Materials science

MIT has ranked first in 11 different academic fields in the latest QS World University Rankings, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes.

Boston Magazine reporter Scott Kearnan spotlights Clover, a farm-fresh restaurant and food truck, created by Ayr Muir BS ’00, SM ’01. “Clover is so confident about its commitment to only using fresh-from-the-farm produce that, believe it or not, it doesn’t have a single freezer in its restaurants,” writes Kearnan.

Penelope Green of The New York Times highlights the research of Prof. Neri Oxman in this article about air conditioning. “At MIT, Dr. Oxman’s team is experimenting with polymers and bacteria in the hopes they might ‘grow’ building facades, and ‘wearables’ — clothing, for example — complete with arteries to hold cooled liquids or gas,” writes Green.

ABC News spotlights how MIT researchers have found that a lobster’s membrane could serve as inspiration for developing new forms of body armor. “The membrane on a lobster’s underbelly is as strong as the rubber on car tires. It could be used as a guide for body armor that allows more mobility without sacrificing protection.”

Newsweek reporter Hannah Osborne writes that MIT researchers have found that a lobster’s membrane, which protects its underbelly, is made of one of the toughest hydrogels in the world. “Its strength and flexibility,” Osborne explains, could “make it an ideal material to use as a blueprint for body armor.”

Washington Post reporter Peter Holley writes that MIT researchers have found that the soft membrane covering a lobster’s joints and abdomen is as tough as industrial rubber. The researchers discovered, “lobsters could offer a solution to the problem plaguing most modern body armors: the more mobility an armor offers, the less it protects the wearer’s body.”

Reporting for Scientific American’s “60-Second Science” podcast, Christopher Intagliata explores how MIT developed a device, called a rectenna, that can capture energy from Wi-Fi signals and convert them into electricity. The scientists “envision a smart city where buildings, bridges and highways are studded with tiny sensors to monitor their structural health, each sensor with its own rectenna,” Intagliata explains.

Scientific American reporter Jeff Hecht writes that MIT researchers developed a new flexible material that can harvest energy from wireless signals. “The future of electronics is bringing intelligence to every single object from our clothes to our desks and to our infrastructure,” explains Prof. Tomás Palacios.

MIT researchers developed a super-thin, bendy material that converts WiFi signals into electricity, reports Ian Sample for The Guardian. “In the future, everything is going to be covered with electronic systems and sensors. The question is going to be how do we power them,” says Prof. Tomás Palacios. “This is the missing building block that we need.”

CNN reporter Don Lincoln writes that MIT researchers have discovered that it is possible to break a strand of dry spaghetti in two. Lincoln explains that the findings have applications "beyond making dinner. The calculations apply more generally to determining the crack formation of other rod-like structures, like poles used in pole vaulting and other engineering situations.”

Jesus Diaz of Co.Design explains how MIT scientists have found that Legos can be used more easily to assemble microfluidic laboratories. Historically, doing so "required expensive custom prototyping and manufacturing methods." 

MIT scientists have found that Legos can be used to create a portable, complex microfluidics lab, reports John Biggs of TechCrunch. While the Legos did have to be modified to run fine channels, the precision of the bricks and panels mean “you don’t need much more than a drill and some tubing to prototype a working microfluidics lab,” explains Biggs.

MIT researchers have made improvements to liquid-sodium batteries, potentially paving the way for the battery to be used for renewable energy storage, reports Laney Ruckstuhl for The Boston Globe. “Unlike lithium-ion batteries used in cellphones and laptops, the liquid-sodium batteries won’t lose their capacity quickly.”

MIT researchers have developed a new water-based material that could be used to make artificial skin, long-lasting contact lenses and drug-delivering bandages, writes Jamie Ducharme for Boston Magazine. “It’s interesting to imagine a world where your medicine cabinet is stocked with hydrogel-elastomer hybrids instead of contact lenses and Band-Aids,” writes Ducharme.

In this video, BBC World News reporter Adam Shaw learns about the stretchy, water-based hydrogel MIT researchers developed that could be used as a smart bandage to sense temperatures and deliver medication. “This is a new way to think about this interface between the human body and electronic devices,” explains Prof. Xuanhe Zhao.