Want to design the car of the future? Here are 8,000 designs to get you started.

Car design is an iterative and proprietary process. Carmakers can spend several years on the design phase for a car, tweaking 3D forms in simulations before building out the most promising designs for physical testing. The details and specs of these tests, including the aerodynamics of a given car design, are typically not made public. … Leer más

A new way to create realistic 3D shapes using generative AI

Creating realistic 3D models for applications like virtual reality, filmmaking, and engineering design can be a cumbersome process requiring lots of manual trial and error. While generative artificial intelligence models for images can streamline artistic processes by enabling creators to produce lifelike 2D images from text prompts, these models are not designed to generate 3D … Leer más

A new catalyst can turn methane into something useful

Although it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, methane gas contributes disproportionately to global warming because it traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, due to its molecular structure. MIT chemical engineers have now designed a new catalyst that can convert methane into useful polymers, which could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “What … Leer más

From refugee to MIT graduate student

Mlen-Too Wesley has faded memories of his early childhood in Liberia, but the sharpest one has shaped his life. Wesley was 4 years old when he and his family boarded a military airplane to flee the West African nation. At the time, the country was embroiled in a 14-year civil war that killed approximately 200,000 people, displaced about … Leer más

3 Questions: Community policing in the Global South

The concept of community policing gained wide acclaim in the U.S. when crime dropped drastically during the 1990s. In Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere, police departments established programs to build more local relationships, to better enhance community security. But how well does community policing work in other places? A new multicountry experiment co-led by MIT political … Leer más

A new way to create realistic 3D shapes using generative AI

Creating realistic 3D models for applications like virtual reality, filmmaking, and engineering design can be a cumbersome process requiring lots of manual trial and error. While generative artificial intelligence models for images can streamline artistic processes by enabling creators to produce lifelike 2D images from text prompts, these models are not designed to generate 3D … Leer más

Q&A: Transforming research through global collaborations

The MIT Global Seed Funds (GSF) program fosters global research collaborations with MIT faculty and their peers abroad — creating partnerships that tackle complex global issues, from climate change to health-care challenges and beyond. Administered by the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS), the GSF program has awarded more than $26 million to over 1,200 faculty … Leer más

An inflatable gastric balloon could help people lose weight

Gastric balloons — silicone balloons filled with air or saline and placed in the stomach — can help people lose weight by making them feel too full to overeat. However, this effect eventually can wear off as the stomach becomes used to the sensation of fullness. To overcome that limitation, MIT engineers have designed a … Leer más

How mass migration remade postwar Europe

Migrants have become a flashpoint in global politics. But new research by an MIT political scientist, focused on West Germany and Poland after World War II, shows that in the long term, those countries developed stronger states, more prosperous economies, and more entrepreneurship after receiving a large influx of immigrants. Those findings come from a … Leer más

Q&A: Transforming research through global collaborations

The MIT Global Seed Funds (GSF) program fosters global research collaborations with MIT faculty and their peers abroad — creating partnerships that tackle complex global issues, from climate change to health-care challenges and beyond. Administered by the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS), the GSF program has awarded more than $26 million to over 1,200 faculty … Leer más