In the Media

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Boston Globe reporter Ken Mahan about how a disrupted polar vortex (PV) could impact weather in the United States in the coming weeks. “The PV has been doing its best Mr. Fantastic impression, stretching and compressing continuously,” allowing frigid air to escape southward, Cohen explains. “If we (New England) do receive colder weather, but not quite the cold we experienced in late January, again from this larger PV disruption, it will be either late February and early March.”  

A new study by MIT physicists demonstrates that quark-gluon plasma behaves like a liquid, findings that could shed more light on the makeup of the early universe, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. “The researchers anticipate that the methods of the new study will greatly advance our understanding of matter in the early universe,” explains Lee. 

Prof. David Karger speaks with GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz about the development of new AI tools, the need for generative AI regulation and the importance of transparency when it comes to AI-generated content. "I think we need to involve more entities, more people, more sources in the fact-checking process,” says Karger. “We need to figure out how to ensure that that fact checking can propagate into the platforms, even though the platforms are not doing the fact checking themselves.” 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with USA Today reporter Doyle Rice about how the polar vortex and cold Siberian air could impact weather across the U.S. in February. Cohen noted that some of the cold weather being felt on the East Coast of the U.S. is "coming from Siberia and that is contributing to the extremity of the cold since Siberia is the source of the coldest air of the Northern Hemisphere in winter.”

Prof. Lawrence Schmidt speaks with CNBC reporter Tom Huddleston Jr. about the influence of AI on the labor market. “It devalues existing expertise while simultaneously creating many new opportunities,” says Schmidt. “There's a sense in which AI may not be so distinct from past technologies.” 

Prof. Giovanni Traverso and his colleagues developed a new technique that could one day be used to help protect cancer patients from the side effects of radiation therapy, reports Elie Dolgin for Science. The researchers found that providing brief pulses of a protein called “damage suppressor,” or Dsup could “shield injected tissues from radiation. They also found no evidence of acute toxicity with repeat doses, which bodes well for short-term use in clinical settings—for example, to protect nearby tissues during radiation treatment for a cancer,” Dolgin explains. 

Using the James Webb Telescope, postdoctoral associate Rohan Naidu and his colleagues have captured a glimpse of Galaxy MoM-z14, which existed 280 million years after the Big Bang, and could provide clues as to what the universe was like during its infancy and how it has evolved over time, reports Passant Rabbie for Gizmodo. “We can take a page from archeology and look at these ancient stars in our own galaxy like fossils from the early universe,” says Naidu. “Except in astronomy we are lucky enough to have Webb seeing so far that we also have direct information about galaxies during that time.” 

Postdoctoral Associate Fatima Husain speaks with National Geographic reporter Theo Nicitopoulos about the various theories used to explain how living creature survived the Cryogenian era. “These surface settings could have enabled a diverse assemblage of life to persist and continue to evolve throughout the glaciations,” says Husain. “We keep learning more about how extreme the Cryogenian was… and that makes life persisting and diversifying dramatically after that, all the more amazing.” 

Jennifer Mnookin, PhD ’99, has been named the president of Columbia University, effective July 1, 2026. Mnookin earned “a doctorate in the history and social study of science and technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her academic work focuses on evidence, proof and decision making in the legal system,” writes Sharon Otterman for the New York Times.  

Graduate student Stephen Casper speaks with Wired reporter Matt Burgess about the rise of “deepfake video abuse and its role in nonconsensual intimate imagery generation.” “This ecosystem is built on the back of open-source models,” says Casper. “Oftentimes it’s just an open-source model that has been used to develop an app that then a user uses.” 

Writing for The Boston Globe, graduate student Jonah Prousky highlights the benefits and drawbacks of social media bans, and ways to protect kids from online harms. “We likewise need a cultural reckoning on screen time for kids, since heavy use is associated with anxiety, depression, attention fragmentation, and sleep deprivation,” writes Prousky. “Australia demonstrated that a law can be used to get the ball rolling.” 

MIT researchers have developed a new smart pill that could be used to help doctors track treatment more accurately, and ensure patients stay on their medication schedule, reports Kurt Knutsson for Fox News. “If you or a loved one relies on critical medication, this kind of technology could add an extra layer of safety,” Knuttson explains. “It may reduce guesswork for doctors and ease pressure on patients who manage complex treatment plans.” 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with New York Times reporter Eric Niiler about his work linking increased severe winter weather in the United States to the stretching of the polar vortex. “We’ve shown in multiple papers now that the occurrence of the weak polar vortex is increasing in frequency, and the times when the polar vortex is strong or circular it’s happening less frequently,” says Cohen. 

A new report by researchers from MIT’s Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy finds that the “world is on track to exceed key climate thresholds under current policies,” reports Ryan Krugman for Inside Climate News. The outlook is “based on MIT’s Integrated Global System Modeling framework, which links population growth, economic activity, energy use, and international policy decisions to changes in the global climate,” Krugman explains. “It’s not a reason to give up hope or stop the necessary action,” explains Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and a co-author of the report. “Limiting every degree possible matters, even every tenth of a degree.”

Writing for The Conversation, Research Scientist Judah Cohen and Mathew Barlow of UMass Lowell examine how the polar vortex and moisture from a warm Gulf of Mexico created a monster winter storm that brought freezing rain, sleet and snow to large parts of the U.S. “Some research suggests that even in a warming environment, cold events, while occurring less frequently, may still remain relatively severe in some locations. One factor may be increasing disruptions to the stratospheric polar vortex, which appear to be linked to the rapid warming of the Arctic with climate change,” they write. “A warmer environment also increases the likelihood that precipitation that would have fallen as snow in previous winters may now be more likely to fall as sleet and freezing rain.”