School of Engineering

MIT scientists have found that changing the angle of turbine blades on wind farms could increase energy output, reports David Abel for The Boston Globe. “Given the scale of wind deployment needed to achieve state and federal climate goals, we need optimal wind farm performance to ensure efficient, rapid decarbonization,” says Prof. Michael Howland. “Our method resulted in significant energy gains over standard industry operations, and, importantly, it can be instituted with minimal cost.”

Nuclear science experts say that the potential shut down of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine can lead to energy implications and climate change, reports Anna Skinner for Newsweek. "The Earth is heating up, and we don't have any way to stop it right now except to stop putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere," says Prof. Michael Golay. "The nice thing about nuclear is it doesn't emit much in the way of greenhouse gases."

Alumna Anurupa Ganguly SB ’07, MNG ’09 speaks with Forbes contributor Rod Berger about Prisms of Reality, a virtual reality platform she founded that provides math learning through movement, experience and discovery. “We envision a dramatic re-engagement of our students with their education,” says Ganguly. “Our students, many for the first time, will find a profound sense of purpose in their math learning and their lives.”

Researcher Hojun Li and his team have developed a new Covid-19 at-home test that looks “specifically at the levels of neutralizing antibodies and either give a precise level or a ‘low,’ ‘medium,’ ‘high’ reading, providing more actionable information,” reports Karen Weintraub for USA Today.

Lita Nelsen BS ’64, MS ’66, MBA ’79 writes for The Boston Herald about the Bayh-Dole Act, a landmark piece of legislation that allows universities to keep the patents to their own inventions. “As the head of MIT’s Technology Licensing Office for almost three decades, I helped license thousands of technologies to the innovative companies that sprung up around campus,” writes Nelsen. “The Bayh-Dole Act has indisputably helped the U.S. life sciences sector become the envy of the world.”

Researchers at MIT believe they have found a new semiconductor that's better than silicon, which could open the doors to potentially faster and smaller computer chips in the future, reports Rachel Cheung for Vice. “Cubic boron arsenide has significantly higher mobility to both electronics and their positively charged counterparts than silicon, the ubiquitous semiconductor used in electronics and computers,” explains Cheung.

Professor Eric Alm speaks with Claire Ainsworth at New Scientist about studying wastewater to better understand the health, wealth and environment of various communities. “It’s not about going in and taking a measurement,” said Alm. “It’s about developing a platform that can help you reach insights about what’s going on.”

Researchers at MIT and other institutions proved “that cubic boron arsenide performs better than silicon at conducting heat and electricity,” reports Nicholas Gordon for Fortune. “The new material may help designers overcome the natural limits of current models to make better, faster, and smaller chips,” writes Gordon.

Computer science lecturer Iddo Drori and his team have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that can solve college-level math problems at a human level, reports Susan D’Agostino for Inside Higher Ed. “The model can also explain the solutions and generate new problems that students found indistinguishable from human-generated problems,” reports D’Agostino.

A new proposed economic bill could provide “game-changing” incentives for the nuclear energy industry, reports Jennifer McDermott and Mary Katherine Wildeman for the Associated Press. The bill “is really substantial,” says Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno. “This should move the needle in terms of making these technologies economically viable right off the bat.”

MIT researchers have developed firefly-inspired robots that can emit light while flying, reports Popular Mechanics. “The robots may be able to converse with one another because of this electroluminescence and, for instance, a robot that finds survivors while on a search-and-rescue mission, within a fallen building, could use lights to alert others and request assistance.”

Reuters reporter Nancy Lapid writes that MIT researchers have developed an at-home test that can measure a person’s antibody levels to the virus that causes Covid-19. The test could someday “help people know how protected they are against infection and what kinds of precautions they need to take,” writes Lapid.

Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with Forbes contributor Russell Flannery about his work using finance to help lower the cost of drug development for cancer treatment and therapies. “I started thinking about how we could use finance pro-actively to lower the cost of drug development, increase success rates, and make it more attractive for investors,” says Lo. “Because that's really what the issue is: you need investors to come into the space to spend their billions of dollars in order to get these drugs developed.”

Nature reporter Neil Savage spotlights Prof. Michael Strano’s work developing a new technique to use nanoparticles to alter the biology of living plants. Savage writes that the new technique can allow for "the design of nanoparticles that carry gene-editing machinery to targeted areas to rewrite the plant’s genome and imbue it with properties such as pest and disease resistance,” writes Savage.

Daily Beast reporter Tony Ho Tran writes that a new paper test developed by MIT researchers could be used to help determine a person’s immune response to Covid-19. “The researchers believe that the new test can not only help folks find out if they should get boosted,” writes Tran, “but also help the most vulnerable populations make sure they’re protected against the coronavirus, and help people make more informed decisions on what kinds of activities they should feel safe doing.”