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Covid-19 Diagnostic Based on MIT Technology Might be tested on Patient Samples Soon
As more Covid-19 cases appear in the United States and around the world, the need for fast, easy-to-use diagnostic tests is becoming ever more pressing. A startup company spun out from MIT is now working on a paper-based test that can deliver results in under half an hour, based on technology developed at MIT’s Institute…
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Low-cost “smart” diaper embedded with a moisture sensor can notify caregiver when it’s wet
MIT researchers have developed a “smart” diaper embedded with a moisture sensor that can alert a caregiver when a diaper is wet. When the sensor detects dampness in the diaper, it sends a signal to a nearby receiver, which in turn can send a notification to a smartphone or computer. Pankhuri Sen, a research assistant…
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MIT and UCSD researchers program E. coli to destroy tumor cells
Researchers at MIT and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have recruited some new soldiers in the fight against cancer — bacteria. In a study appearing in the July 20 of Nature, the scientists programmed harmless strains of bacteria to deliver toxic payloads. When deployed together with a traditional cancer drug, the bacteria…
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New chip design Swarm makes parallel programs run many times faster and requires one-tenth the code
Computer chips have stopped getting faster. For the past 10 years, chips’ performance improvements have come from the addition of processing units known as cores.In theory, a program on a 64-core machine would be 64 times as fast as it would be on a single-core machine. But it rarely works out that way. Most computer…
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Scientists make first direct detection of gravitational waves
Almost 100 years ago today, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space-time that are set off by extremely violent, cosmic cataclysms in the early universe. With his knowledge of the universe and the technology available in 1916, Einstein assumed that such ripples would be “vanishingly small” and…
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FitBark – a tiny wireless device monitors dog’s health and activity every day
Have you ever wondered what your dog does all day? Could she be feeling sluggish and ill? Did the dog walker really take him out? Davide Rossi MBA ’10 has launched a company to answer such questions not only for himself but for a wide range of people interested in the health and welfare of…
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Startup Ginger.io analyzes smartphone data to remotely predict when patients with mental illnesses are symptomatic
Behavioral health analytics startup Ginger.io sees smartphones as “automated diaries” containing valuable insight into the mental well-being of people with mental illnesses. Smartphones produce significant behavioral data — such as location, calling and texting records, and app usage — that map out a user’s daily patterns. Finding significant deviations in these patterns may signal that…
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MIT neuroscientists can control muscle movement by applying optogenetics
For the first time, MIT neuroscientists have shown they can control muscle movement by applying optogenetics — a technique that allows scientists to control neurons’ electrical impulses with light — to the spinal cords of animals that are awake and alert. Led by MIT Institute Professor Emilio Bizzi, the researchers studied mice in which a…
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New Web technology from MIT would let you track how your private data is used online
By now, most people feel comfortable conducting financial transactions on the Web. The cryptographic schemes that protect online banking and credit card purchases have proven their reliability over decades. As more of our data moves online, a more pressing concern may be its inadvertent misuse by people authorized to access it. Every month seems to…
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MIT researchers develop algorithm that can accurately measure the heart rates of people depicted in ordinary digital video
Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a new algorithm that can accurately measure the heart rates of people depicted in ordinary digital video by analyzing imperceptibly small head movements that accompany the rush of blood caused by the heart’s contractions.