Profs. Michael Strano and Sheila Kennedy have developed an exhibit for the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, which explores how Strano’s glowing plant research could be part of a sustainable energy future. “The pair is one of 62 design teams involved in the [Triennial], which highlights innovative ways humans are engaging with nature,” writes Emily Matchar for Smithsonian.
President Emerita Susan Hockfield speaks with Jim Braude of WGBH’s Greater Boston about her book, “The Age of Living Machines.” “We are looking at a population of over 9.7 billion by 2050,” explains Hockfield. “We are not going to get there without war or epidemics or starvation if we don’t develop technologies that will allow us to provide energy, food, water, health and health care sustainably.”
Writing for Quanta Magazine, David Freedman spotlights Prof. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero’s discovery that when twisted to a “magic” angle, graphene can act as a semiconductor. Freedman writes that the “discovery has given scientists a relatively simple platform for exploring exotic quantum effects.”
MIT researchers have developed tiny robots powered by magnetic fields that can be used to bring drugs nanoparticles from the bloodstream into a tumor or disease site in the human body, reports the Xinhua news agency.
Verge reporter Angela Chen spotlights Prof. Michael Strano’s work using nanobionics to engineer plants. “It’s long overdue that we start to look at plants as the starting point of technology,” explains Strano. “As an engineering platform, they have a number of untapped advantages.”
Prof. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero speaks with Gizmodo reporter Ryan Mandelbaum about his work showing that when twisted to the right angle, graphene can serve as an insulator or semiconductor. “This sort of field of ‘twistronics’ is something with great potential in terms of scientific discovery and intellectual interest,” Jarillo-Herrero explains.
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.”
MIT researchers have developed a new app called Perdix that allows users to create 2-D nanostructures using DNA strands, reports Jesus Diaz for Fast Company. Engineers could use Perdix to print nanoscale parts for applications in cell biology, photonics, quantum sensing and computing, Diaz explains.
WCVB-TV’s Mike Wankum visits MIT to learn more about Prof. Nicholas Fang’s work developing a new film that can be coated on windows and can block up to 70 percent of incoming solar heat. Wankum explains that the film “could lead to a future with less need for air conditioning.”
Nature reporter Elizabeth Gibney spotlights Prof. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero’s discovery that graphene can act as a superconductor when twisted to a magic angle. “I haven’t seen this much excitement in the graphene field since its initial discovery,” said ChunNing Jeanie Lau, a professor at Ohio State University, of the impact of Jarillo-Herrero’s findings.
MIT researchers have developed a new technique that can shrink objects to the nanoscale using a laser, reports Lauren Kent for CNN. Kent explains that the technology “could be applied to anything from developing smaller microscope and cell phone lenses to creating tiny robots that improve everyday life.”
Popular Mechanics reporter David Grossman writes about a new fabrication technique developed by MIT researchers that allows for regular-sized objects to be shrunk down to the nanoscale. Grossman explains that the new method, “takes a technique currently used to make images of brain tissue larger and reverses it.”
Inside Science reporter Yuen Yiu writes that MIT researchers have developed a new technique for producing nanoscale structures using a 3-D printing method that shrinks objects. Yiu explains that the new technique operates by “first creating a bigger structure inside of a gel, then shrinking the gel, which brings the structure down to one-thousandth the volume of the original.”