MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Edgar Herwick of GBH News visits the lab of Prof. Mathias Kolle to explore the science behind what causes rainbows to arc across the sky. “The sun has to be behind you. Then water in the atmosphere in front of you. And that's usually when it rains, you get that condition,” says Kolle. “Then what you also want to do is you want to look at the right spot.”

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Kate Kellogg explores how managers can more effectively help their employees transition to using new technologies. “Managers need to realize that introducing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and robotics aren’t straightforward,” writes Kellogg. “Managers who hope to successfully implement these technologies need to focus on issues of employee status and roles, and the amount of new work that will need to be done.”

After the Covid-19 pandemic caused a drop in revenue, Christine Marcus MBA '12 reinvented Alchemista, her food tech delivery service, reports Geri Stengel for Forbes. