Ellen Roche is creating the next generation of medical devices to help repair hearts, lungs, and other tissues. Some, such as a soft robotic ventilator, are for implantation, while others, like a 3D-printed heart replica, enable research and testing of other therapies.

Why are legal documents so impenetrable? Just as “magic spells” use special rhymes and archaic terms to signal their power, the convoluted language of legalese conveys a sense of authority, cognitive scientists have found.

Engineers have designed a tiny battery, smaller than a grain of sand, to power microscopic robots for jobs such as drug delivery or locating leaks in gas pipelines. “This is going to form the core of a lot of our robotic efforts,” Michael Strano says.

PhD student Dominika Ďurovčíková is studying distant black holes called quasars to illuminate the moment when galaxies could first be observed. She loves astronomy because when looking at the stars, “you realize there’s something more than your everyday struggles.”

A new implantable device can detect an opioid overdose and rapidly pump out a dose of naloxone. “This could really address a significant unmet need in the population that suffers from substance abuse and opiate dependency,” Gio Traverso says.

Cady Coleman ’83, a former NASA astronaut and U.S. Air Force colonel, recalls how a talk by astronaut Sally Ride at MIT inspired her. “In her quiet way, Sally Ride shattered assumptions I didn’t know I had,” Coleman writes in the Wall Street Journal.