News and Blog Landing | MIT Sustainability

Researchers from SMART built a tabletop Raman spectroscopy instrument that allows measurement of carotenoid levels in plants, which can indicate whether a plant has shade avoidance syndrome.
Image courtesy of th...

MIT News Office

December 18, 2020

Discovery allows early detection of shade avoidance syndrome

SMART researchers use Raman spectroscopy for early detection of SAS, which can help farmers better monitor plant health and improve crop yields.

MIT oceanographers have proposed an explanation for the Arctic’s puzzling ocean turbulence.

MIT News Office

December 15, 2020

MIT oceanographers have an explanation for the Arctic’s puzzling ocean turbulence

New study suggests waters will become more turbulent as Arctic loses summertime ice.

December 15, 2020

Spring 2021 Class: Solving for Carbon Neutrality at MIT

In the grassland steppes of Inner Asia, climate has a major impact on plant growth. Pastoral economies, which depend on grazing livestock like horse and sheep, are affected in turn.
Photo: Bernd Thaller/CC BY-NC 2.0

MIT News Office

December 11, 2020

Case studies show climate variation linked to rise and fall of medieval nomadic empires

Recent virtual lecture explores how paleoclimatology provides important context for examining the activities of past human societies.

"My hope is that competitions like this inspire MIT and the entire world to take a more serious look about how we deal with the resources available to us: from electricity to recyclable waste,” says MIT Technical Associate Sebastia...

MIT News Office

December 8, 2020

MIT labs win top recognition for sustainable practices in cold storage management

Whitehead Institute and MIT named 2020 Organizational Winners in the fourth annual International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories International Laboratory Freezer Challenge.

For the first time since its founding six years ago, MIT EnergyHack was run as an all-virtual event. The MIT Energy Club worked with seven companies and organizations to create problem statements for participating hackers to solve.
...

MIT News Office

December 3, 2020

Focusing on innovative solutions to the world’s energy challenges

The MIT Energy Club hosts its sixth annual EnergyHack with 260 participants joining in from around the globe in this all-virtual event.

Fikile Brushett, an MIT associate professor of chemical engineering, leads a group dedicated to developing more efficient ways to store energy, including batteries that could be used to store the energy generated by wind and sola...

MIT News Office

December 1, 2020

Fikile Brushett is looking for new ways to store energy

By developing electrochemical technologies, he hopes to help reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Reflective pavements could reduce the frequency of heat waves in Chicago by around 30 percent over 20 years.
Photo: Jaysin Trevino/Wikimedia Commons

MIT News Office

December 1, 2020

3 Questions: Hessam AzariJafari on mitigating climate change with reflective pavements

MIT postdoc explains how reflective pavements can significantly — and often indirectly — mitigate climate change and extreme heat.

Armoire’s team refers to the company’s typical customer as “Boss Lady” and has created T-shirts to remind employees to stay focused on who they’re helping.
Images: courtesy of Armoire

MIT News Office

November 24, 2020

An antidote to “fast fashion”

The clothing rental service Armoire helps customers sustainably maintain a fresh wardrobe.