Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Solar water purifier is serving 600 Puerto Ricans daily

A water purifier, powered completely by the sun, now pumps in polluted municipal water and pours out 850 pure gallons per day for public consumption in Loíza.

Volumetric 3D printing builds on need for speed

While additive manufacturing is enabling engineers and scientists to build parts in configurations and designs never before possible, the impact of the technology has been limited by layer-based printing methods, which can take up to hours or days to build three-dimensional parts, depending on their complexity.

Battery research could triple range of electric vehicles

New research could lead to the development of batteries that triple the range of electric vehicles. The breakthrough involves the use of negative electrodes made of lithium metal, a material with the potential to dramatically increase battery storage capacity.

Engineers 3-D print a "living tattoo"

New technique 3-D prints programmed cells into living devices for first time.

Device makes power conversion more efficient

New design could dramatically cut energy waste in electric vehicles, data centers, and the power grid.

New 3-D printer is 10 times faster than commercial counterparts

Engineers have developed a new desktop 3-D printer that performs up to 10 times faster than existing commercial counterparts. Whereas the most common printers may fabricate a few Lego-sized bricks in one hour, the new design can print similarly sized objects in just a few minutes.

Artificial muscles give soft robots superpowers

Soft robotics has made leaps and bounds over the last decade as researchers around the world have experimented with different materials and designs to allow once rigid, jerky machines to bend and flex in ways that mimic and can interact more naturally with living organisms. However, increased flexibility and dexterity has a trade-off of reduced strength, as softer materials are generally not as strong or resilient as inflexible ones, which limits their use.

Sensors printed onto leaves

Engineers have created sensors that can be printed onto plant leaves and reveal when the plants are experiencing a water shortage. This kind of technology could not only save neglected houseplants but, more importantly, give farmers an early warning when their crops are in danger.

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group completes acquisition of Terrafugia Inc

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is pleased to announce it has entered into an agreement with Terrafugia Inc, a US-based company focused on the innovation, engineering and production of flying cars and future technologies, to acquire its operations and assets in their entirety.

Synthetic circuits can harvest light energy

Novel structures made with DNA scaffolds could be used to create solar-powered materials.

Flexible, stretchable photonic devices

Light-based devices could be used as biomedical sensors or as flexible connectors for electronics.

Lamborghini collaborate with MIT on self powering, self healing car

Automobili Lamborghini in collaboration with two laboratories of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology marks the first steps of a possible future Lamborghini electric super sports car.

Semtech and Imprint Energy collaborate to power IoT sensors and device

Semtech and Imprint Energy announced a collaboration to accelerate the widespread deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Imprint Energy will design and produce ultrathin, flexible printed batteries that are especially designed to power IoT devices integrated with Semtech's LoRa® devices and wireless RF technology.

A new way to store thermal energy

A new chemical composite could be used to store heat from the sun or any other source during the day in a kind of thermal battery, and it could release the heat when needed, for example for cooking or heating after dark.

Spotlight on Terrafugia

Terrafugia's mission is to create practical flying cars that enable a new dimension of personal freedom.

Engineers to develop intelligent, adaptive and resilient robot teams

The United States Army Research Laboratory has awarded a five-year, $27 million grant to develop new methods of creating autonomous, intelligent, and resilient teams of robots.

Need for speed makes genome editing efficient, if not better

Researchers have developed a computational model to quantify the mechanism by which CRISPR-Cas9 proteins find their genome-editing targets.

Air-breathing battery can store electricity for months

Wind and solar power are increasingly popular sources for renewable energy. But intermittency issues keep them from connecting widely to the grid.

Forget about it: A material that mimics the brain

Inspired by human forgetfulness - how our brains discard unnecessary data to make room for new information - scientists conducted a recent study that combined supercomputer simulation and X-ray characterization of a material that gradually 'forgets.' This could one day be used for advanced bio-inspired computing.

Flexible sensors can detect movement in GI tract

Researchers have built a flexible sensor that can be rolled up and swallowed. Upon ingestion, the sensor adheres to the stomach wall or intestinal lining, where it can measure the rhythmic contractions of the digestive tract.