the processing. If you put it in the real world, it should be easier.”</p><p>Then, they say, Sonar-MASt3R could help scientists safely explore in cloudy, turbid, and murky underwater regions.</p><p>“The real value in this effort is so we can use this technology in mission scenarios that are untractable right now,” Phung says. “And there are plenty of untractable missions because we don’t have the observational or perception capabilities.”</p><p>This research was supported, in part, by NASA, and the National Science Foundation.</p> The new underwater mapping technique is akin to pairing a dolphin’s echolocation with a sea turtle’s close-range vision to see and navigate through murky water, in real-time. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Robotics Computer vision Imaging Sensors Oceanography and ocean engineering Aeronautical and astronautical engineering School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/augmented-reality-system-could-make-medical-ultrasounds-easier-to-interpret-0610 MIT researchers have designed an ultrasound system that creates a real-time 3D representation of the object being imaged. Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/augmented-reality-system-could-make-medical-ultrasounds-easier-to-interpret-0610 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>Interpreting medical ultrasound images is a difficult task, requiring a technician to look at 2D images and mentally arrange them into a 3D representation of what the tissue looks like.&nbsp;</p><p>To make that job easier, MIT researchers developed a new approach to ultrasound imaging that allows the user to visualize a 3D augmented-reality image of the object being scanned. Using a virtual-reality headset, they can see a precise&nbsp;3D digital&nbsp;representation of what the object actually looks like, making it easier to identify and analyze.</p><p>This technique could help speed up the training process for ultrasound technicians and other health care providers who use ultrasound. It could also be deployed for use in hospitals, for tasks such as using ultrasound to place a needle in the right location for a biopsy.</p><p>“For training, this could make ultrasound more intuitive and more understandable. On the clinical side, it could be less time-consuming, more accurate, and also give health care providers more peace of mind. They wouldn’t have to wonder if they missed anything,” says Canan Dagdeviren, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT and the senior author of the study.</p><p>MIT graduate students Jason Hou and Shrihari Viswanath are the lead authors of the paper, which <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-026-00692-7" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Nature Communications Engineering</em></a>. Other authors of the paper include Bowen Wu ’24 and two MIT Summer Research Program students, Cinay Dilibal, a senior at Dartmouth College, and Tanisha Shende, a senior at Oberlin College.</p><p><strong>3D representations</strong></p><p>Ultrasound imaging works by bouncing high-frequency sound waves off tissues in the body, which are then reflected back to an ultrasound transducer. The transducer converts these sound waves to electrical signals, which are used to create a 2D image of the tissue. Ultrasound technicians are trained to convert these images into a 3D mental representation of the tissue.</p><p>“It's a difficult skill to master, and there are long learning curves,” says Hou. “The hardest thing is this mental tomography bottleneck where you’re&nbsp;trained to reconstruct the 2D slices in your 3D mental space. That is a cognitive burden that can lead to inaccuracies in scanning.”</p><p>To reduce that cognitive load, the MIT team thought it could be helpful to combine two technologies: 3D ultrasound imaging and augmented reality (AR).&nbsp;</p><p>Three-dimensional ultrasound&nbsp;imaging&nbsp;is occasionally used in fields such as fetal imaging and echocardiography, which is used to image the heart, but most 3D ultrasound imaging systems are expensive and not widely available. For this study, the MIT team used a&nbsp;real-time&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2026/portable-ultrasound-sensor-may-enable-earlier-detection-breast-cancer-0202" target="_blank">3D system</a> they developed recently for use in breast-cancer detection.</p><p>Their new system includes an ultrasound probe, slightly smaller than a deck of cards, that transmits information using a chirped data acquisition system (cDAQ). The probe contains an ultrasound array arranged in the shape of an empty square, a configuration that allows the array to take 3D images of the tissue below.</p><p>Because this system has fewer ultrasound elements than a typical 3D ultrasound system, it requires less power and is less expensive to build.</p><p>The data collected by the ultrasound probe can then be compressed and streamed into a 3D computer graphics engine called Unreal Engine, which&nbsp;converts the voxel data from the ultrasound image into a direct 3D representation of the object, with no loss of information.&nbsp;Wearing an AR/VR headset, the user can see this 3D rendering representing the internal structure, superimposed over the object’s actual location — like X-ray vision. By tilting their head or approaching from a different direction, the user can see different views of the object, making it easier to identify.</p><p><strong>Easier to use</strong></p><p>The researchers tested their new technology, which they call AR-VIU (augmented real-time volumetric imaging in ultrasound), with a group of 18 participants. Nine of the subjects were experts in ultrasound technology (including sonographers and physicians), and nine had never used ultrasound before.</p><p>Each user performed identification tasks using four different ultrasound technologies. In one condition, they viewed 2D images on a regular screen, which is the way that most ultrasounds are now performed. They also viewed 3D images on a regular screen, as well as two augmented reality conditions: one 2D and one 3D (AR-VIU).</p><p>In one round of experiments, users were asked to identify an object embedded in gelatin — such as a spring, a ball, or a screw — inside an opaque container that was scanned with ultrasound. In a second set, they were asked to use a pen to mark the location of “tissue phantom” — a gel-like material engineered to mimic human tissue. This simulates the task of locating the right spot for a needle during a biopsy.</p><p>The researchers found that the AR-VIU system significantly improved all users’ ability to identify and locate objects. The effect was especially strong for novices, who performed nearly as well as experts when using AR-VIU. When using the traditional 2D imaging system, experts performed much better than novices.</p><p>“Overlaying images with the anatomy and providing 3D visual context makes ultrasound significantly easier for novices to understand,” Viswanath says.</p><p>In interviews after the experiments, most of the novices reported that they preferred the AR-VIU approach, with many saying that it made the tasks easier.</p><p>“The 3D system imposes less brain drain, it’s more intuitive, and it’s easier to understand what is happening in the&nbsp;targeted region,” Dagdeviren says.</p><p>Many of the experts said they preferred the traditional 2D imaging because that is what they were accustomed to and had been trained to use. However, those experts also said they could see the benefits of the AR-VIU system in some situations, such as placing a needle for a biopsy or visualizing the movement of the heart wall during echocardiography.</p><p>The researchers are now working on further improving the resolution of the imaging and doing additional tests to demonstrate the accuracy of the AR-VIU technology.</p><p>The research was funded by the MIT Media Lab Consortium, the National Science Foundation, an MIT HEALS graduate fellowship, and an MIT-Tata graduate fellowship.</p> MIT researchers have developed a new approach to ultrasound imaging that allows the user to visualize a 3D augmented-reality image of the object being scanned. Using a virtual-reality headset, they can see a precise 3D digital representation of what the object actually looks like, making it easier to identify and analyze. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Medicine Imaging 3-D Health sciences and technology Cancer Media Lab School of Architecture and Planning National Science Foundation (NSF) https://news.mit.edu/2026/3d-printed-devices-could-streamline-drug-delivery-microparticle-production-0609 The cost-effective devices, which can be built in hours, leverage electrospray emitter technology to efficiently produce three-layered particles at scale. Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/3d-printed-devices-could-streamline-drug-delivery-microparticle-production-0609 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>MIT researchers have demonstrated a low-cost design of specialized electronic nozzles, called triaxial electrospray emitters, that could be used to manufacture time-release drug-delivery particles or self-healing materials efficiently and at scale.