INNOVATIONS

Unique visual stimulation may be new treatment for Alzheimer’s Anne Trafton | MIT News Office  December 8, 2016 Using LED lights flickering at a specific frequency, MIT researchers have shown that they can substantially reduce the beta amyloid plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease, in the visual cortex of mice. This [..]

Printable electronics Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office  December 8, 2016 The next time you place your coffee order, imagine slapping onto your to-go cup a sticker that acts as an electronic decal, letting you know the precise temperature of your triple-venti no-foam latte. Someday, the high-tech stamping that produces [..]

Learning words from pictures System correlates recorded speech with images, could lead to fully automated speech recognition. Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office December 7, 2016 Speech recognition systems, such as those that convert speech to text on cellphones, are generally the result of machine learning. A computer pores through [..]

Stanford Unveils Innovative Solar Generating Station Leading the way in sustainability and innovative green technologies, Stanford celebrated the opening of the Stanford Solar Generating Station in Kern County, Calif. The station will provide more than 50 percent of Stanford’s electricity. DECEMBER 5, 2016 Leading the way in sustainability and innovative [..]

A More Energy Efficient New Memory Technology By Stanford Scientists While exploring the atomic-level forces at play in a new type of computer chip, researchers found an energy-saving surprise that could translate into longer battery life for next-generation mobile devices. By : TOM ABATE (Stanford News) Scientists often discover interesting [..]

Parkinson’s Disease Linked to Microbiome By Lori Dajose (CALTECH News) Caltech scientists have discovered for the first time a functional link between bacteria in the intestines and Parkinson’s disease (PD). The researchers show that changes in the composition of gut bacterial populations—or possibly gut bacteria themselves—are actively contributing to and [..]

Design your own custom drone CSAIL system lets users design and fabricate drones with a wide range of shapes and structures. By: Adam Conner-Simons | CSAIL  (MIT NEWS) December 5, 2016 This fall’s new Federal Aviation Administration regulations have made drone flight easier than ever for both companies and consumers. But [..]

Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time, Stanford researchers find New research finds that small regions of the brain cycle in and out of sleep, even when awake. The cycles shift toward “awake” when that part of the brain pays attention to a task. [..]

A Hydrogel That Helps Stop Uncontrolled Bleeding Works in patients on blood thinners or with bleeding disorders By Benjamin Boettner, Wyss Institute Communications Small blood clots called emboli are mostly known for traveling through the vasculature before they lodge and obstruct vessels, impeding blood and oxygen supply to organs such [..]

New Nontoxic Hydrogels : Aid in Food Production and Other Applications Hydrogels already form the absorbent layer in disposable diapers and the curve of soft contact lenses. A new process makes these materials useful for more applications, including wine-making and firefighting. BY GLEN MARTIN (Stanford News) Hydrogels are gelatinous amalgams [..]

Computer Learns to Recognize Sounds by Watching Video Machine-learning system doesn’t require costly hand-annotated data. Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office December 3, 2016     In recent years, computers have gotten remarkably good at recognizing speech and images: Think of the dictation software on most cellphones, or the algorithms [..]

A radiation-free approach to imaging molecules in the brain New probe induces blood flow changes that can be seen by MRI. Anne Trafton | MIT News Office December 3, 2016     Scientists hoping to get a glimpse of molecules that control brain activity have devised a new probe that [..]

New Chemical Tool to Control Inflammation With the Help of UV Light By: Krishna Ramanujan See Also: Cornell News   Black light does more than make posters glow. Cornell researchers have developed a chemical tool to control inflammation that is activated by ultraviolet (UV) light. The method will allow scientists to [..]

Just Three Atoms Thick New Prototype Chip Created by Stanford Engineers Ever since scientists discovered that atomically thin materials could have useful electronic properties, engineers have been seeking ways to mass-produce so-called single-layer chips. A new technique shows how it might be done. By Tom Abate (Stanford NEWS) NOVEMBER 29, 2016 [..]

