MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
November 30, 2017
MIT News: top stories
A weekly digest of the Institute’s research and innovation

Physicists design $100 handheld muon detector

Pocket-sized device detects charged particles in surrounding air.

How badly do you want something? Babies can tell

Ten-month-old infants determine the value of a goal from how hard someone works to achieve it.

A faster way to make Bose-Einstein condensates

Method of laser cooling may speed up investigations into magnetism and superconductivity.

Turning emissions into fuel

MIT-developed method converts carbon dioxide into useful compounds.

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

New design may open new opportunities for 3-D-printing technology.

Muscle plays surprising role in tissue regeneration

Whitehead Institute researchers have pinpointed distinct muscle subsets that orchestrate and pattern regrowth.

In the Media

Merrit Kennedy reports for NPR that MIT researchers have developed robotic artificial muscles that can lift 1,000 times their own weight. Prof. Daniela Rus explains that the technology could eventually be used to bring "soft strong mobility to people who are otherwise unable to move."

Boston Globe reporter Alyssa Meyers writes that researchers from MIT and Harvard have demonstrated one of the largest quantum simulators that can trap individual atoms in laser beams. Prof. Vladan Vuletić explains that it is, “a major advance is to be able to align and arrange individual atoms so we can hold on to them and track them.”

Science reporter Philip Shapira highlights Prof. Neil Gershenfeld’s new book, co-written with his brothers, about digital fabrication. Shapira writes that the, “Gershenfelds engagingly alert us not only to the opportunities that digital fabrication presents but also to the societal and governance challenges that the widespread diffusion of this technology will generate.”

TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that MIT researchers have developed a new 3-D printer that can fabricate an item up to 10 times faster than its commercial counterparts. Heater explains that the technology, “would definitely be useful for companies already using desktop 3D printers for prototyping, reducing dramatically the speed to print.”