</p><p>Triaxial electrospray emitters use electricity to precisely dispense three liquids from microscopic nozzles to generate a steady stream with three distinct fluid layers. The liquid forms multilayered droplets, which can solidify into layered microparticles.</p><p>For instance, an array of triaxial electrospray emitters can be used to make three-layer drug-delivery nanoparticles. The outer layer might slowly erode in the stomach, revealing a second material that controls the release of a core material, which delivers medicine to a specific area of the intestines.</p><p>Developing a tiny array of electrospray emitters typically requires expensive and time-consuming microfabrication processes inside semiconductor cleanrooms, which limits their use. To overcome these drawbacks, the MIT researchers 3D-printed arrays of triaxial electrospray emitters that have 16 nozzles in an area of about one square centimeter. Each device contains an intricate network of three-dimensional microchannels that uniformly supply liquid to the nozzles.&nbsp;</p><p>Their one-step fabrication process takes only a few hours to produce complex emitter arrays.&nbsp;</p><p>When tested, the 3D-printed arrays generated uniform, three-layered droplets at scale. Such uniformity is key for high-throughput manufacturing of layered microparticles for applications like biosensors that detect chemical substances or artificial cells to aid in tissue regeneration.</p><p>“We couldn’t make a device like this in a semiconductor cleanroom. This is only possible because they are 3D-printed,” says Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and senior author of a paper describing this advance. “The particles these devices generate, whether they are used for a self-healing composite or to deliver medicine, can have a big impact in many applications. We want to democratize this technology so the benefits can touch many more people.”</p><p>Velásquez-García is joined on the paper by lead author Bryan Ivan Quintanar-Abarca of the Technological Institute of Monterrey in Mexico. The research appears in <em>Virtual and Physical Prototyping</em>.</p><p><strong>A precise process</strong></p><p>Electrospray emitters apply a high voltage to a liquid as it exits the device’s nozzle, producing a steady stream of extremely tiny droplets.&nbsp;</p><p>Triaxial devices contain arrays of three concentric nozzles that emit three immiscible, or non-mixable, liquids simultaneously into layered droplets, which can be used to generate compound microparticles with distinct layers.</p><p>For instance, one could use a triaxial electrospray emitter to create a biosensing particle that contains three different chemical markers, one in each layer. Electrospray emitters can make smaller microdroplets much faster than other techniques.</p><p>Miniaturization is key for electrospray devices, since the smaller the emitter, the lower the voltage required to generate droplets. The output of a single electrospray emitter is modest, so arrays of emitters are required to boost droplet production without sacrificing uniformity.&nbsp;</p><p>Multi-emitter electrospray devices are typically manufactured in semiconductor cleanrooms, but traditional processes limit the shapes and sizes of device components. The researchers could not find any previous reports of a miniaturized triaxial electrospray array in the open literature, highlighting the novelty of this work.</p><p>“When you build a triaxial array, you need to find a way to create geometries that have many integrated parts and extremely fine structures in the smallest footprint possible. And you need to ensure the devices will work uniformly,” Velásquez-García explains.</p><p>To do this, he and his collaborators used a 3D-printing technique called vat photopolymerization, which utilizes light to solidify extremely thin layers of liquid resin, fabricating a complex device one layer at a time.&nbsp;</p><p>This extremely precise process enabled the researchers to print layers that were only 25 micrometers tall, just a fraction of the width of a human hair. In this way, they could generate the complex internal geometry needed for a triaxial electrospray emitter.</p><p><strong>Refining the design</strong></p><p>The array, which is slightly larger than a U.S. penny, contains a network of internal coiled channels that carry liquid to 16 nozzles. These helical microchannels help maintain a uniform spray of microdroplets across all nozzles, while keeping the device as compact as possible.&nbsp;</p><p>“In a sense, the emitters in the array never learn they have company, or otherwise there would be cross-talking and causing interference between them. We achieved uniformity because of the work that went into our designs,” Velásquez-García says.</p><p>They also needed to fabricate extremely tiny channels without support structures, which could clog the device, and ensure all uncured resin was removed before the array was used.</p><p>The microchannels funnel liquid to the concentric nozzles, which must be perfectly aligned to properly emit microdroplets in a consistent manner.</p><p>“We were able to aggressively optimize the design because we could iterate in a much timelier manner. This ability to exquisitely refine designs is a key advantage of 3D printing,” Velásquez-García says.</p><p>The researchers tested multiple architectures to determine the ideal combination of liquid flow rates to maximize the stability and consistency of emitted microdroplets. They were surprised to find that the viscosity of the middle liquid plays the most important role in achieving stability in a microdroplet, since it preserves the thickness of each layer.&nbsp;</p><p>In addition, the researchers found that by adjusting flow rates and voltages, they could precisely tailor the thickness of each microdroplet layer. This would allow scientists to design drug-delivery particles with ideal layers so medicine releases at exactly the right time.</p><p>“By making such intricate devices more practical, we can empower others to pursue entrepreneurial and scientific advances,” Velásquez-García says.&nbsp;</p><p>In the future, the researchers want to continue refining their fabrication process and designs to achieve even smaller dimensions and integrate conductive or dielectric materials to the devices to make more advanced electrospray emitter arrays.</p><p>This research was funded, in part, by the&nbsp;Tecnológico de Monterrey – MIT Nanotechnology Program.&nbsp;</p> MIT researchers have demonstrated a low-cost design of specialized electronic nozzles, called triaxial electrospray emitters (pictured here), that could be used to manufacture time-release drug-delivery particles or self-healing materials. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research 3-D printing Additive manufacturing Electronics Medical devices Drug delivery Sensors Microfluidics Microsystems Technology Laboratories Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-astronomers-discover-earliest-known-flickering-quasar-0608 When the universe was just 850 million years old, this voracious black hole was already surprisingly mature, a new study finds. Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-astronomers-discover-earliest-known-flickering-quasar-0608 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>A supermassive black hole lies at the heart of every galaxy, including the Milky Way. When a black hole is active, it pulls material in as a whirlpool of high-temperature gas and dust. As this cosmic material piles up and falls onto a black hole, it&nbsp;lights up its vicinity, radiating a huge amount of energy.&nbsp;</p><p>The most energetic supermassive black holes are known as quasars, and they are some of the most active and luminous objects in the universe. These voracious systems take in so much material that the energy they emit can outshine all the light in the surrounding galaxy. The pattern of light from a quasar can give scientists clues to how active supermassive black holes shape the galaxies around them.&nbsp;</p><p>Now astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have detected a quasar flickering from the very early universe. The scientists traced the light from the quasar back to the “cosmic dawn,” just 850 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery represents the earliest flickering quasar detected to date.&nbsp;</p><p>“Although there have been a lot of quasars found in the cosmic dawn, this is the first time we actually see one flickering,” says Gene Leung, a postdoc in the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.&nbsp;</p><p>The quasar’s flicker enabled the researchers to determine that, surprisingly, the ancient quasar’s whirlpool of gas and dust, known as an accretion disk, resembled a flat pancake, similar in shape to that of more modern-day quasars.