MIT
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There’s a new contender in the quest for the next superbattery
In the race to install grid-level energy storage, lithium ion leads the charge. Can any technology catch up?
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Dress shirt uses spacesuit technology to keep you dry on your bike commute
You know how you don’t bike to work because you get hot and sweaty and gross? A group of MIT graduates has stolen that excuse. They copied technology from spacesuits and used it to make what BikeBlogNYC has rightly dubbed “the TANG of dress shirts” — a sharp-looking top that regulates your body heat. No […]
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MIT students invent bike helmet vending machine
Bikeshares are a really smart idea, so participants obviously know how to use their brains — but they apparently don’t know how to protect them. Helmet use on bikeshare bikes is pretty abysmal — data from Boston’s bikeshare program show that only 30 percent of users wear a helmet. So a group of adorable MIT […]
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Critical List: Sierra Club took natural gas money; solar panels made from grass clippings
The Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, revealed that from 2007 to 2010 the environmental group took more than $26 million of donations from people and companies connected to the natural gas industry. The Obama administration is moving forward with offshore wind development. Warming oceans are encouraging the growth of coral … for now.
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Energy-producing toilets kill two birds with one … well, you know
Leave it to MIT geeks to figure out how to solve one problem (the need for a sustainable energy source) by solving another (insufficient sanitation). Sanergy, a company founded by a group of MIT grads and newly funded by USAID, provides low-cost toilets to sanitation-challenged communities in Kenya, then harvests the waste to convert into […]
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Can you build a house for less than a Macbook?
MIT challenges architects to design a house that costs $1,000. Here’s how one student came tantalizingly close.
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Critical List: MIT recreates photosynthesis; City of Austin goes 100 percent renewable
MIT created an "artificial leaf" that recreates photosynthesis.
In Germany, they've got so much wind-generated electricity, they’re giving it away.
Driving 75 mph isn't fuel efficient, ahem, Maine.
Austin's going to be the largest local government using only renewable energy to power its municipal buildings. -
Help MIT evaluate people's attitudes about cities
MIT's Media Lab has developed a website called Place Pulse that evaluates your perception of cities and neighborhoods. You choose which of two images from Google Street View looks more unique, or more upper-class, or safer, and Place Pulse collates everyone's votes in a way that will hopefully be useful for urban planning. And for […]
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New photovoltaic generator runs on heat instead of sunlight
Photovoltaic cells, the basic unit of solar power systems, turn light into electricity. But fueling photovoltaics with sunlight isn't always practical. MIT scientists came up with a way around this issue: they found a really efficient way to turn heat into light.