Massachusetts Institute of Technology
New data finds regions of North America have remained extremely stable for more than one billion years
Like lines in a deeply weathered face, the cracks and fissures in the Earth’s crust reveal a long and tumultuous lifetime. Massive continent-bearing plates have come together and broken apart, setting ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 06, 2012 |
4 / 5 (3) |
2
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Clever math could enable a high-quality 3-D camera for cellphones
When Microsoft’s Kinect -- a device that lets Xbox users control games with physical gestures -- hit the market, computer scientists immediately began hacking it. A black plastic bar about 11 inches wide ...
Jan 06, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (13) |
8
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The case of the missing gas mileage
Contrary to common perception, the major automakers have produced large increases in fuel efficiency through better technology in recent decades. There’s just one catch: All those advances have barely ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Jan 04, 2012 |
4.1 / 5 (22) |
63
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Microbe metabolism: For the smallest organisms, size determines how microbes spend energy
Every living organism balances a budget of sorts — by allocating energy to various parts of its body to fuel essential life processes. Throughout its lifetime, an organism may rebalance this budget to ...
Jan 04, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
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How to kick-start new energy technologies
The world desperately needs innovation in energy technologies — but those innovations are unlikely to happen by themselves. A three-year study by a team of researchers based at MIT has now identified a suite of policy ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Dec 22, 2011 |
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Traditional social networks fueled Twitter's spread
We've all heard it: The Internet has flattened the world, allowing social networks to spring up overnight, independent of geography or socioeconomic status. Who needs face time with the people around you when ...
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 21, 2011 |
1 / 5 (1) |
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Need a new material? New tool can help
Thanks to a new online toolkit developed at MIT and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, any researcher who needs to find a material with specific properties — whether it’s to build a better ...
Dec 20, 2011 |
5 / 5 (7) |
2
Tool detects patterns hidden in vast data sets
Researchers from the Broad Institute and Harvard University have developed a tool that can tackle large data sets in a way that no other software program can. Part of a suite of statistical tools called MINE, ...
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 15, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
1
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New detectors could provide easy visual identification of toxins or pathogens
Researchers at MIT have developed a new way of revealing the presence of specific chemicals — whether toxins, disease markers, pathogens or explosives. The system visually signals the presence of a target ...
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Dec 14, 2011 |
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New advance could lead to even smaller features in the constant quest for more compact, faster microchips
The microchip revolution has seen a steady shrinking of features on silicon chips, packing in more transistors and wires to boost chips’ speed and data capacity. But in recent years, the technologies behind these chips ...
Dec 14, 2011 |
5 / 5 (11) |
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Trillion-frame-per-second video
By using optical equipment in a totally unexpected way, MIT researchers have created an imaging system that makes light look slow.
Dec 13, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (41) |
30
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Developing artificial intelligence systems that can interpret images
Like many kids, Antonio Torralba began playing around with computers when he was 13 years old. Unlike many of his friends, though, he was not playing video games, but writing his own artificial intelligence ...
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 12, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
3
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New study shows how integrated institutions can lead diverse populations to cooperate in rebuilding countries
(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most pressing issues in world affairs today is state building: how countries can construct stable, inclusive governments in which a variety of religious and ethnic groups coexist.
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Dec 09, 2011 |
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Researchers link patterns seen in spider silk, melodies
Using a new mathematical methodology, researchers at MIT have created a scientifically rigorous analogy that shows the similarities between the physical structure of spider silk and the sonic structure of ...
Dec 08, 2011 |
3 / 5 (2) |
13
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Streamlining chip design
In the same way that computing power moved from mainframes to the desktop in the 1980s, it’s now moving from the desktop to handheld devices. But that’s putting new demands on chip designers. Because ...
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 08, 2011 |
3.7 / 5 (3) |
3
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