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Gizmodo reporter Gayoung Lee writes that MIT researchers created “lab quakes” or miniature versions of earthquakes in a controlled setting and found that “anywhere between 68 and 98% of the energy goes into generating heat around a quake’s epicenter.” The findings “could help inform the creation of a physical model for earthquake dynamics or seismologists’ efforts to pick out regions most vulnerable to earthquakes.”

Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights the kickoff event for the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance, which will “fund research initiatives, fellowships, and other programs with an eye toward improving energy technologies and decarbonization.” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik emphasized that he has been impressed with the passion and talent for clean-tech among the students at MIT and other universities. “I started these discussions with the objective that we should inspire future leaders to come into our industry and ideally come to our company,” Strazik said. “They’ve probably inspired us more than we’ve inspired them.”

Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science, joins Bob McDonald of CBC’s “Quirks & Quarks” to discuss how 10 years after LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves the observatories are still “helping scientists better understand the life cycles of stars, the nature of gravity, and transforming the way we explore the farthest reaches of space.” Mavalvala shares: "Scientists have been able to design and construct these instruments that are capable of measuring imperceptibly small changes in spacetime distance, and in the past 10 years the sensitivity of these instruments has improved. That’s what is allowing us to make greater discoveries.” 

Prof. Richard Binzel spoke at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) about efforts to create a system that could help deflect deadly asteroids away from Earth, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “If we had to deal with an actual asteroid threat,” says Binzel, “we would certainly want to know these properties, like the spin or tumbling state [of an asteroid].”

Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with GBH reporter Craig LeMoult about the recent Market Basket’s leadership dispute. “The reality is Market Basket is a community asset,” says Kochan. “People value it because it provides good service, good prices, good jobs. And the public is hungry for a company like that. And they demonstrated that in 2014 when the first episode occurred and everyone rallied around the employees who rallied their CEO.” 

Wall Street Journal reporter Christoph Irmscher reviews “The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live,” a new book by Prof. Alan Lightman and Britain’s former Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees. In their new book, Lightman and Rees assert that: “The pursuit of scientific knowledge is beautiful,” Irmscher notes. “Science is important, they explain, it is fun, and, if you’re a scientist, it might just hand you the keys to the deepest mysteries of the universe.”  

Gizmodo reporter Gayoung Lee writes that scientists from the sPHENIX Collaboration, including MIT physicists, announced that the sPHENIX detector passed a “standard candle” test with “flying colors, correctly catching and measuring the energy level of colliding gold ions traveling close to the speed of light.” Lee notes that: “Passing the test bodes well for the detector’s future,” explaining that the detector was designed to precisely measure products of high-speed particle collisions. “The sPHENIX detector is like a ‘giant 3D camera’ tracking the number, energy, and paths of particles generated by a single collision.” 

Prof. Dylan Hadfield-Menell speaks with CNN reporter Hadas Gold about the need for AI safeguards and increased education on large language models. “The way these systems are trained is that they are trained in order to give responses that people judge to be good,” explains Hadfield-Menell. 

MIT Dean of Digital Learning Cynthia Breazeal SM ’93, ScD ’00, Profs. Regina Barzilay and Priya Donti, and a number of MIT alumni have been named to Time’s TIME 100 AI 2025 list. The list spotlights “innovators, leaders, and thinkers reshaping our world through groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence.”

Writing for The New York Times, Dennis Overbye celebrates the 10-year anniversary of LIGO’s first direct detection of gravitational waves, underscoring how LIGO has advanced our understanding of the universe’s cosmic history. The first detection was a discovery that “changed astrophysics, opening a window onto previously inaccessible realms of nature in which space could rip, bend, puff up, crumple and even vanish,” writes Overbye. The late Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, who dreamed up the idea for LIGO, said of LIGO’s first detection in September 2015: “It was waving hello. It was amazing. The signal was so big, I didn’t believe it.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Mooallem memorializes the life and work of Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, from his time hacking surplus military electronics into sophisticated hi-fi receivers as a teenager to dreaming up the concept for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mooallem notes that Weiss and his LIGO colleagues’ breakthrough in achieving the first-ever detection of gravitational waves “has provided a new way of looking at the universe, of observing, through the charting of gravity waves emitted by moving objects, what was previously unobservable or unknown—a milestone that is frequently compared with Galileo’s invention of the telescope.”

Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. Carlo Ratti explores the need for creativity in architecture. “More than ever, architecture needs experimentation,” explains Ratti. “In the face of a burning planet, we must draw on all forms of intelligence — natural, artificial and collective — to confront the challenges ahead. We need to try new materials, experiment with different ways to harness energy and test morphologies that will better sustain what the ancient Romans called civitas: the community of citizens. We need to explore new methods, engaging in a feedback loop of trial and error that mirrors the adaptive logic of nature itself.”

To get a better sense of the physical and cognitive experience of aging, Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Dockser Marcus donned the MIT AgeLab’s age-simulation suit, called the “Age Gain Now Empathy System” or Agnes for short, and embarked on a number of activities, including shopping at the grocery store, riding the subway, crossing a busy street, and cooking a meal. Dockser Marcus notes that research at the MIT AgeLab is focused on “finding ways to improve life for the elderly,” and noted that the Agnes suit provided a “greater insight into what it is really like to age—and what I could do to prepare.”

Prof. Regina Barzilay speaks with Newsweek reporter Katherine Fung about the how hospitals around the world around increasingly adopting new technologies. “Countries with a centralized healthcare system, or centralized healthcare records, can do a much better job because they have so much data and so much ability to monitor what AI tools are doing," says Barzilay. 

Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Cheryl Winokur Munk about how AI tools could be used to help people with financial planning. Winokur Munk writes that Lo recommends providing “just enough information to get relevant answers. And leave out highly personal details like your name, address, salary, employer or specific assets…as such details put people at risk should the AI be compromised.” Lo also advises “trying several AI platforms,” writes Winokur Munk. And “the advice should be run by a professional, trusted family or friends. Be a bit skeptical and double-check with humans.”

Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi speaks with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about her work uncovering issues with bias and trustworthiness in medical AI systems. “I love developing AI systems,” says Ghassemi. “I’m a professor at MIT for a reason. But it’s clear to me that naive deployments of these systems, that do not recognize the baggage that human data comes with, will lead to harm.”