Engineers have designed a small device that can detect Covid-19 from a saliva sample in an hour. The device can be assembled for about $15, is as accurate as PCR tests, and can be repurposed “quite quickly” to detect new variants, James Collins says.

Many residents of Malden, Mass., never even knew of the river in their city. Now a project helped by MIT’s Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism is bringing the river into view, while also boosting social resilience and climate mitigation.

Taking a corporate stand on social issues is never easy. At the recent EmTech Next conference, hosted by MIT Technology Review, the CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. and the former CEO of Unilever shared their thought process when deciding on causes to back.

In an article titled “The robot apocalypse is hard to find in America’s small and mid-sized factories,” Reuters covered an MIT report on automation. Among 34 firms visited for the report, only one had bought robots in large numbers in recent years.

For 2021, faculty and staff reworked iconic MechE class 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing I), and its final robot competition, so students could join in from afar. “The challenges forced us to think differently and be more creative,” Sangbae Kim says.

MIT Medical provides an analysis of “breakthrough infections” among those vaccinated against Covid-19. Among the takeaways: “Breakthrough infections are not common. … Breakthrough infections are expected. … Vaccinated people are well protected.”