Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In a crash, should self-driving cars save passengers or pedestrians? 2 million people weigh in

By Jamie Leventhal

Researchers are using an online computer program to gauge how humans respond to tough ethical decisions involving AI technology for driverless vehicles. The results could inform car manufacturers and policy makers on how driverless vehicles should behave in life-or-death scenarios.

False news travels 6 times faster on Twitter than truthful news

By Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American

False news -- inaccurate information presented as truth or opinion presented as fact -- is 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than information that faithfully reports actual events, according to a new study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

These tiny satellites, equipped with ion thrusters, could change how we explore space

By Nsikan Akpan

An engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wants to explore the cosmos with CubeSats and ion engines inspired by static electricity.

LIGO gravitational wave discoverers win 2017 Nobel Prize in physics

By Nsikan Akpan

Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne have won the 2017 Nobel Prize for physics for leading the projects that discovered gravitational waves and proved an century-old Einstein theory.

Should taxpayers cover the light bills at university labs? Trump kicks off a tense debate

By Meghana Keshavan, STAT

Taxpayers spend billions subsidizing the electric bills, equipment, and other overhead costs at university research labs. That funding may face steep cuts.

Broad Institute wins heated dispute over CRISPR patents

By Sharon Begley, STAT

The U.S. patent office ruled on Wednesday that hotly disputed patents on the revolutionary genome-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 belong to the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, dealing a blow to the University of California.

Freeze-dried drug factories could make various medicines, just add water

By Eric Boodman, STAT

This device is called the Freezemobile, and it isn’t your standard household appliance.

Swine flu outbreak sweeping India worse than health officials admit, study suggests

By Laura Santhanam

A new study suggests that a strain of swine flu currently sweeping India has mutated from one that spread worldwide in 2009, making the current strain far more dangerous than Indian health officials indicated.

Better Storage Options Sought as Wind, Sun Power Catch on

Tom Bearden reports on new innovations that would allow for better storage of electricity generated by the wind and sun.

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Astronomers Discover Solar System That Might Mimic Our Own

By PBS News Hour

A global team of professional and amateur astronomers has found a solar system thousands of light years away that looks like a scaled-down version of our own.