MIT

A team of engineers at MIT has discovered why steel razor blades go dull even when cutting hair that's 50 times softer than them. Using an electron microscopic, they found that under the right conditions a single hair can chip a blade edge.

One small, particularly puzzling group of meteorites appears to have been both solid rock and liquid metal. Now scientists have determined that the parent body had a rocky shell and a liquid metal core, which likely generated a strong magnetic field.

Driven by the huge burden they place on the environment, scientists are continually looking for new ways to manufacture plastic materials that make them easier to recycle, and MIT researchers are now claiming a significant breakthrough in this area.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world in many ways. Now, scientists have quantified an effect that lies a few links down the chain, finding that solar panels in certain cities have seen a boost in output, due to reduced air pollution.

A new type of nanoparticle developed at MIT deposits volatile molecules onto proteins linked to various diseases, to act as synthetic biomarker and reveal signs of pneumonia and other lung conditions in exhaled breath.

Despite the name, black holes often shine very bright in the sky, due to their hot glowing corona. Now, astronomers have been puzzled to watch a black hole’s corona suddenly vanish – and if that wasn’t weird enough, it reappeared a few months later.

Back in 2011, we first heard about an MIT-developed system that essentially allowed robots to "see" through their fingertips. Now, the technology is being used to let them finely manipulate electrical cables.

Radiation is famously damaging to materials, but now engineers at MIT have been surprised to discover that radiation may actually help certain alloys to self-heal, extending their useful lifetime. This could help inform future power plant designs.

Classical physics describes how large objects and systems work on an everyday scale, while quantum physics describes the “spooky” subatomic world. Now scientists have observed a rare crossover where a quantum fluctuation affected a macroscale object.

Researchers have developed a new electrode component for vanadium redox flow batteries that is said to outperform current solutions, thanks to the inclusion of an ingredient found in shrimp shells called chitin.

Ripping Band-Aids off your skin is never fun – but imagine having one on your heart or lung. Researchers have now created surgical tape that can stick to wet surfaces like organs, and more importantly, be removed safely when it’s no longer needed.

Everyone knows that walking on soft sand is more difficult than walking on a hard sidewalk. By the same token, MIT scientists are now suggesting that if road surfaces were to be made stiffer, large trucks would use less fuel.