Science Archives - Phonesnews.com

June 22, 2025

Island rivers carve passageways through coral reefs

Volcanic islands, such as the islands of Hawaii and the Caribbean, are surrounded by coral reefs that encircle an island in a labyrinthine, living ring. A coral reef is punctured at points by reef passes — wide channels that cut through the coral and serve as conduits for ocean water and nutrients to filter in and out. These watery passageways provide circulation throughout a reef, helping to maintain the health of corals by flushing out freshwater and transporting key nutrients.

Now, MIT scientists have found that reef passes are shaped by island rivers. In a study appearing today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the team shows that the locations of reef passes along coral reefs line up with where rivers funnel out from an island’s coast.

Their findings provide the first quantitative evidence of rivers forming reef passes. Scientists and explorers had speculated that this may be the case: Where a river on a volcanic island meets the coast,

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June 21, 2025

Researchers present bold ideas for AI at MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium kickoff event

Launched in February of this year, the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), a presidential initiative led by MIT’s Office of Innovation and Strategy and administered by the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, issued a call for proposals, inviting researchers from across MIT to submit ideas for innovative projects studying high-impact uses of generative AI models.

The call received 180 submissions from nearly 250 faculty members, spanning all of MIT’s five schools and the college. The overwhelming response across the Institute exemplifies the growing interest in AI and follows in the wake of MIT’s Generative AI Week and call for impact papers. Fifty-five proposals were selected for MGAIC’s inaugural seed grants, with several more selected to be funded by the consortium’s founding company members.

Over 30 funding recipients presented their proposals to the greater MIT community at a kickoff event on May 13.

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June 20, 2025

“Cold spray” 3D printing technique proves effective for on-site bridge repair

More than half of the nation’s 623,218 bridges are experiencing significant deterioration. Through an in-field case study conducted in western Massachusetts, a team led by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in collaboration with researchers from the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) has just successfully demonstrated that 3D printing may provide a cost-effective, minimally disruptive solution.

“Anytime you drive, you go under or over a corroded bridge,” says Simos Gerasimidis, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMass Amherst and former visiting professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, in a press release. “They are everywhere. It’s impossible to avoid, and their condition often shows significant deterioration. We know the numbers.”

The numbers, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, are staggering: Across the United States, 49.1 percent of the nation’s 623,218 bridges are in “fair” condition and 6.8 percent are in “poor” condition.

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June 19, 2025

Supercharged vaccine could offer strong protection with just one dose

Researchers at MIT and the Scripps Research Institute have shown that they can generate a strong immune response to HIV with just one vaccine dose, by adding two powerful adjuvants — materials that help stimulate the immune system.

In a study of mice, the researchers showed that this approach produced a much wider diversity of antibodies against an HIV antigen, compared to the vaccine given on its own or with just one of the adjuvants. The dual-adjuvant vaccine accumulated in the lymph nodes and remained there for up to a month, allowing the immune system to build up a much greater number of antibodies against the HIV protein.

This strategy could lead to the development of vaccines that only need to be given once, for infectious diseases including HIV or SARS-CoV-2, the researchers say.

“This approach is compatible with many protein-based vaccines, so it offers the opportunity to engineer new formulations for these types of vaccines across a wide range of different diseases,

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June 18, 2025

New 3D chips could make electronics faster and more energy-efficient

The advanced semiconductor material gallium nitride will likely be key for the next generation of high-speed communication systems and the power electronics needed for state-of-the-art data centers.

Unfortunately, the high cost of gallium nitride (GaN) and the specialization required to incorporate this semiconductor material into conventional electronics have limited its use in commercial applications.

Now, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new fabrication process that integrates high-performance GaN transistors onto standard silicon CMOS chips in a way that is low-cost and scalable, and compatible with existing semiconductor foundries.

Their method involves building many tiny transistors on the surface of a GaN chip, cutting out each individual transistor, and then bonding just the necessary number of transistors onto a silicon chip using a low-temperature process that preserves the functionality of both materials.

