Research

AI system learns to keep warehouse robot traffic running smoothly

AI system learns to keep warehouse robot traffic running smoothly Inside a giant autonomous warehouse, hundreds of robots dart down aisles as they collect and distribute items to fulfill a steady stream of customer orders. In this busy environment, even small traffic jams or minor collisions can snowball into massive ...

Augmenting citizen science with computer vision for fish monitoring

Augmenting citizen science with computer vision for fish monitoring Each spring, river herring populations migrate from Massachusetts coastal waters to begin their annual journey up rivers and streams to freshwater spawning habitat. River herring have faced severe population declines over the past several decades, and their migration is extensively monitored ...

Why solid-state batteries keep short-circuiting

Why solid-state batteries keep short-circuiting Batteries that use solid metal as their charge-carrying electrolyte could potentially be a safer and far more energy-dense alternative to lithium-ion batteries. However, these solid-state batteries have been plagued by the formation of metallic cracks called dendrites that cause them ...

Wristband enables wearers to control a robotic hand with their own movements

Wristband enables wearers to control a robotic hand with their own movements The next time you’re scrolling your phone, take a moment to appreciate the feat: The seemingly mundane act is possible thanks to the coordination of 34 muscles, 27 joints, and over 100 tendons and ligaments in your hand. Indeed, our ...

How to create “humble” AI

How to create “humble” AI Artificial intelligence holds promise for helping doctors diagnose patients and personalize treatment options. However, an international group of scientists led by MIT cautions that AI systems, as currently designed, carry the risk of steering doctors in the wrong direction because ...

A complicated future for a methane-cleansing molecule

A complicated future for a methane-cleansing molecule Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in driving up global temperatures. But it doesn’t linger in the atmosphere for long thanks to molecules called hydroxyl radicals, which are known as the “atmosphere’s detergent” ...

Investigating Antarctic ice shelf melting with global navigation satellite systems

Investigating Antarctic ice shelf melting with global navigation satellite systems Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), which include GPS, are traditionally used for positioning, timing, and mapping information. In an open-access study published Feb. 27 in Geophysical Research Letters, MIT Haystack Observatory scientists report using existing GNSS satellites, in conjunction with 13 stations ...

Stamping high-res imagery onto everyday items to “reprogram” their appearance

Stamping high-res imagery onto everyday items to “reprogram” their appearance Imagine a world where you could change the designs you see on bags, shirts, and walls whenever you want. Typical clothes would become customizable fashion pieces, while your humble abode could turn into a smart home. That’s the vision of ...

CryoPRISM: A new tool for observing cellular machinery in a more natural environment

CryoPRISM: A new tool for observing cellular machinery in a more natural environment The blobfish, once considered the ugliest animal in the world, has since had quite the redemption arc. Years after it was first discovered, scientists realized that the deep-sea creature appeared so unnervingly blobby only because it went through an extreme change ...

MIT and Hasso Plattner Institute establish collaborative hub for AI and creativity

MIT and Hasso Plattner Institute establish collaborative hub for AI and creativity The following is a joint announcement from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Hasso Plattner Institute, and Hasso Plattner Foundation.The MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD), MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Hasso Plattner Institute ...

Improving cartilage repair through cell therapy

Improving cartilage repair through cell therapy Researchers have developed a new method for monitoring iron flux — the movement and rate at which cells take in, store, use and release iron — in stem cells known as mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). The system can provide insights ...

A better method for identifying overconfident large language models

A better method for identifying overconfident large language models Large language models (LLMs) can generate credible but inaccurate responses, so researchers have developed uncertainty quantification methods to check the reliability of predictions. One popular method involves submitting the same prompt multiple times to see if the model generates the ...

Generative AI improves a wireless vision system that sees through obstructions

Generative AI improves a wireless vision system that sees through obstructions MIT researchers have spent more than a decade studying techniques that enable robots to find and manipulate hidden objects by “seeing” through obstacles. Their methods utilize surface-penetrating wireless signals that reflect off concealed items.Now, the researchers are leveraging generative artificial ...

New model predicts how mosquitoes will fly

New model predicts how mosquitoes will fly A mosquito finds its target with the help of certain cues in its environment, such as a person’s silhouette and the carbon dioxide they exhale.Now researchers at MIT and Georgia Tech have found that these visual and chemical cues help ...

Brain circuit needed to incorporate new information may be linked to schizophrenia

Brain circuit needed to incorporate new information may be linked to schizophrenia One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is difficulty incorporating new information about the world. This can lead people with schizophrenia to struggle with making decisions and, eventually, to lose touch with reality.MIT neuroscientists have now identified a gene mutation that ...

Turning extreme heat into large-scale energy storage

Turning extreme heat into large-scale energy storage Thermal batteries can efficiently store energy as heat. But building them requires a carefully designed system with materials that can withstand cycles of extremely high temperatures, without succumbing to problems like corrosion, thermal expansion, and structural fatigue.Many thermal battery systems ...

MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab seed to signal: Amplifying early-career faculty impact

MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab seed to signal: Amplifying early-career faculty impact The early years of faculty members’ careers are a formative and exciting time in which to establish a firm footing that helps determine the trajectory of researchers’ studies. This includes building a research team, which demands innovative ideas and direction, ...

Three anesthesia drugs all have the same effect in the brain, MIT researchers find

Three anesthesia drugs all have the same effect in the brain, MIT researchers find When patients undergo general anesthesia, doctors can choose among several drugs. Although each of these drugs acts on neurons in different ways, they all lead to the same result: a disruption of the brain’s balance between stability and excitability, according ...

Ocean bacteria team up to break down biodegradable plastic

Ocean bacteria team up to break down biodegradable plastic Biodegradable plastics could help alleviate the plastic waste crisis that is polluting the environment and harming our health. But how long plastics take to degrade and how environmental bacteria work together to break them down is still largely unknown.Understanding how ...

New sensor sniffs out pneumonia on a patient’s breath

New sensor sniffs out pneumonia on a patient’s breath Diagnosing some diseases could be as easy as breathing into a tube. MIT engineers have developed a test to detect disease-related compounds in a patient’s breath. The new test could provide a faster way to diagnose pneumonia and other lung ...

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