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President Sally Kornbluth, Provost Cynthia Barnhart, and Chancellor Melissa Nobles speak with Radio Boston host Tiziana Dearing about the importance of representation for women and underrepresented groups in STEM. “One of the most important pieces of having women in leadership is not just bringing a diverse perspective, but honestly being role models so that girls see that there is a possibility for them to be doing the kind of high-tech, heavy research that MIT does,” says Kornbluth. 

Prof. Juan Palacios speaks with The Guardian reporter Helena Horton about how air pollution can lead to more mistakes in chess players. “We find that when individuals are exposed to higher levels of air pollution, they make more mistakes, and they make larger mistakes,” says Palacios.

Researchers at MIT have developed an autonomous vehicle with “mini sensors to allow it to see the world and also with an artificially intelligent computer brain that can allow it to drive,” explains postdoctoral associate Alexander Amini in an interview with Mashable. “Our autonomous vehicles are able to learn directly from humans how to drive a car so they can be deployed and interact in brand new environments that they’ve never seen before,” Amini notes.

MIT researchers have developed a new AI tool called Sybil that could help predict whether a patient will get lung cancer up to six years in advance, reports Pranshu Verma for The Washington Post.  “Much of the technology involves analyzing large troves of medical scans, data sets or images, then feeding them into complex artificial intelligence software,” Verma explains. “From there, computers are trained to spot images of tumors or other abnormalities.”

Prof. Philip Sharp speaks with Biomarker blogger Dylan Neel about his journey through academia as a student, professor, Nobel laureate and biotech pioneer. “Science has become such an important part of our day-to-day lives: our immediate health, the food we eat, the cars we drive, the way we communicate,” says Sharp. “If you take a portion of the tools we use in our day-to-day lives and trace them all back: it's new technology, maybe not over 30 years old. It is very empowering. Life and progress are better than ever before.” 

Researchers at MIT developed SoFi, a soft robotic fish designed to study underwater organisms and their environments, reports Mashable. “The soft robotic fish serves a nice purpose for hopefully minimizing impact on the environments that we’re studying and also helps us study different types of behaviors and also study the actual mechanics of these organisms as well,” says graduate student Levi Cai.

Principal Research Scientist Eric Heginbotham writes for Newsweek that in simulations of a possible invasion of Taiwan, he and his colleagues found that “China would lose—so long as the United States continues to invest in maintaining deterrence and chooses to intervene directly and vigorously.” Heginbotham adds: “The United States should ensure that the political relationship with China remains positive in those areas that do not directly compromise America's position and — consistent with U.S. policy for half a century—that avoid promoting de jure independence for Taiwan.”

Writing for CNBC, senior lecturer Tara Swart shares four tips to avoid brain fog and forgetfulness. “By articulating your goals to yourself out loud, you can start to be more intentional about changing your habits,” writes Swart. “And through that repetition, your brain and body will start to follow suit.”

Kyle Greenberg PhD ’15, a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Nancy Qian PhD ’05, a professor at Northwestern University, speak with NPR hosts Jeff Guo and Amanda Aronczyk about the papers that helped them fall in love with economics. Greenberg notes his inspiration was a paper by Prof. Joshua Angrist examining how serving in the military impacts future earnings. 

In an article for The Hill, Vincent Quan, co-executive director of J-PAL North America, outlines how new governors should rely on evidence when investing in government programs. “Governors should invest in programs that are most likely to improve the lives of their constituents,” writes Quan. “However, determining which programs work and which do not is far easier said than done. Not all programs work as intended.”