Museum of Science and Industry

Fresh fruit is so delicious, especially when the piece is perfectly ripe! So how can you tell when something is ready to eat? Do you squish or sniff, searching for a subtle change in coloring? What if the fruit is trapped in a box, waiting to be put out onto grocery store shelves? An MIT professor and his students are developing inexpensive ethylene sensors to help monitor the freshness of produce!

Ethy...

While scientific discoveries can be exciting, big news about quantum physics or the expanding universe can seem light years away from our daily lives. That's why it's especially exciting to hear about creative inventions that have the potential to transform the way we do everyday things.

Researchers using carbon nanotubes—molecules of carbon cleverly arranged into cylinders just a...