Massachusetts Institute of Technology

New mathematical framework formalizes oddball programming techniques

Two years ago, Martin Rinard's group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory proposed a surprisingly simple way to make some computer procedures more efficient: Just skip a bunch of ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (17) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Device may inject a variety of drugs without using needles

Getting a shot at the doctor’s office may become less painful in the not-too-distant future.

Technology / Engineering

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Crowding causes cells to produce an orderly matrix of molecules

When researchers conduct experiments on the way cells grow and respond to outside cues, they tend to use solutions that are much more dilute than the crowded environments found inside living cells. Now, new ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust

Researchers at MIT, NASA and elsewhere have detected a possible planet, some 1,500 light years away, that appears to be evaporating under the blistering heat of its parent star. The scientists infer that a ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 18, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (10) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

MIT biologist relishes the challenge of picking apart the cell's most complex structure

One of the most important structures in a cell is the nuclear pore complex — a tiny yet complicated channel through which information flows in and out of the cell’s nucleus, directing all other cell ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Civil engineers find savings where the rubber meets the road

A new study by civil engineers at MIT shows that using stiffer pavements on the nation’s roads could reduce vehicle fuel consumption by as much as 3 percent — a savings that could add up to 273 million ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 22, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The elusive capacity of data networks

In its early years, information theory — which grew out of a landmark 1948 paper by MIT alumnus and future professor Claude Shannon — was dominated by research on error-correcting codes: How do yo ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Excel programming for nonprogrammers

Microsoft’s Visual Basic programming language lets Excel users customize their spreadsheets in all kinds of time-saving ways, but few people take advantage of it. Although designed to be intuitive and ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created May 08, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (16) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Oxygen-separation membranes could aid in CO2 reduction

It may seem counterintuitive, but one way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere may be to produce pure carbon dioxide in powerplants that burn fossil fuels. In this way, greenhouse gases — once isolated ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

What drove the lunar dynamo? Moon's molten core was likely sustained by alternative power source

New evidence from an ancient lunar rock suggests that the moon once harbored a long-lived dynamo — a molten, convecting core of liquid metal that generated a strong magnetic field 3.7 billion years ago. ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 27, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (13) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

New material shares many of graphene's unusual properties

Graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon, has spawned much research into its unique electronic, optical and mechanical properties. Now, researchers at MIT have found another compound that shares many ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Apr 24, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Rare Earth element tellurium detected for the first time in ancient stars

Nearly 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was made of only hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium — byproducts of the Big Bang. Some 300 million years later, the very first stars emerged, creating ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 17, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (22) | comments 119 | with audio podcast

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

New kind of high-temperature photonic crystal could someday power everything from smartphones to spacecraft

A team of MIT researchers has developed a way of making a high-temperature version of a kind of materials called photonic crystals, using metals such as tungsten or tantalum. The new materials — which ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

The faster-than-fast Fourier transform

The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It’s a method for representing an irregular signal — such as the voltage fluctuations in the wire that conne ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Jan 18, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (30) | comments 20 | with audio podcast