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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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.”...
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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 “...
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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...
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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...
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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:
“...
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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...
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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....
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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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An MIT-Olin team took home the grand prize this October from the 2014 Maritime RobotX Challenge in Marina Bay, Singapore. The team was comprised of students from MIT’s Department of Mechanical...
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This week a team featuring multiple Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers took home the grand prize in an international competition centered on autonomous...
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The world’s fiber-optic network spans more than 550,000 miles of undersea cable that transmits e-mail, websites, and other packets of data between continents, all at the speed of light. A rip or...
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Last week, at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, MIT researchers unveiled an oval-shaped submersible robot, a little smaller than a football, with a flattened panel on...
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Cephalopods, which include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, are among nature’s most skillful camouflage artists, able to change both the color and texture of their skin within seconds to blend into...
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Speed and agility are hallmarks of the cheetah: The big predator is the fastest land animal on Earth, able to accelerate to 60 mph in just a few seconds. As it ramps up to top speed, a cheetah pumps...