Wobbly gel mat trains muscle cells to work together
The vibrating platform could be useful for growing artificial muscles to power soft robots and testing therapies for neuromuscular diseases.
Soft optical fibers block pain while moving and stretching with the body
The fibers could help with testing treatments for nerve-related pain.
MIT receives major National Science Foundation grant for quantum science
Center for Ultracold Atoms gets funding boost to “punch through tough scientific barriers and see what's on the other side.”
From a five-layer graphene sandwich, a rare electronic state emerges
A newly discovered type of electronic behavior could help with packing more data into magnetic memory devices.
New technique helps robots pack objects into a tight space
Researchers coaxed a family of generative AI models to work together to solve multistep robot manipulation problems.
Study: Deep neural networks don’t see the world the way we do
Images that humans perceive as completely unrelated can be classified as the same by computational models.
Practicing mindfulness with an app may improve children’s mental health
New research suggests daily mindfulness training at home helped reduce kids’ stress levels and negative emotions.
Boom, crackle, pop: Sounds of Earth’s crust
MIT scientists find the sounds beneath our feet are fingerprints of rock stability.
A more effective experimental design for engineering a cell into a new state
By focusing on causal relationships in genome regulation, a new AI method could help scientists identify new immunotherapy techniques or regenerative therapies.
Ancient Amazonians intentionally created fertile “dark earth”
The rich soil holds thousands of tons of carbon, sequestered over centuries by indigenous practices, a new study suggests.
Helping computer vision and language models understand what they see
Researchers use synthetic data to improve a model’s ability to grasp conceptual information, which could enhance automatic captioning and question-answering systems.
System combines light and electrons to unlock faster, greener computing
“Lightning” system connects photons to the electronic components of computers using a novel abstraction, creating the first photonic computing prototype to serve real-time machine-learning inference requests.
Canceling noise to improve quantum devices
MIT researchers develop a protocol to extend the life of quantum coherence.
Device offers long-distance, low-power underwater communication
The system could be used for battery-free underwater communication across kilometer-scale distances, to aid monitoring of climate and coastal change.