When a friend buys you a cup of coffee, it’s likely that next time, you’ll return the gesture. This type of reciprocal generosity has been well-documented in behavioral economic studies. However, anthropologists and other social scientists have known for decades that in the context of relationships where one person has more power, status, or influence, […]
The brain’s capacity to use and understand language expands rapidly in the first years of life, as babies start to make sense of the words they hear and eventually begin to piece together sentences of their own. The language-processing parts of the brain that make this possible continue to evolve in older children, as they […]
When doctors and scientists want to see inside a body, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful tool. MRI can noninvasively capture detailed images of the body’s muscles, organs, and bones. It can monitor blood flow to generate a map of brain activity. And with new sensors developed by bioengineers at MIT, MRI can track […]
Using a new technique that can create vacancies at any site across a material and then shrink it to about 1/2,000 of its original volume, MIT researchers have designed nanotechnology devices that could be used for optical computing and other applications involving the manipulation of visible light. The new fabrication technique, known as “implosion carving,” allows researchers to imprint features […]
MIT scientists Sven Dorkenwald and Whitney Henry have been named 2026 Searle Scholars, an award given annually to 15 exceptional early-career researchers in the fields of biomedical sciences and chemistry. Chosen by a scientific advisory board, Searle Scholars are considered among the most creative young researchers pursuing high-risk/high-reward research. The Searle Scholars Program is funded through the […]
Michale Fee, the Glen V. and Phyllis F. Dorflinger Professor of Neuroscience and head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Fan Wang, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, have been elected to join the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Fee and Wang, who are also investigators at the McGovern Institute for […]
