A material has been developed, which can temporarily protect and tighten skin and smooth wrinkles, by scientists at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, Living Proof, and Olivo Labs. With further development, it could also be used to deliver drugs to help treat skin conditions such as eczema and other types of dermatitis.

For the past four years, researchers at MIT, Tufts University, and Georgia State University have been conducting a study to determine whether tablet computers loaded with literacy applications could improve the reading preparedness of young children living in economically disadvantaged communities.

Planning algorithms for teams of robots fall into two categories: centralised algorithms, in which a single computer makes decisions for the whole team, and decentralised algorithms, in which each robot makes its own decisions based on local observations. With centralised algorithms, if the central computer goes offline, the whole system falls apart. Decentralised algorithms handle erratic communication better, but they're harder to design, becau...

Coal could become the basis for solar panels, batteries, or electronic devices, researchers at MIT say. As a first demonstration of what they see as a broad range of potential high-tech uses for this traditionally low-tech material, Jeffrey Grossman, doctoral student Brent Keller, and research scientist Nicola Ferralis have succeeded in making a simple electrical heating device that could be used for defrosting car windows or airplane wings, or a...

Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed a type of pill that, once swallowed, can attach to the lining of the gastrointestinal tract and slowly release its contents. The tablet is engineered so that one side adheres to tissue, while the other repels food and liquids that would otherwise pull it away from the attachment site.

We’ve all been there, impatiently twiddling our thumbs while trying to locate a WiFi signal. But what if, instead, the WiFi could locate us? According to researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), it could mean safer drones, smarter homes and password-free WiFi.

In their latest paper, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) present the first-ever technique for 3D printing robots that involves printing solid and liquid materials at the same time. The new method allows the team to automatically 3D print dynamic robots in a single step, with no assembly required, using a commercially-available 3D printer.

A team of researchers with members from Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands, Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts has developed for the first time metamaterials that are based on topological origami and kirigami techniques. In their paper published in Physical Review Letters, the team describes their techniques and the benefits of such materials.

Most of the world's nations have agreed to make substantial reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions, but achieving these goals is still a considerable technological, economic, and political challenge. The International Energy Agency has projected that, even with the new agreements in place, global coal-fired power generation will increase over the next few decades.

Scientists have created a compact machine that can churn out thousands of doses of prescription medication in a day—putting the capabilities of a drug-manufacturing plant into a device the size of a kitchen refrigerator. Experts said the advance could eventually allow on-the-spot drug production in special circumstances—on the battlefield, during epidemics, after natural disasters, or in cases where a drug is needed for a rare medical...

The human-machine interactive experience has been up for a rethink at Cambridge, MA -based Fluid Interfaces group from MIT's Media Lab. These are the innovative champions in thinking up enhanced interactions and systems that can be more responsive to people's actions. One such project is the creation of the "Flying Pantograph." A very simple way of describing it would be that it is a flying drawing machine, but that would hardly scratch the surfa...

An exciting "driverless race" is underway among tech giants the United States: In recent months, Google, Uber, and Tesla have made headlines for developing self-driving taxis for big cities. But a comparatively small MIT spinout, nuTonomy, has entered the race somewhat under the radar. The startup is developing a fleet of driverless taxis to serve as a more convenient form of public transit while helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions in th...

Liquid metal batteries, invented by MIT professor Donald Sadoway and his students a decade ago, are a promising candidate for making renewable energy more practical. The batteries, which can store large amounts of energy and thus even out the ups and downs of power production and power use, are in the process of being commercialised by a Cambridge-based startup company, Ambri.

The world within a cell is a chaotic space, where the quantity and movement of molecules and proteins are in constant flux. Trying to predict how widely a protein or process may fluctuate is essential to knowing how well a cell is performing. But such predictions are hard to pin down in a cell's open system, where everything can look hopelessly random. Now physicists at MIT have proved that at least one factor can set a limit, or bound, on a give...

Researchers at MIT and other institutions have found a new phenomenon in the behavior of plasmons as they move along tiny ribbons of two-dimensional materials such as graphene and TMDs, which have a hexagonal structure resembling chicken wire. The team found that these plasmons can be separated into two different streams moving in opposite directions at the edges of the ribbons, like traffic on a two-lane highway, without the need for strong magn...

Last month, the United States and 22 other countries agreed to the first-ever global carbon emissions standards for commercial aircraft. The standards, set by the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), are estimated to reduce carbon emissions by more than 650 million tons between 2020 and 2040—roughly equal to the emissions produced by 140 million cars in a single year.

People with epilepsy suffer from recurrent, unprovoked seizures that can cause injury and even death from "sudden unexpected death in epilepsy" (SUDEP), a condition that occurs minutes after a seizure ends. Now Empatica, co-founded by MIT professor and wearables pioneer Rosalind Picard, has developed a medical-quality consumer wristband, called Embrace, that monitors stress signals to detect potentially deadly seizures and alert wearers and careg...

A team of researchers with MIT has developed a two-step process for converting waste gas into a liquid fuel suitable for use in transport vehicles. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes their technique and their plans for further testing to see how well it scales to larger applications.

One of the main reasons for limiting the operating lifetimes of nuclear reactors is that metals exposed to the strong radiation environment near the reactor core become porous and brittle, which can lead to cracking and failure. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and elsewhere has found that, at least in some reactors, adding a tiny quantity of carbon nanotubes to the metal can dramatically slow this breakdown process.

Imagine solar cells so thin, flexible, and lightweight that they could be placed on almost any material or surface, including your hat, shirt, or smartphone, or even on a sheet of paper or a helium balloon. Researchers at MIT have demonstrated just such a technology: the thinnest, lightest solar cells ever produced. Though it may take years to develop into a commercial product, the laboratory proof-of-concept shows a new approach to making solar ...