Angelina Wu has been studying Japanese at MIT since her freshman year of college. “It was a great experience to study Japanese at MIT, meet my classmates, and interact with the Japanese community,” said Wu, now a fourth-year computer science and engineering major. “It was an essential part of my MIT experience, complementing my other…
Maybe you’ve never talked about having kids with your partner, or you’ve vaguely said that you’d like to have kids “someday.” Maybe you agreed to start trying to conceive at 25 (or 30 or 35). But now one of you is ready to get pregnant, and the other isn’t so sure. This common scenario was…
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common hormonal condition that not only affects the menstrual cycle but also causes weight gain, increased body hair, skin problems and, in severe cases, infertility. Additionally, women with PCOS can have trouble sleeping, and some develop sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, but this is an often overlooked factor….
Menstruation occurs when a woman’s body sheds the lining of the uterus. With each menstrual cycle, the body prepares the lining of the uterus by thickening it. If pregnancy does not occur, the lining will be shed and what is known as menstruation will occur. It is important to understand that hormonal fluctuations of estrogen…
Quantum computers promise to solve complex problems many times faster than classical computers, by using the principles of quantum mechanics to encode and process information into quantum bits (qubits). Qubits are the building blocks of quantum computers. However, one of the challenges in scaling is that qubits are highly sensitive to background noise and imperfections…
An international team of scientists will study Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a lifelong neurological disorder, using thousands of brain MRI scans collected from research groups around the world. The study, which will be carried out by researchers from the University of Manchester and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) in collaboration with colleagues in Australia…
If you’re trying to conceive, you’re probably wondering about the best sex positions for conception. Believe it or not, experts still don’t have convincing evidence to answer this question. “It’s difficult to study specific sexual positions that can increase fertility,” says Cheryl A. Kingsberg, M.D., director of behavioral medicine at University Hospitals Medical Center Cleveland….
The best time to get pregnant is when you are physically, emotionally, mentally and financially ready. This varies greatly from person to person. Most people reach the peak of their fertility in their 20s, but the best age to get pregnant also depends on other factors. For example, young people are less likely to have…
Nearly 50 years ago, neuroscientists discovered cells in the hippocampus of the brain that store memories of specific places. These cells also play an important role in storing memories of events, known as episodic memories. Although the mechanisms by which place cells encode spatial memories have been well understood, how they encode episodic memories remains…
More efficient artificial pollination methods could one day enable farmers to grow fruits and vegetables inside multi-story warehouses, increasing yields while reducing some of agriculture’s harmful environmental impacts. To make this idea a reality, MIT researchers are developing robotic insects that could one day fly out of mechanical beehives to perform precise, on-the-spot pollination. But…
