Research

A new paper co-authored by Prof. Anna Stansbury examines how socioeconomic differences can impact first-generation college students after graduation, writes Noam Scheiber for The New York Times. Stansbury and her colleagues found that having a parent with a graduate degree reflected a “generalized socioeconomic advantage.” Growing up affluent often “helps you learn how to read between the lines in certain situations, because you’ve been in similar kinds of situations,” Stansbury explains. 

The 2003 Cohn-Elkies method “for finding upper bounds on the density of sphere packings,” established by MIT Prof. Henry Cohn and Harvard University’s Noam Elkies, is highlighted by Jack Murtagh for the Scientific American. “Their recipe is almost mechanical: come up with a mathematical function, feed the function into their method, and an upper bound pops out,” writes Murtagh. “They provided the field with a machine: identify the right inputs, churn it through their method, and a breakthrough in sphere packing might emerge.” 

In his latest book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” Prof. Emeritus Paul Osterman finds that 35% of the U.S. workforce is made up of disposable workers hired with the “implicit understanding that they won’t be around for long,” writes Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg. Employers “do not invest in the great bulk of their workforce” in the way that they used to, says Osterman.  

MIT researchers found that users preferred to consult professionals over AI chatbots, except when they are feeling embarrassment or shame, writes Forbes’ Joe McKendrick. “When we seek advice from other people, we’re often reluctant to share embarrassing details because we have a fear of being judged,” the researchers write. “People are more likely to turn to AI models to get professional advice when they’re embarrassed, because the model doesn’t judge them.” 

MIT researchers have discovered that carefully timed bursts of ‘pink noise’ strengthened the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, which clear waste from the brain, during sleep, writes reporter Sarah Rahal for The Boston Globe. “It’s very important for us to test: Does this work in people who may be either much older or who may be showing signs of the beginnings of a neurological disorder,” says Prof. Laura Lewis. 

President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif joins Yahoo Finance’s Julie Hyman to discuss how new policies regarding student visas, coupled with cuts to federal funding for universities, are severely disrupting America’s innovation economy. “The whole innovation ecosystem we have in America has been the best since World War II and has created this tremendous economy for the country. A great deal of that economy has to do with federal funding of research, doing it in a nonpoliticized way, and having the best people come from other countries to America to study with us, and to learn with us,” says Reif. “All of that ecosystem is being affected, and that makes it very uncomfortable for the experts who came here, to be here, to study here, and to stay here.” 

Cailin Plunkett speaks to the Scientific American’s Mary Randolph about her research discovering that 14% of black holes may be hierarchical mergers, made from the merger of two smaller black holes. “At minimum, we’re finding evidence that there are these highly spinning and weirdly tilted black holes in the dataset, and the most straightforward way to interpret that, the Occam’s razor answer, is that these black holes probably came from previous mergers,” says Plunkett.  

MIT ranks No. 1 in Forbes’ list of America’s top colleges. “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is known for its innovative discoveries in science, research and technology,” writes Forbes. “Just 7% of MIT’s students take out any federal loans, due in part to the university’s generous financial aid,” which allows students from families with income below $200,00 to attend tuition-free. “MIT also ranks at the top of Forbes’ alumni earnings ranking.”  

A new study by MIT researchers found that  “sleeping while listening to bursts of pink noise…seems to boost the flow of fluid through the brain, and so might enhance the clearance of waste products that are linked to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease,” writes New Scientist’s Carissa Wong. “The researchers hope to test whether the technique can slow cognitive decline in people during normal ageing, mild cognitive impairment – a condition that often precedes dementia – and the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease,” notes Wong.

The Financial Times’ Anjana Ahuja highlights Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia and Senior Postdoctoral Associate Vardhman Kumar’s work developing injectable “mini livers,” tissue grafts that could “take on some of the life-saving functions of liver cells: helping with blood clotting, detoxifying the bloodstream and breaking down medicines. The injectable grafts, they suggest, could also be used as a bridging treatment while patients wait for a transplant, with booster injections able to dial up the dose,” writes Ahuja.  

MIT researchers have created a microscope that can image electrical activity in neurons across the brain, writes Earth.com’s Eric Ralls. “We can now ask: Which neurons respond first?” says Zeguan Wang, first author on the study. “Where does a sequence begin, and how does activity spread to recruit the rest of the network?” 

For The Next Big Idea Club, Prof. Paul Osterman outlines the pillars of his new book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment.” “The rise of disposable work is allowing companies to gain flexibility and cut costs while shedding responsibility for their workers,” writes Osterman. “We need guardrails to keep that flexibility from coming at the expense of workers and the public.” 

MIT researchers have discovered that peptides can remain stable and form into, reports Earth.com’s Eric Ralls. “First, we were astounded that peptides remain stable at all in concentrated sulfuric acid, for many weeks on end,” says Prof. Mei Hong, an author on the study. “Even more remarkable was that they adopt specific three-dimensional structures instead of random shapes.” 

MIT researchers have discovered that peptides “not only survive in highly concentrated sulfuric acid but take on stable 3D conformations too,” writes Chemical & Engineering News’ Fionna Samuels. “The project started with a new collaboration between [Prof. Sara] Seager and the MIT chemist [Prof.] Mei Hong,” notes Samuels. “In the years since finding phosphine signals in Venusian clouds, Seager had been working her way through the building blocks of life—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—to see if any survived concentrated acid exposure.”  

MIT researchers have developed an AI-powered robotic therapy system that combines wearable force sensors and camera recordings of physical therapists’ movements to provide personalized therapy to patients, writes Newsweek’s Claudia Tanner. “Robotic assistance will allow patients to practice exercises more often while still receiving support tailored to their abilities,” says Johannes Lachner, who completed this work as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. “Our goal is to take a step toward more accessible and personalized physical rehabilitation, giving more patients the opportunity to regain movement and independence.”