Stanford Engineers Developed a Miniature WiFi device: Missing Link for the Internet of Things Until now, there’s been no way to control all sorts of devices, wirelessly, via the internet because there’s been no two-way radio smart and small enough to make this possible. A new technology called HitchHike could [..]

New Kendall Wi-Fi supports Kendall Square and nearby residential areas Free high-speed outdoor internet service implemented by MIT and partners. MIT News Office November 28, 2016     Through a unique collaboration among MIT, Google, Boston Properties, the City of Cambridge, and the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA), an open and [..]

Novel technique for studying the crystal structure Exotic materials called photonic crystals reveal their internal characteristics with new method. By: David L. Chandler | MIT News Office November 26, 2016 A new technique developed by MIT researchers reveals the inner details of photonic crystals, synthetic materials whose exotic optical properties [..]

Send Messages Using Household Chemicals: Stanford Research Researchers have built a machine that sends messages using common chemicals. Among many potential applications, this system could relay secret messages or allow tiny devices to communicate inside the human body. By Taylor Kubota; Stanford News Nearing the completion of his master’s degree [..]

Smart Microscope Adapts to Changes in Live Specimens Janelia scientists have developed the first adaptive light-sheet microscope — an instrument that continuously analyzes and adapts to dynamic changes in a specimen and thereby improves spatial resolution. By : Philipp J. Keller Janelia Research Campus, HHMI News Recent advances in imaging technology have [..]

Immune Cells Implicated in Dementia-Related to High Blood Pressure 24 November 2016 WCMC News High blood pressure transforms cells of the immune system that reside around cerebral blood vessels and normally protect the brain into agents of cognitive decline, according to new research from Weill Cornell Medicine scientists.  A cellular-level understanding [..]

30-Year-Old Superconductor Mystery: New Clues Emerge By: Whitney Clavin; Caltech News One of the greatest mysteries of experimental physics is how so-called high-temperature superconducting materials work. Despite their name, high-temperature superconductors—materials that carry electrical current with no resistance—operate at chilly temperatures less than minus 135 degrees Celsius. They can be used [..]

New Direction Toward X-ray Movies Low-power tabletop source of ultrashort electron beams could replace car-size laboratory devices. Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office November 22, 2016   Ultrashort bursts of electrons have several important applications in scientific imaging, but producing them has typically required a costly, power-hungry apparatus about the [..]

Biomarkers: A New Direction In Cancer Thrapy Can Avoide Resistance Biologists link levels of Mena protein to breast cancer cells’ sensitivity to chemotherapy. Anne Trafton | MIT News Office November 22, 2016     MIT biologists have identified a new biomarker that can reveal whether patients with a particularly aggressive [..]

Turning Back the Aging Clock By: Lori Dajose, Caltech News Researchers from Caltech and UCLA have developed a new approach to removing cellular damage that accumulates with age. The technique can potentially help to slow or reverse an important cause of aging. Led by Nikolay Kandul, senior postdoctoral scholar in biology [..]

History of Cells Told Through MEMOIR By Whitney Clavin, Caltech News Researchers have developed a new method for reading the history and “family trees” of cells. Called MEMOIR, or Memory by Engineered Mutagenesis with Optical In situ Readout, the technique can record the life history of animal cells—their relationships with other [..]

Relatively simple quantum computers could be much more powerful than previously realized Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office November 21, 2016     Quantum computers promise huge speedups on some computational problems because they harness a strange physical property called entanglement, in which the physical state of one tiny particle [..]

New way developed by MIT researchers to create more clean water with less energy By: School of Engineering MIT News November 21, 2016   With water scarcity affecting nearly 2 billion people — many of whom live near the oceans — “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” [..]

MIT Researchers Developed New Drug Capsule for long-term drug delivery Technology could aid in elimination of malaria and treatment of many other diseases. By: Anne Trafton | MIT News Office November 17, 2016     Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a new drug capsule that [..]

Gasoline Production From Greenhouse Gas New catalyst provides design principles for producing fuels from carbon dioxide emissions. BY: David L. Chandler | MIT News Office November 17, 2016     A new catalyst material developed by chemists at MIT provides key insight into the design requirements for producing liquid fuels [..]