College of Chemistry

The carbon–hydrogen bonds in alkanes—particularly those at the ends of the molecules, where each carbon has three hydrogen atoms bound to it—are very hard to “crack” if you want to replace the hydrogen atoms with other atoms. Methane (CH4) and ethane (CH3CH3) are made up, exclusively, of such tightly bound hydrogen atoms. In the...

Image: KTSDESIGN/ Science Photot Library via Getty Images. Photo courtesy vice.com.

"Borgs" are extrachromosomal elements, meaning that these DNA sequences are found outside the chromosomes that lie within the nucleus of most cells and that contain the majority of an organism’s genetic material. Examples of extrachromosomal elements include plasmids, which can...

Alumna Linda G. Griffith is a professor of biological and mechanical engineering at M.I.T., and its director of the Center for Gynepathology Research. “I don’t want to make endometriosis a women’s issue,” she said in 2014. “I want to make it an M.I.T. issue.” Photo credit Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Most labs devoted...

It’s 2021 and regular THC isn’t going to cut it for the budding weed industry. Neither will CBD. Instead, a host of startups are betting that weed consumers will be clamoring for something that nature alone can’t provide.

In Berkeley, California, the startup Demetrix, is preparing to manufacture “metric tons” of...