Microbial sequence databases contain a wealth of information about enzymes and other molecules that could be adapted for biotechnology. But these databases have grown so large in recent years that they’ve become difficult to search efficiently for enzymes of interest.…
To make our way through the world, our brain must develop an intuitive understanding of the physical world around us, which we then use to interpret sensory information coming into the brain.
How does the brain develop that intuitive understanding? …
Anyone who has ever tried to pack a family-sized amount of luggage into a sedan-sized trunk knows this is a hard problem. Robots struggle with dense packing tasks, too.
For the robot, solving the packing problem involves satisfying many constraints, …
Generative AI, which is currently riding a crest of popular discourse, promises a world where the simple transforms into the complex — where a simple distribution evolves into intricate patterns of images, sounds, or text, rendering the artificial startlingly real. …
In July, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Provost Cynthia Barnhart issued a call for papers to “articulate effective roadmaps, policy recommendations, and calls for action across the broad domain of generative AI.”
Over the next month, they received an influx …
As the impacts of climate change continue to grow, so does interest in fusion’s potential as a clean energy source. While fusion reactions have been studied in laboratories since the 1930s, there are still many critical questions scientists must answer …
The MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing has awarded seed grants to seven projects that are exploring how artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction can be leveraged to enhance modern work spaces to achieve better management and higher productivity.
Funded …
Artificial neural networks, ubiquitous machine-learning models that can be trained to complete many tasks, are so called because their architecture is inspired by the way biological neurons process information in the human brain.
About six years ago, scientists discovered a …
From cameras to self-driving cars, many of today’s technologies depend on artificial intelligence to extract meaning from visual information. Today’s AI technology has artificial neural networks at its core, and most of the time we can trust these AI computer …
Computers possess two remarkable capabilities with respect to images: They can both identify them and generate them anew. Historically, these functions have stood separate, akin to the disparate acts of a chef who is good at creating dishes (generation), and …
How will advances in computing transform human society?
MIT students contemplated this impending question as part of the Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize — an essay contest in which they were challenged to imagine ways that computing technologies could …
Three Spanish MIT postdocs, Luis Antonio Benítez, Carolina Cuesta-Lazaro, and Fernando Romero López, were chosen by the Department of Physics as the first cohort of Mauricio and Carlota Botton Foundation Fellows.
This year’s recipients are provided with a one-year stipend …
There has been a remarkable surge in the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence to address a wide range of problems and challenges. While their adoption, particularly with the rise of AI, is reshaping nearly every industry sector, discipline, and …
Huge libraries of drug compounds may hold potential treatments for a variety of diseases, such as cancer or heart disease. Ideally, scientists would like to experimentally test each of these compounds against all possible targets, but doing that kind of …
Despite their enormous size and power, today's artificial intelligence systems routinely fail to distinguish between hallucination and reality. Autonomous driving systems can fail to perceive pedestrians and emergency vehicles right in front of them, with fatal consequences. Conversational AI systems …
A three-year recipient of MIT’s Emerson Classical Vocal Scholarships, senior Ananya Gurumurthy recalls getting ready to step onto the Carnegie Hall stage to sing a Mozart opera that she once sang with the New York All-State Choir. The choir conductor …
According to MIT’s charter, established in 1861, part of the Institute’s mission is to advance the “development and practical application of science in connection with arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.” Today, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab …
Imagine sitting on a park bench, watching someone stroll by. While the scene may constantly change as the person walks, the human brain can transform that dynamic visual information into a more stable representation over time. This ability, known as …
Brian Nord first fell in love with physics when he was a teenager growing up in Wisconsin. His high school physics program wasn’t exceptional, and he sometimes struggled to keep up with class material, but those difficulties did nothing to …
Researchers at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have harnessed a natural bacterial system to develop a new protein delivery approach that works in human cells and animals. The technology, …