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Engineering

For last-mile delivery, robots of the future may use a new MIT algorithm to beat a path to your front door.

Helping Delivery Robots Find Your Front Door

With a new navigation system from MIT, robots can decipher common landscape features, even in an unfamiliar environment

Mark Prausnitz holds an experimental microneedle contraceptive skin patch. Designed to be self-administered by women for long-acting contraception, the patch could provide a new family planning option.

Will Microneedle Patches Be the Future of Birth Control?

Researchers are developing a new long-acting, self-administered device that delivers hormones beneath the skin’s surface

NASA astronauts Christina Koch (left) and Jessica Meir (right).

Watch the First All-Female Spacewalk

Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will exit the International Space Station to replace a power controller that failed last weekend

This Smart Cane Helps Blind People Navigate

WeWalk alerts users to obstacles at their body and face level, and can pair with a phone to give GPS directions and take voice commands

Karly Bast with her scale model of Leonardo da Vinci's bridge design

Trending Today

Scientists Prove Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-Year-Old Bridge Design Actually Works

A model created at MIT shows the bridge, which would have been 10 times longer than typical ones, could have spanned the Golden Horn

The Zamboni totally transformed winter sports by giving chopped-up ice surfaces a fresh-frozen smoothness in a matter of minutes.

How the Zamboni Changed the Game for Ice Rinks

Invented by rink owner Frank Zamboni, the ice-clearing machine celebrates its 70th anniversary this year

SmartCan is essentially a pair of robotic wheels that are compatible with any municipal-issued trash receptacle.

This Robotic Trash Can Takes Itself to the Curb

The award-winning invention automates a ‘chore that everyone hates’

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab will be offshore of Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland for three years, in an effort to test its viability as a substrate for futuristic floating cities.

Designing Floating Buildings With an Eye to the Marine Species Living Underneath

A prototype deployed in San Francisco Bay imagines the underside of a floating building as an upside-down artificial reef

In this agricultural revolution, there are plenty of mind-blowing devices to awe and excite.

Five Roles Robots Will Play in the Future of Farming

From picking fruit to pulling weeds, robotics are bringing precision farming to life

The Redemption of Vanity, a work of art by MIT artist in residence Diemut Strebe in conjunction with with Brian L. Wardle, MIT professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, along with Luiz Acauan and Estelle Cohen.

There’s a New Blackest Black in Town

Artist Diemut Strebe covered a $2 million diamond with a substance that absorbs 99.995 percent of any incoming light

The process of coloring the test objects took between 15 and 40 minutes.

This New Dye Changes Color When Exposed to UV Light

Color-change shoes, jewelry, cars, furniture and more could be possible with this new MIT technology

NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor mixes cement samples for the MICS mission aboard the International Space Station.

New Research

Why Astronauts Are Mixing Cement Aboard the International Space Station

Experiments show that cement will set in space, but moon colonists may have to tweak the mixture to make it work in low gravity

New Research

‘Robotic Worm’ Could Be the Future of Stroke Care

The hydrogel-covered wire can be guided through the brain via magnets to bust up blood clots

In July 2016, a solar-powered airplane flying over the desert region of Andalusia in Spain photographed breathtaking images of the Gemasolar concentrated solar power plant.

How Engineers of New Energy Technology Are Taking Cues From Nature

From sunflower spirals to schooling fish, renewable energy innovators are uncovering ideas for improving efficiency and output in natural phenomena

A completed wafer of RV16X-NANO processors.

New Research

Milestone Carbon-Nanotube Microchip Sends First Message: ‘Hello World!’

The tiny tubes replace silicon transistors and may lead to much faster, energy efficient microchips

Rust film could be used to cover buoys to generate power for scientific equipment at sea, or on bridges to create electricity for nearby structures.

Could a Rusty Bridge Generate Electricity?

New research shows that water flowing over thin layers of rust can generate power

It’s very early days—so don’t ditch your glasses just yet.

These Lenses Zoom With a Couple Blinks of Your Eyes

Researchers have developed a soft polymer lens that changes shape based on electrical input

The team has applied for a patent for the material (shown here in a petri dish) and continues to test it at the micro- and nano-scale to better understand how it works.

How Scientists Are Using Eggshells to Grow New Bone

People with bones damaged by accidents, cancer or aging could one day benefit from bone grafts strengthened with chicken eggshells

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh discovered a new form of flight in dandelion seeds.

Five Scientific Findings That Could Lead to New Inventions

From cat tongues to dandelions seeds, engineers often look in peculiar places for inspiration

A Saturn V rocket being rolled out to the launch pad for Apollo 10.

Future of Space Exploration

Apollo Engineers Discuss What It Took to Land on the Moon

The people who bent metal and built spaceships recall the culture and leadership that made it possible to send humans to the lunar surface

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