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Materials whose electronic and magnetic properties can be significantly changed by applying electrical inputs form the backbone of all of modern electronics. But achieving the same kind of tunable...
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At MIT, making a better world often starts on campus. That’s why, as the Institute works to find solutions to complex global problems, MIT has taken important steps to grow and transform its physical...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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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In 2004, a few days into his first semester at MIT, Folkers Rojas ’09, SM ’11, PhD ’14 stopped by the office that housed the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Having worked through...
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For millions of people globally, cooking in their own homes can be detrimental to their health, and sometimes deadly. The World Health Organization estimates that 3.8 million people a year die as a...
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When a guitar string is plucked, it vibrates as any vibrating object would, rising and falling like a wave, as the laws of classical physics predict. But under the laws of quantum mechanics, which...