Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
Metals can be transformed into alloys by adding different elements, allowing their strength, stability and other properties to be tailored. A key parameter for understanding these properties is the volume size factor (VSF), which quantifies lattice distortion caused by differences in atomic size.
"People who are determined, passionate and believe in their ability to improve appear more likely to flourish and experience meaningful, engaging lives," says Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at NTNU's Department of Psychology.
Scientists have taken a step toward a better understanding of how fungi sense and respond to nutrients in the environment, which is critical for engineering fungi for green technologies and combating fungal pathogens and their resistance to treatments.
An international team of glaciologists and climate scientists, including professor Bethan Davies from Newcastle University, carried out a rapid scientific analysis and identified the role of climate change and its impacts on the high-altitude landscape.
Understanding how wind changes in response to global warming is necessary for accurately modeling climate and weather, identifying risks to infrastructure, and assessing global wind power capacity.
Nanodiamonds are tiny diamond particles that usually measure mere millionths of a millimeter. They are extremely hard, stable and heat-resistant and highly adaptable for various purposes in medicine, new materials, catalysis and energy technology. By compressing plastic with lasers, researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Rostock are now able to systematically produce high-purity, ultra-small diamonds with a narrow size distribution. This is impossible to achieve with conventional methods such as explosions. As a scalable technology, laser compression offers great potential for improved, clean and sustainable production of ultra-small nanodiamonds...
President Donald Trump's administration will no longer treat the unintentional killing of protected wildlife as unlawful, officials confirmed Thursday, in a shift conservationists say effectively guts the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Beauty and mystery—it is hard to imagine a more alluring combination, and this is precisely what we encounter when we observe phenomena in the nanoworld. But are we really sure that observations made using modern microscopic techniques do not influence what is happening there? A comparison of images of copper oxide nanoparticles reacting with chloroauric acid, obtained using electron and photon beams, has yielded unexpected results.
Researchers at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) have developed microfluidic technology that can grow cells in three dimensions (3D). The goal is to conduct toxicity tests on new products by more accurately simulating living organisms.
Structural variants and so-called tandem repeats are individual differences in the human genome. They are increasingly linked to diseases, but analyzing and interpreting them poses challenges for researchers.
Old-growth forests are some of Europe's most valuable natural ecosystems, but they are also among the most threatened. Their role in conserving biodiversity, regulating the climate, preserving cultural heritage and supporting people's well-being is invaluable. According to a rough estimate, only around 3% of Europe's forests meet the criteria for primary or old-growth forests, and their extent continues to decline rapidly in Northern Europe.
Dilute alloy catalysts could improve fuel, plastic and pharmaceutical production, but their instability under heat holds back widespread use. Researchers at University of Michigan Engineering built a stability rulebook for this class of materials, which are made of a tiny amount of an active dopant metal dispersed in an inert host metal. A study outlining the rulebook was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
A team of researchers led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) developed an approach that enabled them to directly observe how electrons interact with defects in advanced semiconductor devices in unprecedented detail. The team's methodology included an innovative simulation tool that enabled accurate theoretical interpretations of its experimental observations.
How deep is the deepest ocean—and how precisely can we actually measure it? A Japanese research team led by the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), SOKENDAI, the University of Tokyo and other Japanese institutions has mapped the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench using the EM124 multibeam echosounder aboard the research vessel Hakuho-maru. Their study is published in the journal Scientific Data.
In 2026, five faculty were granted tenure in the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.Volha Charnysh is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. She studies the role of identity in state-building and economic development and the effects of violence. Her first book, “Uprooted: How post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe” (Cambridge University Press, 2024), focuses on the enduring consequences of mass displacement and resulting cultural heterogeneity. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2017 and joined the MIT faculty in 2018.Grisha Coleman is a full professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section. Her research explores tensions between our...
Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok and come across an image of a lotus seed pod or sponge.
Cornell physicists have discovered that minimizing disorder, not varying electron count, is the key factor for controlling superconductivity in the unique material iron selenide (FeSe), a new insight for understanding high-temperature superconductors.
Physicists at The City College of New York have demonstrated a new way to transfer microwave signals onto light using magnetic waves inside a layered semiconductor. The work establishes a materials platform for building interfaces that could one day link quantum computers through optical networks. The research, titled "Microwave-to-optical transduction using magnon–exciton coupling," was led by the Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics (LaNMP) at CCNY, headed by physics professor Vinod M. Menon. It appears in the journal Nature Materials.
A space satellite that would offer light on demand has astronomers asking: Who controls the night sky?
While the scapula is the primary bone supporting the body in terrestrial quadrupedal mammals, an analysis of internal bone structure in underground moles (family Talpidae) showed a more important role for the clavicle.
Rivers across the globe in 2025 had one of the driest years in more than three decades, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It shows a continuation of the long-term decline in Earth's freshwater storage and glacier retreat—trends with serious implications for people and economies in the future.
Each year, faculty and researchers across the MIT School of Engineering are recognized with prestigious awards for their contributions to research, technology, society, and education. To celebrate these achievements, the school periodically highlights select honors received by members of its departments, institutes, labs, and centers. The following individuals were recognized in spring 2026:Faez Ahmed, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received a 2025 Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award. The award provides early-career U.S. scientists and engineers with up to $450,000 over three years to sup...
Work & Economy Record 38% of new vehicle sales to be EVs in 2030, study finds Report sees strong growth despite recent loss of federal incentives Alvin Powell Harvard Staff Writer September 17, 2026 5 min read Elaine Buckberg is a senior fellow at the Salata Institute and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the estimated percentage of 2030 new car sales that would be made up of EVs from 32 percent to 38 percent. A new analysis of U.S. electric vehicle sales projects that a record share of new vehicles sold in 2030 will be electric, despite recent steps by the federal government to re...
Understanding gene regulation may be key to interpreting human disease genetics. Genes are regulated in part by stretches of DNA called enhancers, which define when, where and how strongly each gene is turned on. Mapping enhancers and how they function in specific cell types is necessary for understanding gene regulation and disease-related genetic variants. But the location and activity of enhancers are highly cell type-specific, making it difficult to accurately predict enhancer–gene interactions.