&nbsp;</p><p>Their findings add to a longstanding mystery in cosmology: Why do supermassive black holes exist so early in the universe’s history? Physicists have assumed that a flat accretion disk reflects a relatively mature black hole that is in a calm and stable state. Black holes that are just starting to form, like those in the very early universe, should be more unsettled systems, with accretion disks that appear more puffy and chaotic.&nbsp;</p><p>The flat accretion disk around this very early quasar heightens the mystery of how supermassive black holes can grow and mature in a very short amount of cosmic time.&nbsp;</p><p>“I think what this suggests is&nbsp;that &nbsp;all the messy, very rapid growth phases that&nbsp;we expect all&nbsp;black holes&nbsp;to go through&nbsp;at some point&nbsp;happen very, very early on, before we see them as these very bright luminous&nbsp;quasars,” says Anna-Christina Eilers, assistant professor of physics at MIT. “That’s the picture that’s emerging.”</p><p>Eilers, Leung, and their colleagues report their results in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02897-4" target="_blank">paper appearing today in <em>Nature Astronomy</em></a>. Their co-authors include members of MIT Kavli and multiple other institutions.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Past a pinprick</strong></p><p>A supermassive black hole can be billions of times more massive than the sun. These gravitational giants are the central “engines” of most galaxies, helping to regulate a galaxy’s star formation and growth.&nbsp;</p><p>“Without supermassive black holes, no galaxy would look the way it does today,” Eilers says. “Black holes play a major role in shaping how galactic ecosystems look.”</p><p>It was long assumed that it should take more than a billion years for the first galaxies to settle and mature, so scientists didn’t expect to see supermassive black holes in the very early universe. But observations&nbsp;since the early 2000s showed otherwise.&nbsp;Scientists have&nbsp;spotted&nbsp;more than 200 supermassive black holes in the universe’s first billion years. Such objects were detectable because they were in an extremely active quasar phase, giving off enormous blasts of radiation that could be seen from Earth, 13 billion light years away.&nbsp;</p><p>These earliest quasars were observed as pinpricks of light, which signal the existence of a supermassive black hole at early times. But from these bright and distant dots, scientists aren’t able to tell much more about the black holes and their cosmic dawn environments. To do so, they need to catch a quasar’s “flicker.”</p><p>“People have known that quasars in the nearby universe can flicker,” Leung says. “The flickering comes from fluctuations in the way the gas is being fed into the black hole. And how a quasar flickers tells us something about the structure of a black hole’s accretion disk, and the kind of ‘bites’ that the black hole is eating.”</p><p><strong>Mapping a flicker</strong></p><p>Leung and Eilers looked to detect a flickering quasar from the early universe in hopes of learning more about the shape and structure of the earliest supermassive black holes. To do so would be a technical challenge: The further back in time and space an object is, the more distorted its light appears. This effect is due to the expanding universe, which effectively stretches, or “redshifts” light to redder, longer wavelengths. The same stretching occurs in time: Any flicker that naturally occurs&nbsp;over several&nbsp;weeks, for instance, would appear stretched out, flickering&nbsp;only every few months when seen from billions of light years away.&nbsp;</p><p>To spot a flickering quasar from the cosmic dawn, the team needed to observe the distant universe at redder wavelengths, and specifically within the infrared spectrum, and over long timescales of many years.&nbsp;</p><p>“This was the technical challenge we had to overcome,” Eilers says. “We needed data&nbsp;at longer, infrared wavelengths taken repeatedly over very long timescales.”&nbsp;</p><p>The team ultimately found a flicker in data collected by NASA’s&nbsp;Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer&nbsp;(NEOWISE)&nbsp;mission — a space-based infrared telescope that scanned the entire sky over a total of about 14 years. Former MIT postdoc Kishalay De, who is now a faculty member at Columbia University, had launched a project to re-process&nbsp;archival data from NEOWISE.&nbsp;Based on the re-processed data,&nbsp;the team unearthed a signal, from just 850 million years after the Big Bang,&nbsp;which was confirmed to be the earliest flickering quasar.&nbsp;</p><p>“We saw the quasar flickering randomly over the 14-year period, much like a candle’s flame flickers without a fixed pattern,” Leung notes.&nbsp;</p><p>They estimate that the quasar is as bright as 12 trillion suns, and it is flickering by about 20 percent, meaning that it fluctuates up and down, by a brightness of about 2 trillion suns.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers also tracked how the quasar’s light flickered over several different wavelengths. The wavelength of light reflects a certain temperature of the material that is emitting the light. The closer material is to a black hole, the hotter it is. Researchers can therefore use wavelengths of light to map the shape and structure of material&nbsp;within the accretion disk&nbsp;around a black hole.&nbsp;</p><p>Using NEOWISE data, the team analyzed the quasar’s flicker to determine the shape of the accretion disk surrounding the central supermassive black hole. They found that the disk is surprisingly thin and flat — a structure that astronomers mostly see around nearby, older black holes, that have had much longer to settle and mature.&nbsp;</p><p>“This provides direct evidence that the same feeding processes and structures observed in the nearby universe were already in place at very early times, despite very different cosmic environments, which had never been seen before,” Eilers says.&nbsp;</p><p>“This means something happened even earlier on that led to these systems to look so mature,” Leung adds.&nbsp;</p><p>The team hopes to peer even further back in cosmic time to catch a quasar’s earlier, premature development. Then, scientists can start to piece together the conditions that brewed up the first supermassive black holes.&nbsp;</p><p>This research was supported, in part, by NASA.</p> Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have detected a quasar flickering from the very early universe. This artist’s concept illustrates a quasar accretion disk. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Research Astronomy and astrophysics Black holes Space Physics Satellites Kavli Institute School of Science NASA https://news.mit.edu/2026/improving-high-power-electronics-performance-0608 By using a thin layer of diamond to manage excessive heat, researchers can boost the speed and energy-efficiency of next-generation wireless devices. Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/improving-high-power-electronics-performance-0608 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>The silicon that forms the foundation of most computer chips has fundamental limits to how much power it can manage, which constrains the speed and energy-efficiency of wireless communication systems.</p><p>A promising solution is to build future wireless electronics out of transistors made from gallium nitride, an advanced material that can handle the speed and energy required for demanding wireless applications like 6G and satellite communications.&nbsp;</p><p>But even in the best transistors, a very large fraction of that energy becomes heat. As researchers pack more gallium nitride transistors into a smaller area on a silicon chip, localized hot spots degrade reliability and hamper performance.</p><p>Now, a team from MIT and elsewhere has broken through this bottleneck by embedding gallium nitride transistors into an ultrathin layer of diamond. The diamond acts as a heat spreader that normalizes the temperature and allows the transistors to approach peak performance without reducing reliability.</p><p>The researchers used this technique to manufacture a power amplifier for wireless communications, which outperformed every similar amplifier they found in the literature.&nbsp;</p><p>While their fabrication technique is extremely precise and requires the integration of different material systems, it can be performed at the scale needed for commercial applications.</p><p>“No single material can do everything well in a wireless device, so these 3D heterogeneously integrated systems are here to stay. The key challenge left has been reliability and thermal management, and we might have now unlocked the final step we need to make these systems operate at scale and high volume,” says Pradyot Yadav, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student at MIT and lead author of a <a href="https://www.yadavps.com/papers/rfic2026.pdf" target="_blank">paper on this advance</a>.</p><p>Yadav is joined on the paper by Tomás Palacios, the Clarence J. LeBel Professor of EECS, director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL), and the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology; and Ruonan Han, a professor in EECS and a member of MTL and the Research Laboratory of Electronics; as well as others at Georgia Tech and Penn State University. The research was presented at the Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium, part of the IEEE International Microwave Symposium.