Civil and environmental engineering

MIT scientists have discovered a new method to maximize wind farm output, reports Gwen Egan for Boston.com. “While there are pros and cons to this strategy, it’s possible that it could allow for smaller wind farms that take up less land to produce more energy,” says Prof. Michael Howland. “It’s critically important we do this now, as we embark on building much more offshore wind. We need to ensure that our future wind farms maximize efficiency to increase the pace of decarbonization.”

MIT scientists have found that changing the angle of turbine blades on wind farms could increase energy output, reports David Abel for The Boston Globe. “Given the scale of wind deployment needed to achieve state and federal climate goals, we need optimal wind farm performance to ensure efficient, rapid decarbonization,” says Prof. Michael Howland. “Our method resulted in significant energy gains over standard industry operations, and, importantly, it can be instituted with minimal cost.”

STAT reporter Edward Chen spotlights how MIT researchers developed a new ultrasound adhesive that can stick to skin for up to 48 hours, allowing for continuous monitoring of internal organs. “It’s a very impressive new frontier about how we can use ultrasound imaging continuously to assess multiple organs, organ systems,” said Eric Topol, the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “48 hours of continuous imaging, you’d have to lock somebody up in a hospital, put transducers on them. This is amazing, from that respect.”

MIT researchers have developed an adhesive ultrasound patch that can continuously image the inner workings of the body for up to 48 hours, reports Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. ““We believe we’ve opened a new era of wearable imaging,” says Prof. Xuanhe Zhao. “With a few patches on your body, you could see your internal organs.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a silk-based substitute that could be used to replace microplastics, reports Matthew Rozsa for Salon. Prof. Benedetto Marelli and postodoctoral associate Muchun Liu explain that they have demonstrated that “silk protein can be used as a technological material in agricultural products and cosmetics – it can protect and control the release of active ingredients, and it can be biodegraded.”

MIT engineers have created a bioadhesive ultrasound device that can be adhered to a patient’s skin and record high-res videos of internal organs for up to two days, reports Sophie Bushwick for Scientific American. “The beauty of this is, suddenly, you can adhere this ultrasound probe, this thin ultrasound speaker, to the body over 48 hours,” says Zhao. “This can potentially change the paradigm of medical imaging by empowering long-term continuous imaging, and it can change the paradigm of the field of wearable devices.”

Researchers at MIT, led by Prof. Xuanhe Zhao, have created a wearable ultrasound medical device, reports Jeremy Hsu for New Scientist. “The ultrasound stickers may provide a more flexible imaging option for hospitals to monitor patients without requiring human technicians to hold ultrasound probes, and they could be useful in situations where technicians are in short supply,” writes Hsu.

Prof. Xuanhe Zhao and his research team have developed a stick-on ultrasound patch that can scan a person’s insides as they go about their daily life, reports Ian Sample for The Guardian. “The wearable patch, which is the size of a postage stamp, can image blood vessels, the digestive system and internal organs for up to 48 hours, giving doctors a more detailed picture of a patient’s health than the snapshots provided by routine scans,” explains Sample.

Researchers from MIT have produced a miniature ultrasound device that sticks to the body, reports Maggie Chen for Wired. “By sticking the patch on different parts of the subject’s body, the researchers could get images of the stomach, muscles, blood vessels, lungs, and heart,” explains Chen.

MIT engineers have developed a medical ultrasound system that uses a patch the size of a postage stamp, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “The new MIT system would allow a doctor or technician to attach a patch directly over the area to be scanned,” explains Bray. “The patch is plugged into a device that captures the ultrasound signal, converts it to a viewable image and records it for future reference.”

Prof. Benedetto Marelli has won the 2022 Bio Innovation Institute & Science Prize for Innovation, through which the editors of Science “seek to recognize bold researchers who are asking fundamental questions at the intersection of the life sciences and entrepreneurship.” Marelli is being recognized for his research into the “nanomanufacturing of structural biopolymers to engineer a new generation of advanced materials that can be inter-faced with food and plants,” reports Science.

Prof. Desiree Plata speaks with AccuWeather senior on-air meteorologist Geoff Cornish about her research in using zeolite clay to control and remove methane emissions from the air.  “So, the really interesting thing about zeolite is it has these cool pore spaces so when you drop copper into those pore spaces it can grab onto a methane molecule and attach an oxygen atom to it and that helps convert that methane into carbon dioxide which is a much less potent greenhouse gas and so the net benefit to the climate can be quite dramatic,” explains Plata.

Katie Spies ’14, founder and CEO of Maev (a company that produces human-grade, raw dog food brand), speaks with Fortune editor Rachel King about what inspired her to start Maev, the company’s development process, and where Spies sees the company expanding in the future. “Among other exciting expansion initiatives, we’re really looking forward to expanding our product portfolio; our goal is to be a trust brand for dog essentials, especially product categories that are currently lacking in healthy, well-made options,” says Spies.

Prof. Lydia Bourouiba speaks with BBC CrowdSource presenter Marnie Chesterton about her work in understanding how bodily fluids such as snot and spittle spread after leaving the body using high speed cameras.  “What is very clear is that we emit… droplets of a continuum of sizes but they are not coming out alone,” explains Bourouiba. “They are coming out with an air that is in our lungs, that is hot and moist and turbulent, which changes the physical dynamics of the emission and how the drops will evolve.”

TechCrunch reporter Christine Hall spotlights Anwar Ghauche MS ’10, CEO of Constrafor - a construction procurement platform that streamlines information, payment, and documentation between general contractors and subcontractors. “Subcontractors get hired on the project, and when they finish their first month of work, submit an invoice and then wait an average of 45 to 60 days — even up to 80 days — to get paid,” says Ghauche.  “Meanwhile, they are buying equipment and borrowing money to be able to do all of this work. You’re not borrowing at a cheap rate, either, because most banks barely touch them.”