It's an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away—and always will be.
Plasma Physics
Aug 10, 2015
174
20449
MIT biological engineers have created a programming language that allows them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded circuits that give new functions to living cells.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 31, 2016
9
11977
In a delightful alignment of astronomy and mathematics, scientists at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a "pi Earth"—an Earth-sized planet that zips around its star every 3.14 days, in an orbit reminiscent of the universal ...
Astronomy
Sep 21, 2020
7
9975
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. The findings, ...
Space Exploration
Jan 27, 2012
3
0
At least twice in Earth's history, nearly the entire planet was encased in a sheet of snow and ice. These dramatic "Snowball Earth" events occurred in quick succession, somewhere around 700 million years ago, and evidence ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 28, 2020
16
2881
It was a moment three years in the making, based on intensive research and design work: On Sept. 5, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, ...
Plasma Physics
Sep 8, 2021
13
3931
Adding energy to any material, such as by heating it, almost always makes its structure less orderly. Ice, for example, with its crystalline structure, melts to become liquid water, with no order at all.
Condensed Matter
Nov 12, 2019
0
8604
The most severe mass extinction in Earth's history occurred with almost no early warning signs, according to a new study by scientists at MIT, China, and elsewhere.
Earth Sciences
Sep 19, 2018
2
1585
In sailing, rock climbing, construction, and any activity requiring the securing of ropes, certain knots are known to be stronger than others. Any seasoned sailor knows, for instance, that one type of knot will secure a sheet ...
General Physics
Jan 3, 2020
0
4635
Earlier this year, astronomers were keeping tabs on data from the Zwicky Transient Facility, an all-sky survey based at the Palomar Observatory in California, when they detected an extraordinary flash in a part of the sky ...
Astronomy
Nov 30, 2022
0
2825