</p><p><strong>A multimaterial method</strong></p><p>To build faster and more energy-efficient electronics, researchers are studying heterogeneously integrated systems in which multiple materials are stacked into a unified package to leverage the beneficial properties of each one.&nbsp;</p><p>For instance, MIT researchers previously stacked&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/new-3d-chips-could-make-electronics-faster-and-more-energy-efficient-0618" target="_blank">gallium nitride (GaN) on top of silicon</a> as well as on top of glass to create higher-performance chips.</p><p>But in a heterogeneously integrated chip, each material has a different operating temperature, which can degrade the reliability of an electronic device.&nbsp;</p><p>“If we can incorporate a material that manages the heat so the GaN and silicon are at the same temperature, then the reliability of the entire 3D chip will improve. The best material for that is diamond,” Yadav explains.</p><p>The researchers use lab-grown, jewelry-grade diamond — the same type one would find in some engagement rings. Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of any known material.&nbsp;</p><p>Advances in the growth process have significantly reduced the cost of single-crystal diamond wafers, making their use in computer chips more feasible.</p><p>In prior work, scientists have grown ultrathin, single-crystal layers of diamond on top of GaN transistors to manage heat.&nbsp;</p><p>But this growth process, which is not easy to scale up, introduces unwanted capacitances in the chip. These store energy flowing through the circuit, diverting it from the transistors and slowing down their operations.&nbsp;</p><p>The MIT researchers developed a completely different approach that reduces these unwanted capacitive effects. They embedded extremely tiny GaN transistors, known as dielets, into an ultrathin interposer, or substrate, made of single-crystal diamond. This diamond layer spreads and manages the heat, so the GaN and silicon operate at the same temperature without the unwanted capacitances.</p><p>“By putting these GaN transistors into a diamond interposer, we are actually able to improve the performance of the device, as opposed to degrading it. We can get the best of both worlds,” Yadav says.</p><p><strong>Meticulous manufacturing</strong></p><p>The fabrication process begins with the use of a lightning-fast femtosecond laser to cut prepared gallium nitride dielets out of a wafer.&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers use the laser to drill precisely sized cavities into the diamond substrate. They carefully place a die attach film, which is only 20 microns thick, at the bottom of the cavity and drop a dielet on top of the film.&nbsp;</p><p>Once the dielet is in place, they apply heat and pressure to mold it with the film and diamond substrate.</p><p>“That interface is key. If you don’t have that thermal die attach film placed just right, then the heat flow through the diamond to the GaN transistor will not be good enough. So you really need to have a very smooth, clean surface,” Yadav says.</p><p>The researchers then stack additional dielectric and metal layers on top of the GaN and diamond to build a working circuit.</p><p>They used this technique to fabricate a power amplifier, which is one of the key building blocks of any wireless system. Power amplifiers convert small electrical signals into larger ones that can then be transmitted long distances.</p><p>The amplifier they developed achieved higher output power, efficiency, and gain than any similar device the researchers are aware of, including an amplifier they designed in prior work.</p><p>“The power amplifier is the beating heart of a wireless device front end. Its performance will dictate the entire performance of your communication system. Our amplifier is powerful enough to ensure that a signal can be propagated for miles,” Yadav says.</p><p>These results show how their technique could be well-suited for demanding applications, like high-power radars, space communications, and industrial drones.&nbsp;</p><p>It could also be used to manage heat in systems that perform power conversions inside data centers, improving energy-efficiency.&nbsp;</p><p>Yadav hopes other researchers will build on these advances as they develop more complex heterogeneously integrated systems, opening the door to new possibilities with next-generation electronics.</p><p>“When I started my PhD, we wondered if any of this was even doable. It seemed like science fiction. Now we’ve shown all these systems that have outperformed anything that exists on the market today. GaN and 3D heterogeneous systems are going to be at the forefront of so many future applications. It is rewarding to know that we contributed a little bit to that space,” he says.</p><p>This research was funded, in part, by the Department of War, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, and the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowships. Device fabrication and microscopy were conducted at MIT.nano and the Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems.&nbsp;</p> A team from MIT and elsewhere has embedded gallium nitride transistors into an ultrathin layer of diamond. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers; MIT News Research Computer chips Electronics Carbon materials Nanoscience and nanotechnology Mobile devices Wireless Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Research Laboratory of Electronics Microsystems Technology Laboratories Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies MIT.nano School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing https://news.mit.edu/2026/cartesian-helps-retailers-track-their-products-in-real-time-0605 Using technology invented at MIT, Cartesian’s system for locating objects could also find uses in manufacturing, logistics, and robotics. Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/cartesian-helps-retailers-track-their-products-in-real-time-0605 Zach Winn | MIT News <p>When you picture a worker at a retail store, you probably think of someone at a cash register or helping a customer. But employees also spend a lot of their time combing through stockrooms and shop floors, fulfilling requests or online orders and generally trying to keep track of all their inventory.</p><p>Keeping track of inventory takes so much time, in part, because retailers don’t always know where everything is located. That’s why when you ask a store associate to check if they have a shirt in your size, it may take them 20 minutes to get back to you.</p><p>Cartesian is helping retailers keep track of inventory with a technology invented at MIT. The system uses wireless signals from radio frequency identification (RFID) tags attached to items to find their precise location in a store, from the stockroom to the shop floor.</p><p>Last year, Cartesian did a study with a retailer and found its platform delivered meaningful annual savings at the store level by streamlining inventory tracking, optimizing workflows, and improving customer experiences.</p><p>“The big problem we’re solving is that about 50 percent of working hours in retail stores go to managing inventory,” says co-founder Fadel Adib SM ’13, PhD ’17, an associate professor at MIT. “That is roughly a $15 billion problem in the U.S. alone. We use algorithms to decipher indoor locations using wireless signals. The core technology enables a new level of indoor localization.”</p><p>Cartesian is already deployed in more than 700 stores across 15 countries and is working with one of the world’s largest fashion groups, Inditex, which is the parent company to brands like ZARA, Pull&amp;Bear, and Oysho.</p><p>Beyond retailers and warehouses, Cartesian’s platform could also improve indoor location tracking for manufacturers, logistics operators, and robotics companies.</p><p>“The broad vision for what we are doing is spatial AI,” says Adib. “Today, AI does extremely well in the digital world. Now it has to move into the physical world. That means allowing machines to perceive their environment in such a way that they can interact with it. That’s where spatial AI comes in and where Cartesian sits.”</p><p><strong>From technology to product</strong></p><p>Adib, who holds a joint appointment in MIT’s Media Lab and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been studying wireless signals at the Institute for more than 15 years, dating back to research during his master’s degree.</p><p>“My group today researches how to use wireless signals to sense the world in ways that were not possible before,” Adib says. “We develop the fundamental technology and then we build systems around them. Our goal is to see these systems deployed in the real world for impact.”