• Jul. 16, 2016
    The air was hot and gritty. Shehazvi had to squint to see past the sun into the edge of town, past the cars and motorcycles whizzing by, past the scorched earth, to where old buildings stood...
  • Apr. 11, 2016
    Water filters of the future may be made from billions of tiny, graphene-based nanoscrolls. Each scroll, made by rolling up a single, atom-thick layer of graphene, could be tailored to trap specific...
  • Apr. 7, 2016
    Dr. Koichi Masubuchi, Professor Emeritus of Ocean Engineering, passed away on April 1, 2016, at the age of 92 years old, in Concord, Mass. Professor Masubuchi was a leading expert in welding science...
  • Feb. 29, 2016
    Acoustic-gravity waves are very long sound waves that cut through the deep ocean at the speed of sound. These lightning-quick currents can sweep up water, nutrients, salts, and any other particles in...
  • Feb. 25, 2016
    Sailing history is rife with tales of monster-sized rogue waves — huge, towering walls of water that seemingly rise up from nothing to dwarf, then deluge, vessel and crew. Rogue waves can measure...
  • Feb. 15, 2016
    Amos Winter may be an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, but he describes one of the most important aspects of his job as “detective work.” That’s what he, MIT PhD candidate ...
  • Jan. 24, 2016
    From gene mapping to space exploration, humanity continues to generate ever-larger sets of data — far more information than people can actually process, manage, or understand. Machine learning...
  • Jan. 3, 2016
    A Mechanical Engineer’s Obsession with Self-Driving Cars John J. Leonard is the Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering and Associate Department Head for Research in the MIT...
  • Jan. 2, 2016
    A joyride. A cruise. A flight to your next vacation or a drive to see your family. Or just simply getting from point A to point B. Whatever the reason, there are few people who don’t appreciate a...
  • Dec. 20, 2015
    The Society of Engineering Science (SES) announced on Dec. 7 that Pedro Reis, the Gilbert W. Winslow Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, and Markus...
  • Nov. 9, 2015
    Nature has developed innovative ways to solve a sticky challenge: Mussels and barnacles stubbornly glue themselves to cliff faces, ship hulls, and even the skin of whales. Likewise, tendons and...
  • Oct. 25, 2015
    Boiling water, with its commotion of bubbles that rise from a surface as water comes to a boil, is central to most electric power plants, heating and cooling systems, and desalination plants. Now,...
  • Sep. 22, 2015
    Senior Carrington Motley spends a lot of his time at MIT surrounded by sand. “Yeah, sand is everywhere,” he admits with a laugh. “It was already in all of my clothes, and now it’s in my backpack.”...
  • Sep. 7, 2015
    Got rope? Then try this experiment: Cross both ends, left over right, then bring the left end under and out, as if tying a pair of shoelaces. If you repeat this sequence, you get what’s called a “...
  • Aug. 11, 2015
    Deep in the basement of MIT’s Building 3, a two-legged robot named HERMES is wreaking controlled havoc: punching through drywall, smashing soda cans, kicking over trash buckets, and karate-chopping...
  • Jun. 10, 2015
    Albert Wang has had robots on his mind for a long time. “When I was about four years old,” he recalls, “I dreamt about building a robot vacuum. I remember wandering around the house, while my parents...
  • Jun. 1, 2015
    The image that comes to mind when you hear Professor John Leonard describe his dream of developing a robot that is what he calls “a lifelong learner” is so cinematic it’s almost hard to believe: “...
  • Feb. 3, 2015
    Acoustic-gravity waves — a special type of sound wave that can cut through the deep ocean at the speed of sound — can be generated by underwater earthquakes, explosions, and landslides, as well as by...
  • Dec. 13, 2014
      Alumna Megan Smith, CTO of the United States. Courtesy of White House. Megan Smith received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1986 and 1988, respectively....
  • Nov. 3, 2014
    When an aspiring mechanical engineer on a budget wants a top-of-the-line guitar, what does he do? He makes it himself, of course. At age 13, Nathan Spielberg — now an MIT senior — began building his...

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