The cost remains minimal since only a tiny amount of GaN material is added to the chip,

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June 17, 2025

How the brain solves complicated problems

The human brain is very good at solving complicated problems. One reason for that is that humans can break problems apart into manageable subtasks that are easy to solve one at a time.

This allows us to complete a daily task like going out for coffee by breaking it into steps: getting out of our office building, navigating to the coffee shop, and once there, obtaining the coffee. This strategy helps us to handle obstacles easily. For example, if the elevator is broken, we can revise how we get out of the building without changing the other steps.

While there is a great deal of behavioral evidence demonstrating humans’ skill at these complicated tasks, it has been difficult to devise experimental scenarios that allow precise characterization of the computational strategies we use to solve problems.

In a new study, MIT researchers have successfully modeled how people deploy different decision-making strategies to solve a complicated task — in this case,

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June 16, 2025

Photonic processor could streamline 6G wireless signal processing

As more connected devices demand an increasing amount of bandwidth for tasks like teleworking and cloud computing, it will become extremely challenging to manage the finite amount of wireless spectrum available for all users to share.

Engineers are employing artificial intelligence to dynamically manage the available wireless spectrum, with an eye toward reducing latency and boosting performance. But most AI methods for classifying and processing wireless signals are power-hungry and can’t operate in real-time.

Now, MIT researchers have developed a novel AI hardware accelerator that is specifically designed for wireless signal processing. Their optical processor performs machine-learning computations at the speed of light, classifying wireless signals in a matter of nanoseconds.

The photonic chip is about 100 times faster than the best digital alternative, while converging to about 95 percent accuracy in signal classification. The new hardware accelerator is also scalable and flexible, so it could be used for a variety of high-performance computing applications.

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June 14, 2025

Decarbonizing steel is as tough as steel

The long-term aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change is to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and thereby reduce the frequency and severity of floods, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. Achieving that goal will require a massive reduction in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions across all economic sectors. A major roadblock, however, could be the industrial sector, which accounts for roughly 25 percent of global energy- and process-related CO2 emissions — particularly within the iron and steel sector, industry’s largest emitter of CO2.

Iron and steel production now relies heavily on fossil fuels (coal or natural gas) for heat, converting iron ore to iron, and making steel strong. Steelmaking could be decarbonized by a combination of several methods, including carbon capture technology, the use of low- or zero-carbon fuels, and increased use of recycled steel.

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June 13, 2025

First-of-its-kind device profiles newborns’ immune function

Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, along with colleagues from KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), have developed a first-of-its-kind device to profile the immune function of newborns. Using a single drop of blood, the BiophysicaL Immune Profiling for Infants (BLIPI) system provides real-time insights into newborns’ immune responses, enabling the early detection of severe inflammatory conditions and allowing for timely interventions. This critical innovation addresses the urgent and unmet need for rapid and minimally invasive diagnostic tools to protect vulnerable newborns, especially those born prematurely. Critical unmet need in newborn care Premature infants are particularly vulnerable to life-threatening conditions such as sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Newborn sepsis — a bloodstream infection occurring in the first weeks of life — is a major global health challenge, causing up to 1 million infant deaths worldwide annually. NEC, a serious intestinal disease that causes severe inflammation, » Read More

June 12, 2025

Bringing meaning into technology deployment

In 15 TED Talk-style presentations, MIT faculty recently discussed their pioneering research that incorporates social, ethical, and technical considerations and expertise, each supported by seed grants established by the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-cutting initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. The call for proposals last summer was met with nearly 70 applications. A committee with representatives from every MIT school and the college convened to select the winning projects that received up to $100,000 in funding.

“SERC is committed to driving progress at the intersection of computing, ethics, and society. The seed grants are designed to ignite bold, creative thinking around the complex challenges and possibilities in this space,” said Nikos Trichakis, co-associate dean of SERC and the J.C. Penney Professor of Management. “With the MIT Ethics of Computing Research Symposium, we felt it important to not just showcase the breadth and depth of the research that’s shaping the future of ethical computing,

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