</p><p>When Adib joined MIT’s faculty, the first project he worked on was indoor localization using RFID tags. Isaac<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Perper ’20, MEnG ’21 later joined his lab as a student, and together they developed machine-learning algorithms to process RFID data to translate them into location patterns, with an initial focus on helping robots locate RFIDs indoors.</p><p>In 2021, Adib went through the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, which challenges researchers to interview potential customers to find the right problems to solve with their technologies. That’s when he realized how big of a problem inventory management is for retailers.</p><p>Cartesian was officially founded by Adib and Perper<strong>&nbsp;</strong>in the beginning of 2023, after they received a small business award from the National Science Foundation. The pair worked with MIT’s Technology Licensing Office to license patents from Adib’s lab. They also received support from MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service.</p><p>“Our goal was to reduce the cost of the technology to make it scalable,” Adib recalls. “Isaac focused on simplifying the product, leveraging progress in machine learning, and making it fast. It was a lot of iterating and testing early on.”</p><p>Retail workers spend much of their time locating items for a number of reasons. They might get an online order to fulfill, need to restock store shelves, or get a customer inquiry about items in the back.</p><p>Stores differ in how they organize their inventory. Most separate items by categories in specific shelves and bins then use barcodes or inventory systems that tend to get outdated fast.</p><p>“It’s a big problem for stores because customers may just leave before asking an employee to look for their size, or customers may get frustrated and leave if it takes too long,” Adib says. “The associate also wastes time looking for items they could spend doing higher-value work.”</p><p>Cartesian’s platform works with retailers’ existing handheld RFID readers, which store associates already use to manage inventory. Each store installs Cartesian’s software into their existing inventory apps or uses a custom app for employees to access directly.</p><p>“The RFID readers are how stores tell what’s in stock and what’s out of stock,” Perper<strong>&nbsp;</strong>says. “We figured out a way to leverage the same scans they’re already using with the reader, put the data they generate into our machine-learning algorithms, and generate maps of where all the items are.”</p><p>Customers can build analytics on top of Cartesian’s technology to keep track of inventory levels, show customers maps of where each item is located, and create other services.</p><p>“They use our location intelligence platform and build different products on top,” Adib says. “We can work with any device, any store, any type of RFID. It’s a simple interface. All the sophisticated location algorithms sit in the cloud.”</p><p><strong>Beyond retail</strong></p><p>Cartesian signed its first big contract in 2025 and soon expanded to several hundred stores. One of Cartesian’s advantages is its ability to quickly scale. Perper says they can add a store in about one minute. Cartesian’s team doesn’t even have to travel to a new store to turn on its system if it’s already working with the company.</p><p>“It’s as simple as flipping a switch, preparing the data, and sending it to our customers,” Perper says. “One of our first big bets was, ‘Can we build this entirely on existing hardware?’ That bet is starting to pay off.”</p><p>Cartesian’s models can also work with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals, which the company plans to use with customers in other verticals.</p><p>“Right now, we’re focused on applications in retail, but this technology has a lot of value in manufacturing, warehouses, and other locations,” Adib says.</p><p>Cartesian’s team aims to be deployed in tens of thousands of stores over the next year and then begin expanding beyond retail into industries like manufacturing and robotics.</p><p>“What’s most exciting about Cartesian to me is we’ve built a lot of the technology foundation, and now that we have the fundamentals in place, we hope to build specific application layers,” Perper says. “Then we can ask customers in different verticals about their problems and apply our technology in different ways to solve it.”</p> Cartesian's system locates items in retail store stockrooms and shop floors. Credit: Courtesy of Cartesian Systems Research Startups Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Machine learning Wireless Internet of things Robotics Supply chains School of Engineering Media Lab https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-vaccine-adjuvant-could-make-it-easier-to-eradicate-polio-0603 The adjuvant can help the injectable polio vaccine induce a strong immune response in the GI tract, which is considered critical to eradicating the virus. Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-vaccine-adjuvant-could-make-it-easier-to-eradicate-polio-0603 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>In the United States, children routinely receive an injectable form of the polio vaccine. This vaccine is very effective at preventing illness, but it doesn’t block transmission of the polio virus as well as the oral polio vaccine does.</p><p>Poliovirus is usually transmitted through contaminated food or water, so the GI tract is where the body is first exposed. Because the oral vaccine induces a mucosal immune response within the GI tract, it is much more effective at preventing infection and spread of the virus. However, there is a small chance that the oral vaccine can become infectious, so many countries have stopped using it.</p><p>Researchers at MIT have now come up with a way to modify the injectable vaccine so that it can also promote a mucosal immune response. This vaccine could help to achieve polio eradication while avoiding the risks of the oral polio vaccine.</p><p>“People who are vaccinated with the injectable vaccine are not getting sick, but they may be helping the virus circulate. Mucosal immunity could help lower that shedding and ideally eliminate it,” says Ana Jaklenec, a principal investigator in MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.</p><p>The researchers’ new vaccine consists of the current injectable, inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), delivered with a nanoparticle-based adjuvant that helps steer immune cells to the mucosal lining of the intestine. In a study of rats, the researchers found that this vaccine produced a 20-fold increase in the type of antibodies needed for mucosal immunity, compared to IPV alone.</p><p>Jaklenec and Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, are the senior authors of the study, which <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea5433" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Science Advances</em></a>. MIT postdoc Behnaz Eshaghi is the lead author of the paper.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Targeting polio</strong></p><p>Polio, which can cause paralysis in severe cases, is now rare in most of the world due to extensive vaccination campaigns. The virus is highly contagious and is most commonly spread through consumption of food or water contaminated with the stool of an infected person.</p><p>Cases are occasionally seen in the United States and other countries, and the virus is endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan. While most of these cases are caused by the virus spreading among unvaccinated individuals, some cases may be due to the evolution of the live viruses used in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). These viruses are attenuated, meaning they are alive but weakened. In rare cases, they can mutate and evolve to become infectious again.</p><p>It’s also possible that wild poliovirus can be spread by people who have received the injected polio vaccine. These people would likely not experience any symptoms, but they could still shed the virus in their stool. Eventually, this could expose someone who isn’t vaccinated. Studies have shown that even in countries that with very high polio vaccination rates, the virus can be detected in wastewater.</p><p>To boost the chances of completely eradicating polio, it would be ideal to use a vaccine that cannot evolve to cause infection, like the current injectable IPV, and would also induce mucosal immunity, like the OPV.&nbsp;</p><p>In hopes of achieving that, the MIT researchers teamed up with researchers at Harvard Medical School who have shown that using a derivative of vitamin A as a vaccine adjuvant can help stimulate immune cells to go to the GI tract.</p><p>That adjuvant, known as Am80, works well, but to generate a strong response, it needs to be injected for several days in a row, which is not feasible for most vaccine campaigns.&nbsp;</p><p>To eliminate the need for repeated daily injections, the researchers set out to develop a nanoparticle formulation that would enable the adjuvant to be released slowly over several days. They tested several different types of nanoparticles and found that the one that worked best was a lipid nanoparticle (LNP).