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Spotlight: May 24, 2025

Physicists have discovered a material that exhibits both superconductivity and magnetism — a combination previously thought impossible. They observed this exotic behavior in a surprisingly ordinary material: graphite, the primary component in pencil lead.

Research and Education that Matter

Researchers kept vegetables fresh by injecting them with melatonin using biodegradable microneedles. “This is the first time that we’ve been able to apply these microneedles to extend the shelf life of a fresh-cut crop,” Benedetto Marelli says.

MIT alumni-founded Allium Engineering is tripling the lifetime of bridges and other structures with a technology that makes rebar more impervious to rust. The system slots into existing steelmaking processes to make infrastructure more resilient and affordable.

In a world without MIT, radar wouldn’t have been available to help win World War II. We might not have email, CT scans, time-release drugs, photolithography, or GPS. And we’d lose over 30,000 companies, employing millions of people. Can you imagine?

Using a strategy that combines information from many large datasets, researchers have identified several new potential drug targets for Alzheimer’s. The study revealed genes and cellular pathways that haven’t been linked to Alzheimer’s before.

Engineers have developed a nanofiltration method that yields a sixfold increase in the efficiency of carbon dioxide capture and release. This approach could also reduce costs by at least 20%, addressing a key bottleneck in carbon capture technology.

​Since its founding, MIT has been key to helping American science and innovation lead the world. Discoveries that begin here generate jobs and power the economy — and what we create today builds a better tomorrow for all of us.

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