If you find it hard to focus after a wakeful night, it's because your brain is busy trying to catch up on crucial housekeeping. Nearly everyone has experienced it--after a night of poor sleep, your brain might seem foggy, and your mind drifts off when you should be paying attention. A new MIT study reveals what happens biologically as these momentary lapses occur: Your brain is performing essential maintenance that it usually takes care of while you sleep. During a normal night of sleep, the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that cushions the brain helps flush away metabolic waste that has built up during the day. In a 2019 study, MIT electrical engineering and computer science professor Laura Lewis, PhD '14, and colleagues showed that the CSF flows rhythmically in and out in a way that's linked to changes in brain waves. To explore what might happen to this CSF flow in a sleep-deprived brain, Lewis, who is also a member of MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and her colleagues tested 26 volunteers on several cognitive tasks after they'd been kept awake in the lab and when they were well-rested.

Our community is standing up for MIT and its mission to serve the nation and the world. And we need you to join us at this critical moment. This story was part of our September/October 2025 issue. We're learning more about what vitamin D does to our bodies Jessica Hamzelou OpenAI's new LLM exposes the secrets of how AI really works Will Douglas Heaven China figured out how to sell EVs. Now it has to deal with their aging batteries. We're learning more about what vitamin D does to our bodies The sunshine vitamin could affect your immune system and heart health.

When the US Department of Energy announced that it would stop funding the tokamak at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Dennis Whyte considered giving up on fusion research. But then he had a brainstorm--and challenged his students to bring the idea to life. This full-scale high-temperature superconducting magnet designed and built by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) has demonstrated a recordbreaking 20 tesla magnetic field. It is the strongest fusion magnet in the world. Ever since nuclear fusion was discovered in the 1930s, scientists have wondered if we could somehow replicate and harness the phenomenon behind starlight--the smashing together of hydrogen atoms to form helium and a stupendous amount of clean energy. Fusing hydrogen would yield times more energy than simply burning it. Unlike nuclear fission, which powers the world's 440 atomic reactors, hydrogen fusion produces no harmful radiation, only neutrons that are captured and added back to the reaction.

Aomawa Shields '97 was equally enticed by the prospect of studying stars and the dream of becoming one herself. Today, she draws from her exploration of acting and astronomy to search for life on other planets. Few people, if any, contemplate stars--celestial or cinematic--the way Aomawa Shields does. An astronomer and astrobiologist, Shields explores the potential habitability of planets beyond our solar system. But she is also a classically trained actor--and that's helped shape her professional trajectory in unexpected ways. Today, Shields is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, where she oversees a research team that uses computer models to explore conditions on exoplanets, or planets that revolve around stars other than the sun.

As the Institute's first VP for energy and climate, Evelyn Wang '00 is marshaling MIT's expertise to meet the greatest challenge of our age. Professor Evelyn Wang '00 sits beside a compact, portable water-harvesting device that she developed in collaboration with Professor Rohit Karnik of MIT and Krista Walton, then a professor at Georgia Tech. It's designed for portable and emergency use. Water shortages in Southern California made an indelible impression on Evelyn Wang '00 when she was growing up in Los Angeles. "I was quite young, perhaps in first grade," she says. "But I remember we weren't allowed to turn our sprinklers on. And everyone in the neighborhood was given disinfectant tablets for the toilet and encouraged to keep flushing to a minimum. I didn't understand exactly what was happening. But I saw that everyone in the community was affected by the scarcity of this resource."

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Nvidia CEO on GPUs: 'The future is neural rendering. That's the way graphics ought to be' We asked what an AI gaming GPU would look like in the future. Love or hate it, upscaling technology like Nvidia's DLSS have expanded the definition around gaming performance. And while hardware enthusiasts still want to know what to expect for raster performance, free of any software tricks, we'll have to wait a while longer for a definitive answer.

These rare sea creatures live where the sun don't shine. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Like a scene out of a Jules Verne novel, scientists from Schmidt Ocean Institute recently encountered a giant phantom jelly (). The enormous deep-sea jellyfish was spotted about 830 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean by a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) exploring the Colorado-Rawson submarine canyon wall off the coast of Argentina. ROV pilots filmed this giant phantom jelly, or Stygiomedusa gigantea, at 253 meters during an ROV descent to explore the Colorado-Rawson submarine canyon wall.

Dreame's robot vacuum with an arm is back at CES 2026 and it can do more than pick up shoes The Cyber 10 Ultra has its own attachments for reaching hard-to-get places. Dreame's Cyber10 Ultra has an arm that can grab objects and clean hard to reach areas. Last year at CES, Dreame showed off a robot vacuum prototype with a mechanical arm . But while we were able to see the arm extend and retract, we didn't see the device, which was described as a prototype at the time, actually grab anything, which was a bit disappointing. This year, though, the company has made its arm-enabled vacuum a reality with the Cyber 10 Ultra.

Brewing byproduct may be a key sustainable secret ingredient. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Brewing beer relies on a very simple living thing-brewer's yeast. The microorganisms thrive on mashed grains, converting sugars into both alcohol and carbon dioxide along the way. But there's not much use for yeast after the pints are poured .

The world's longest-living vertebrates maintain their vision for centuries. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The Greenland shark () is well-known for its impressive lifespan. Marine biologists believe the world's longest-living vertebrate often reaches over 400 years old, and possibly lives even longer. But while the shark isn't known for its vision, a lot could be learned from the deep-sea predator's eyes. According to new research recently published in the journal, the Greenland shark retained its visual organs throughout millions of years of evolution for a reason.