Shrinking to the Nanoscale

Discover how a team of MIT researchers have taken cues from “Honey I shrunk the Kids” and made it real. Shrinking to Nano 3D printing in the nanoscale has been a challenge for researchers around the world. While we have a desire to fabricate parts smaller and smaller, our abilities …

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Fresh Astronaut Food: Growing food on the ISS, the Moon, and Mars

EDEN:ISS is working on growing edible fresh astronaut food in antarctica.

Astronaut food poses a major problem for future space exploration. We can only send so much freeze-dried food aboard shuttle missions, and the International Space Station (ISS) is in constant need of being restocked with rations lest the astronauts aboard would starve. How can we go on future long-term missions to the …

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Saving the Great Barrier Reef

Two scuba divers check the health of the Great Barrier Reef

A sunshade to save the Great Barrier Reef. This week the University of Melbourne released a new method to potentially save the Great Barrier reef, and it is basically a giant sunshade. What is the sunshade made of? The proposed sunshade to protect the Great Barrier reef from incident sunlight …

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Recycling CO2 to make Ethanol

Synthetic Photosynthesis would recycle carbon dioxide while creating ethanol

Carbon dioxide is a pesky gas that is building up in our atmosphere from burning too many fossil fuels. About 10-25% of the greenhouse effect is due to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect. Life on Earth relies on a delicate balance of heat from …

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A deadly hug | Viruses and Hairy Nanoparticles

hairy nanoparticles can adhere to viruses from wikicommons

Viruses have long been a frustrating enemy of humankind.Unlike bacterial infections that we learned to treat with medicines like penicillin, there is no corollary to antibiotics. The closest thing we have to “antiviruses” would be vaccinations. Historically we have treated viral infections and outbreaks like influenza and polio with a series …

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Lego Bricks meet MIT microfluidics science

By National Institute of Standards and Technology (Lab-On-A-Chip; GEMBE) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Lego Bricks make it to MIT.Lego bricks are a ton of fun to build with at home, and now they are making themselves a place in top-notch research labs as well.  Legos in Labs? Can Legos be used to do cutting-edge research? It turns out they can in the world of …

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Cancer Crushing Algae: Camouflaged Drug Delivery

genetically-engineered-diatom-biosilica

While cancer is fairly easy to kill, keeping the person alive while we kill the cancer is exceedingly difficult. That is because cancer drugs are also toxic to healthy cells.The most difficult aspect of engineering cancer drugs is targeting cancer cells.That is to say, we are always looking for new …

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Optogenetics: When the Force finds Light Control

optogenetics mouse

Controlling the brain. The world where the Force can control your thoughts with a hand wave is coming soon to theaters near you. In the real world scientists are playing catch up and controlling the brain with light. Two leaders in the field just won the Breakthrough Prize. Karl Deisseroth …

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