</p><p>“The purpose of the nanoparticle is making sure that we can engineer a platform with a sustained release of the cargo for a few days,” Eshaghi says. “That way we can overcome the bottleneck that for free administration of Am80 you need multiple daily injections.”&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Mucosal immunity</strong></p><p>In tests in rats, the researchers delivered an injection of an inactivated polio vaccine, similar to the one that is now used in the United States, along with a separate injection of Am80 encapsulated in LNPs. After the first dose, boosters were given at four weeks and eight weeks.</p><p>After injection, the nanoparticles accumulate in the lymph nodes, where they interact with B and T cells that are also exposed to the polio vaccine. This interaction stimulates the B and T cells to produce two surface proteins that act as homing signals directing them to the GI tract.</p><p>The B cells also begin producing a type of antibodies called IgA, which protect body surfaces from infection by coating the mucosal membranes. In addition, the rats also produce IgG antibodies that circulate in the bloodstream, similar to the antibodies that are normally produced in response to the injected polio vaccine.</p><p>“IPV is a safe vaccine, but it cannot create mucosal immunity. OPV can create that mucosal response, but it is not as safe,” Eshaghi says. “By adding Am80 to lipid nanoparticle as an adjuvant, we are combining the safety of IPV with an adjuvant that can produce the mucosal immunity that normally you can only get with OPV.”&nbsp;</p><p>The researchers now plan to test the vaccine in additional larger animal models, where they will inject the vaccine and adjuvant mixed together.</p><p>Using Am80 or other adjuvants to induce a mucosal response could also help researchers design improved vaccines for other pathogens that infect the GI tract, or for diseases that infect the lungs or reproductive tract.&nbsp;</p><p>“You could potentially add it to any vaccine that’s injected,” Jaklenec says. “This particular work shows that cells can be directed to the gut and increase enteric mucosal immunity. Whether it works for the respiratory or vaginal mucosa is not yet clear.”</p><p>The research was funded by the Gates Foundation.</p> The cells lining the intestine show high levels of IgA antibodies (labeled red), which are associated with mucosal immunity, in rats immunized with the MIT team’s new nanoparticle polio vaccine. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers Research Vaccines Medicine Disease Public health Nanoscience and nanotechnology Koch Institute School of Engineering https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-chemists-design-impact-resistant-plastics-0603 Introducing weaker bonds into polystyrene and rubber helps these materials dissipate energy, making them more resistant to destructive forces. Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-chemists-design-impact-resistant-plastics-0603 Anne Trafton | MIT News <p>With help from a novel cross-linking molecule, MIT chemists have shown they can substantially improve the ballistic impact resistance of common polymers, including polystyrene and a type of rubber used to make shoe soles.</p><p>Polystyrene is a hard, glassy polymer that is used to make many types of plastic containers, such as bottles and mugs, as well as disposable cutlery. It is also found in coatings for electronic devices, and its foam form is the basis for Styrofoam and other lightweight packaging. (While sometimes labeled with recycling code No. 6, polystyrene is difficult to recycle and rarely collected for reuse in the U.S.)</p><p>To make the polymer more resistant to sudden impact, the MIT team added weak bonds scattered throughout the material as cross-links, which allows the material to dissipate energy much more effectively under deformations. When struck by a projectile,&nbsp;these weak bonds selectively break at the site of impact to open up pathways for enhanced energy absorption.</p><p>The researchers found that this approach can also fortify styrene-butadiene-styrene rubber, and they are now investigating whether it will also work for other types of polymers such as latex or the rubber that is used to make tires.&nbsp;</p><p>“These cross-linkers can substantially increase the amount of energy that the material absorbs under ballistic impact. You can imagine many applications of that, especially if this could be generalized to other polymers,”says Jeremiah Johnson, the A. Thomas Geurtin Professor of Chemistry at MIT and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.</p><p>Johnson and Keith Nelson, the Haslam and Dewey Professor of Chemistry, are the senior authors of the study, which <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10557-w" target="_blank">appears today in <em>Nature</em></a>. Former MIT postdocs Zhen Sang and Suong T. Nguyen and MIT graduate student Kwangwook Ko are the paper’s lead authors.</p><p><strong>Tougher plastics</strong></p><p><a name="_Hlk230168168"></a><a name="_Hlk230167009"></a>In a study published in 2023, Johnson and colleagues at MIT and Duke University showed that they could make polymers tougher using a counterintuitive strategy: adding weak cross-linkers that are distributed throughout a polymer network. These weak linkages, also called mechanophores, break under tearing conditions in a way that helps preserve the stronger bonds that bear the load, allowing the material to dissipate more energy.</p><p>“As a crack starts to propagate through the material, these mechanophores split in two, which helps to dissipate energy and redirect where the crack goes. That means you have to put in more energy to tear the material,” Johnson says.&nbsp;</p><p>Unlike their previous study, which examined toughening under slow tearing conditions, the new <em>Nature</em> study aimed to develop mechanophore-enabled strategies for resisting rapid deformation, such as that caused by sudden impact. The researchers were especially interested in applying the strategy to some of the most widely used polymers, such as polystyrene.</p><p>To do that, they developed a way to directly incorporate mechanophores as cross-links into common polymers. Then, they used a system invented by Nelson — laser-induced microprojectile impact testing (LIPIT) — to study how the resulting polymers respond to projectile impacts. With this system, tiny projectiles — silica beads about 10 microns in diameter — are fired at the film at about 750 meters per second (more than 1,600 miles per hour). The amount of energy absorbed by the material can be calculated by measuring the change in the particle’s velocity before and after it passes through the film.&nbsp;</p><p>“We first developed this method to study microparticle impact and penetration into bulk polymer samples,&nbsp;where we would monitor particle propagation through about 100 microns of material and analyze after impact how polymer morphology had changed,” Nelson says. “Our new measurements show how much additional information can be extracted from particle velocities before and after penetration through a thin layer. They also show deeply informative deformation patterns both during particle impact and afterward.”</p><p>This technique allowed the researchers to mimic the type of forces that might be seen in the real world when a plastic object is hit with another object, or when you drop your phone on the ground. In their experiments, the researchers showed that mechanophore cross-linked polystyrene was able to absorb substantially more energy from an impact than regular polystyrene.</p><p>“It turned out that the mechanophore leads to substantial increases in energy dissipation compared to both uncross-linked and conventionally cross-linked polystyrene, a behavior that had not been observed in related previous work,” Johnson says.</p><p><strong>Absorbing impact</strong></p><p>To figure out how the mechanophores help make polystyrene more impact resistant, the MIT team enlisted help from collaborators at MIT, Purdue University, Northwestern University, and Duke University.&nbsp;</p><p>Through experiments and simulations, they found that when a high-speed particle strikes the material, it raises the temperature at the impact site high enough to form a mobile zone. In this zone, the mechanophore bonds are selectively broken under force, opening controlled pathways that better absorb the energy of impact while leaving the area beyond the impact site relatively unaffected and stable.</p><p>“What is particularly attractive about this approach is the ability to bestow these properties upon ‘off-the-shelf’ commodity plastics, both glassy and elastomeric, with minimal chemistry which makes it in principle quite scalable and relevant.&nbsp;This study combines an elegant approach while providing an in-depth mechanical analysis of the failure mechanism,” says Yoan Simon, an associate professor in the School of Molecular Sciences at Arizona State University, who was not involved in the research.