Supersize me

Political scientist Kathleen Thelen’s new book explains how America’s large retailers got very, very large.

Peter Dizikes | MIT News • mit
April 8, 2025 ~8 min

Study: Burning heavy fuel oil with scrubbers is the best available option for bulk maritime shipping

Researchers analyzed the full lifecycle of several fuel options and found this approach has a comparable environmental impact, overall, to burning low-sulfur fuels.

Adam Zewe | MIT News • mit
April 8, 2025 ~9 min


The human body, its movement, and music

Connected by MIT’s Human Insight Collaborative, Lecturer Mi-Eun Kim and Research Scientist Praneeth Namburi want to develop an understanding of musical expression and skill development.

Benjamin Daniel | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences • mit
April 7, 2025 ~7 min

A new way to bring personal items to mixed reality

“InteRecon” enables users to capture items in a mobile app and reconstruct their interactive features in mixed reality. The tool could assist in education, medical environments, museums, and more.

Alex Shipps | MIT CSAIL • mit
April 7, 2025 ~8 min

Molecules that fight infection also act on the brain, inducing anxiety or sociability

New research on a cytokine called IL-17 adds to growing evidence that immune molecules can influence behavior during illness.

Anne Trafton | MIT News • mit
April 7, 2025 ~9 min

New method assesses and improves the reliability of radiologists’ diagnostic reports

The framework helps clinicians choose phrases that more accurately reflect the likelihood that certain conditions are present in X-rays.

Adam Zewe | MIT News • mit
April 4, 2025 ~8 min

Surprise discovery could lead to improved catalysts for industrial reactions

Upending a long-held supposition, MIT researchers find a common catalyst works by cycling between two different forms.

David L. Chandler | MIT News • mit
April 3, 2025 ~7 min

Engineers develop a way to mass manufacture nanoparticles that deliver cancer drugs directly to tumors

Scaling up nanoparticle production could help scientists test new cancer treatments.

Anne Trafton | MIT News • mit
April 3, 2025 ~7 min


A flexible robot can help emergency responders search through rubble

SPROUT, developed by Lincoln Laboratory and University of Notre Dame researchers, is a vine robot capable of navigating under collapsed structures.

Haley Wahl | MIT Lincoln Laboratory • mit
April 2, 2025 ~7 min

Researchers teach LLMs to solve complex planning challenges

This new framework leverages a model’s reasoning abilities to create a “smart assistant” that finds the optimal solution to multistep problems.

Adam Zewe | MIT News • mit
April 2, 2025 ~7 min

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