• Feb. 11, 2020
    Most people only think about the systems that power their cities when something goes wrong. Unfortunately, many people in the San Francisco Bay Area had a lot to think about recently when their...
  • Feb. 5, 2020
    Materials called perovskites show strong potential for a new generation of solar cells, but they’ve had trouble gaining traction in a market dominated by silicon-based solar cells. Now, a study by...
  • Feb. 5, 2020
    A completely passive solar-powered desalination system developed by researchers at MIT and in China could provide more than 1.5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of...
  • Feb. 4, 2020
    At the heart of any electronic device is a cold, hard computer chip, covered in a miniature city of transistors and other semiconducting elements. Because computer chips are rigid, the electronic...
  • Jan. 25, 2020
    Costs of solar panels have plummeted over the last several years, leading to rates of solar installations far greater than most analysts had expected. But with most of the potential areas for cost...
  • Jan. 22, 2020
    Much of the conversation around energy sustainability is dominated by clean-energy technologies like wind, solar, and thermal. However, with roughly 80 percent of energy use in the United States...
  • Jan. 9, 2020
    Toward the end of 2019, startup Khethworks began selling what the team refers to internally as “version one” of its 320-watt solar-powered water pump. The pump allows farmers in India who rely on...
  • Dec. 11, 2019
    As food demand rises due to growing populations with changing consumption patterns in Africa and around the globe, increased agricultural output is crucial. Since most agriculture across the African...
  • Dec. 4, 2019
    Resting atop Thomas Peacock’s desk is an ordinary-looking brown rock. Roughly the size of a potato, it has been at the center of decades of debate. Known as a polymetallic nodule, it spent 10 million...
  • Nov. 25, 2019
    Six MIT faculty members have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The new fellows are among a group of 443 AAAS members elected by their peers in...
  • Nov. 24, 2019
    Last November, much of the buzz at the Los Angeles Auto Show was generated by a company few people had heard of. According to RJ Scaringe SM '07, PhD '09 founder and CEO of Rivian Automotive, that...
  • Nov. 24, 2019
    While so many faculty and researchers at MIT are developing technologies to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy sustainability, one class puts the power in students’ hands. In class 2.S999,...
  • Nov. 24, 2019
    In the early 20th century, just as electric grids were starting to transform daily life, an unlikely advocate for renewable energy voiced his concerns about burning fossil fuels. Thomas Edison...
  • Nov. 24, 2019
    In the quest to make buildings more energy efficient, windows present a particularly difficult problem. According to the Department of Energy, heat that either escapes or enters windows accounts for...
  • Nov. 24, 2019
    There are about a dozen aluminum pellets in the palm of Peter Godart’s hand. He has been working on harnessing enough energy from these small pellets to power desalination and generate electricity to...
  • Nov. 24, 2019
    Many first-year students arriving on campus each year share a driving force that brought them to MIT – a passion for making. Whether it’s tinkering with robots, building motors, or designing devices...
  • Nov. 3, 2019
    An autonomous robotic system invented by researchers at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) efficiently sniffs out the most scientifically interesting — but hard-to-find — ...
  • Oct. 31, 2019
    Researchers from MIT will be collaborating with colleagues at the University of Colorado at Boulder on an experiment scheduled to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) on Nov. 2. The...
  • Oct. 29, 2019
    Imagine a device that can sit outside under blazing sunlight on a clear day, and without using any power cool things down by more than 23 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). It almost sounds...
  • Oct. 28, 2019
    One event has become a hallmark of nearly every academic conference: the poster session. Posters summarizing research are tacked onto endless rows of bulletin boards. Leaders in any given field...

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