</p><p>The researchers also found that they could insert these mechanophores into styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) rubber — which is used in shoe soles as well as asphalt and roofing materials — and observe a similar effect. They are now exploring whether this approach could also work with a related material, styrene-butadiene rubber, which is one of the major components of tires.&nbsp;</p><p>If successful, this technology could yield longer-lasting tires and also cut down on the amount of microplastics generated when tires contact the road, which is estimated to account for at least 10 percent of the microplastics in the environment.&nbsp;</p><p>“Materials with energy-absorbing mechanophores&nbsp;could one day help keep your vehicle's tires from blowing out on the highway or provide more protective cases for personal electronics,” says Katharine Covert, program director of the U.S. National Science Foundation Centers for Chemical Innovation, which invested in the team’s research. “This work really demonstrates how valuable new insights can be rapidly generated by bringing together researchers with different areas of expertise.”</p><p>The research was funded by the National Science Foundation Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks, the U.S. Army Research Office through MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, a Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.</p> MIT chemists showed they can double the strength of common polymers, including polystyrene and a type of rubber used to make shoe soles. Credit: MIT News; iStock Research Chemistry Materials science and engineering School of Science https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researchers-teach-ai-models-to-interpret-charts-0603 The new ChartNet training dataset could improve the accuracy of vision-language models that help analyze business trends or interpret scientific figures. Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researchers-teach-ai-models-to-interpret-charts-0603 Adam Zewe | MIT News <p>To accelerate and refine decision-making in a fast-paced, global marketplace, enterprises may deploy generative artificial intelligence models to help summarize and interpret the charts that often fill market summaries and financial reports.</p><p>But even the latest vision-language models sometimes struggle with this task, since it requires a model to integrate visual, numerical, and linguistic understanding. A company that invests in a state-of-the-art model might still receive inaccurate or incomplete information.</p><p>To fill this performance gap, researchers from MIT and the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab developed a multifaceted resource for AI users that is specifically designed to teach vision-language models (VLMs) how to effectively interpret charts.&nbsp;</p><p>They used a novel data generation method to build a state-of-the-art dataset&nbsp;that includes more than a million varied charts. The dataset also encodes many visual, linguistic, and numerical components of each chart image, which enable models to robustly reason about the information in a chart.</p><p>The researchers used this dataset, called <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.27064" target="_blank">ChartNet</a>, to train a series of open-source VLMs.&nbsp; Many of these smaller models significantly outperformed orders of magnitude larger, commercial models on tasks like data extraction and chart summarization.</p><p>By enabling open-source models to outperform their commercial counterparts, ChartNet could allow small firms with limited budgets to more readily utilize AI. The open-source dataset can be used to improve the capabilities of AI models for tasks like business trend analysis and scientific figure interpretation.</p><p>“We developed ChartNet to be a one-stop shop for chart understanding, covering basically anything that an AI model and a practitioner who is training that model might need. We hope our work motivates researchers to achieve state-of-the-art performance with smaller models that don’t require infinite amounts of computation,” says Jovana Kondic, an MIT electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.27064" target="_blank">paper on ChartNet</a>.</p><p>She is joined on the paper by many co-authors from MIT, the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab, and IBM Research, including Pengyuan Li, a research staff member at IBM Research; Dhiraj Joshi, a senior scientist at IBM Research;&nbsp;Isaac Sanchez, a software engineer at IBM Research; Aude Oliva, director of strategic industry engagement at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, MIT director of the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab, and a senior research scientist in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL); and Rogerio Feris, a principal scientist and manager at the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab. The research will be presented at IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference.</p><p><strong>A dataset bottleneck</strong></p><p>Researchers have made great strides developing generative AI models that excel at natural language processing and reasoning about natural images. But less work has focused on interpreting complex multimodal data contained within charts, Kondic says.</p><p>Yet for large and small businesses in nearly every industry, chart understanding is a critical task.</p><p>“The finance industry thrives on charts. If vision-language models can extract information out of charts, like descriptions of trends, that facilitates a lot of workflows that happen downstream,” Joshi says.</p><p>The lack of high-quality training data is a major bottleneck holding back the development of VLMs that can accurately interpret charts. Many datasets contain limited chart images pulled from the internet and often lack the necessary scale and additional information to help a model interpret the underlying data.</p><p>“A vision-language model, unlike our brains, may need to see thousands of examples during training to reliably recognize something as a line chart,” Kondic says.</p><p>The researchers sought to overcome those shortcomings by generating synthetic data. Synthetic data are artificially generated by algorithms to mimic the statistical properties of actual data.&nbsp;</p><p>The ChartNet dataset holds more a million high-quality chart images, along with the corresponding code used to generate each chart, a textual description, and a table that contains its numerical information. In addition, each datapoint includes question-and-answer pairs to teach the model how to correctly answer questions about the chart image.</p><p>“These additional modes of data guide the model to connect and align the different pieces of information that the chart image encodes,” Kondic says.</p><p><strong>Data generation</strong></p><p>To build ChartNet, the researchers created a two-step, synthetic data generation pipeline.</p><p>First, their automated system translates any pre-existing set of chart images into code. Then the system iteratively augments that code to change different aspects of each chart, such as chart type, data values, topic, colors, etc.</p><p>“We can start from a single chart that we use as a seed and come up with hundreds of augmentations of it. This is how we were able to build a dataset with more than a million diverse images,” Kondic explains.</p><p>They also incorporated an automated quality check process to ensure the synthetic data are high quality. This process verifies that the code is executable and rendered chart images are accurate and clean.</p><p>“We don’t want to just be generating diverse samples. We also want the information to be presented in a meaningful way,” she says.</p><p>ChartNet also includes a selection of chart datapoints annotated by human experts. This provides access to additional types of charts and supporting data that carry validity guarantees.</p><p>A practitioner could use the annotated data to fine-tune an existing VLM, further boosting performance for a specific application, Joshi adds<strong>.</strong></p><p>The researchers tested ChartNet by training IBM’s Granite Vision series of models as well as several other open-source models of various sizes and evaluating them on various chart interpretation tasks. The dataset improved the accuracy of all models in chart reconstruction, chart data extraction, chart summarization, and chart question answering.&nbsp;</p><p>With ChartNet, small open-source models consistently outperformed much larger&nbsp; commercial models.&nbsp;</p><p>“A lot of prior training datasets only focused on answering simple questions about a chart. We tried to go beyond that with ChartNet by generating data that support all aspects of robust chart understanding,” Kondic says.</p><p>In the future, the researchers plan to continue expanding ChartNet by incorporating data with added levels of complexity. They also want to draw on feedback from the research community.