Subterms
Plants rely on the energy in sunlight to produce the nutrients they need. But sometimes they absorb more energy than they can use, and that excess can damage critical proteins. To protect themselves, they convert the excess energy into heat and send it back out. Under some conditions, they may reject as much as 70 […] More
Global climate change is a serious concern for the future of our entire planet. However, the regional impacts of climate change are often overlooked. Catherine Nikiel, a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is studying the impact of climate change on different aspects of the hydrological cycle as part of her […] More
When it comes to impacting global change, agriculture cuts both ways. Subject to the vicissitudes of global climate change, population, and economic growth, the cultivation of crops and livestock alters atmospheric concentrations of planet-warming greenhouse gases and ]contributes to pollution of freshwater and coastal areas. Assessing the risks to and from the agriculture sector — […] More
MIT Media Lab researchers have developed a wireless system that leverages the cheap RFID tags already on hundreds of billions of products to sense potential food contamination — with no hardware modifications needed. With the simple, scalable system, the researchers hope to bring food-safety detection to the general public. Food safety incidents have made headlines […] More
Infinite Cooling, a company that has developed a technology to capture and reuse water evaporating from cooling towers at power plans, was one of two local startups to be named a $100K Diamond Winner at the MassChallenge Awards which took place Oct. 17 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Co-founders Kripa Varanasi, associate professor […] More
The MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design has funded upwards of 100 projects since its inception, and finds itself at a crucial juncture of identifying market opportunities for some of its advanced-stage projects that require further support in order to be turned into profitable social enterprises. The Tata Center was first established at MIT six years ago by […] More
“In order to do the kind and scale of work that we do, international collaboration is essential. However, this can be difficult to fund,” Chris Voigt said. “J-WAFS is providing the support that we need for the cross-institutional and cross-sector collaboration that is enabling our work to move forward.” Voigt, a professor in the MIT Department of Biological […] More
Seafaring vessels and offshore platforms endure a constant battery of waves and currents. Over decades of operation, these structures can, without warning, meet head-on with a rogue wave, freak storm, or some other extreme event, with potentially damaging consequences. Now engineers at MIT have developed an algorithm that quickly pinpoints the types of extreme events […] More