&nbsp;</p><p>This research was funded, in part, by the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab.</p> “We developed ChartNet to be a one-stop shop for chart understanding, covering basically anything that an AI model and a practitioner who is training that model might need,” says Jovana Kondic. Credit: MIT News; iStock Research Data Computer science and technology Artificial intelligence Machine learning Computer vision Business and management Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) School of Engineering MIT Schwarzman College of Computing MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-propulsion-system-could-make-tiny-satellites-fast-fuel-efficient-0601 For satellites as small as a briefcase, getting around in space just got a whole lot easier. Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:15:00 -0400 https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-propulsion-system-could-make-tiny-satellites-fast-fuel-efficient-0601 Jennifer Chu | MIT News <p>MIT engineers are testing a new propulsion system that combines the power and speed of conventional chemical thrusters with the precision and fuel-efficiency of electrical thrusters.&nbsp;</p><p>The system could enable the design of nimbler, more flexible small satellites, which could perform both fast, powerful maneuvers and slower, precise adjustments, depending on the mission and moment at hand.</p><p>The key to the new system is a special propellant that can power both chemical and electrical thrusters, which traditionally have required separate, bulky fuel sources.&nbsp;</p><p>“If you can have chemical and electrical propulsion in one small package, it’s the best of both worlds,” says Amelia Bruno, a former postdoc in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro). “This opens the door for small satellites to do even more science, more observations, and more interesting missions, all on a smaller and cheaper platform.”&nbsp;</p><p>Bruno is the lead author of a <a href="https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/1.B40175?journalCode=jpp">study appearing this week in&nbsp;the <em>Journal of Propulsion and Power</em></a> showing that a type of “green monopropellant” originally developed by the U.S. Air Force for use in chemical propulsion in space can also effectively power tiny “electrospray” thrusters. Electrospray thrusters are dime-sized rockets that use electric fields to charge up a liquid propellant’s particles, which are then shot into space as a thrust-generating spray.</p><p>Electrospray thrusters are extremely fuel-efficient and can perform slow and precise maneuvers, such as pushing a small spacecraft bit by bit through a long, interplanetary journey. Chemical thrusters, in contrast, require a large fuel supply to perform short and fast bursts, for instance to quickly ascend and descend, or speed up and slow down.&nbsp;</p><p>Now that the MIT group has found a propellant that can fuel both chemical and electrospray thrusters, they see big potential for small spacecraft. The team is working with NASA to launch the&nbsp;Green Propulsion Dual Mode mission —&nbsp;a briefcase-sized CubeSat that will carry a chemical thruster and four electrospray thrusters, all fueled by a single propellant tank. The mission will be the first to test such a two-in-one propulsion system for small spacecraft. If it is successful, Bruno says the mission could pave the way for small satellites to explore beyond Earth’s orbit.&nbsp;</p><p>“We could send CubeSats to Mars, or the asteroid belt, where they could make the journey slowly, using electrospray thrusters,” says study co-author Paulo Lozano, the&nbsp;Miguel Alemán Velasco Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.&nbsp;“You could then use your chemical thrusters to quickly move to look at interesting features. You could have a lot more flexibility to do a lot more things.”</p><p>The study’s co-authors also include Matthew Corrado SM ’22, PhD ’26.</p><p><strong>A sea of ions</strong></p><p>Lozano’s group at MIT designs, fabricates, and tests electrospray thrusters for use in satellites that range from the size of a lunchbox to a small carry-on suitcase. Compared to conventional satellites, these microsatellites are significantly smaller and cheaper to launch into space.</p><p>But smaller spacecraft require smaller everything else, including propulsion systems. In that respect, electrospray thrusters are a good fit. The thrusters Lozano develops are about the size of a thumbnail. Each thruster sits atop a small reservoir of ionic liquid propellant. When the reservoir is connected to a battery, the battery supplies some amount of voltage that electrically charges a corresponding amount of ions in the liquid. The charged particles are then channeled out of the reservoir, through the thruster’s tips and into space as a thrust-inducing spray.&nbsp;</p><p>Over the past decade, Lozano has tested many thruster designs, under varying conditions, and with various types of ionic liquid propellant — a fuel that is essentially made from salts that can remain in liquid form.&nbsp;</p><p>“Ionic liquids are very stable and can even remain a liquid in space, which not a lot of materials can do,” Bruno says. “And it’s basically a sea of ions, which is why we base our technology around it, so we can pull those ions out into an electrospray.”</p><p>Bruno and Lozano have collaborated with the U.S. Air Force, which synthesized a new kind of ionic liquid propellant — the&nbsp;Advanced SpaceCraft Energetic Non-Toxic propellant (ASCENT) — which&nbsp;was being tested in chemical thrusters. Chemical thrusters are high-force propulsion systems typically associated with launching rockets and performing hard and fast maneuvers once in space. ASCENT was designed as a “green,” less toxic alternative to hydrazine,&nbsp;which has been the traditional fuel source for chemical propulsion and is extremely hazardous to handle.&nbsp;</p><p>“ASCENT happens to be an ionic liquid mixture,” Bruno says. “And we said, hey, that’s the stuff we typically use. Theoretically, this should work. Let’s go figure out how.”</p><p><strong>Spray and spin</strong></p><p>In their new study, Bruno, Lozano, and Corrado&nbsp;tested the performance of electrospray thrusters that they fueled with ASCENT. Each thruster they used was attached to a small cube-shaped reservoir about the size of a Lego brick. They filled each reservoir with 1 gram of ASCENT, a liquid that has a viscosity similar to baby oil. They then attached a thruster to opposite sides of a CubeSat, which they set on a MagLev stand — a custom testbed that is designed to magnetically levitate a sample or device. The MagLev in Lozano’s lab is installed inside a large vacuum chamber, which the researchers can tune to mimic the conditions in space.</p><p>Over multiple experiments, the team remotely applied varying levels of voltage to activate the thrusters, which in turn produced a spray that spun the CubeSat around, like a floating, spinning top. The researchers measured the amount of thrust produced with each trial, and calculated ASCENT’s fuel efficiency as they ran the thrusters continuously over periods lasting up to 100 hours.&nbsp;</p><p>In the end, they found that ASCENT was able to successfully fuel each electrospray thruster. What’s more, the propellant, which was originally intended for chemical propulsion, was just as efficient as other, conventional ionic liquids at propelling electric thrusters.</p><p>“Compared to our normal electrospray propellants, ASCENT can provide similar performance in terms of thrust,” Bruno says. “Now that we know our thrusters work with ASCENT, we can start thinking of all the ways we can make them even better.”&nbsp;</p><p>Now that ASCENT has been proven to work in both chemical and electrical propulsion, she and Lozano say that a single tank of the fuel can be used to power both types of thrusters, all in a compact, two-in-one system that could fit within a small CubeSat. The team will test the idea with NASA’s&nbsp;Green Propulsion Dual Mode mission, which is scheduled to launch in November.&nbsp;</p><p>“This will be the first time that a satellite will have a shared propellant tank,” says Lozano, who notes that in addition to long, exploratory interplanetary missions, small satellites equipped with both chemical and electrical propulsion could also be useful for missions closer to Earth, such as for weather and climate observations.&nbsp;</p><p>“Say there’s a storm coming, and you’d want to deploy your constellation of small satellites to observe over one location,” he says. “You could choose to send them quickly or slowly depending on the nature of the observation. And the only way to do that is if you have two propulsion systems, which is now possible.”</p><p>This research is supported, in part, by NASA.</p> These four flight unit electrospray thrusters were delivered by MIT Space Propulsion Laboratory to NASA for the upcoming Green Propulsion Dual Mode (GPDM) mission. Image: Amelia Bruno Space Research Electric vehicles Cleaner industry Satellites Planetary science and exploration Aeronautical and astronautical engineering School of Engineering NASA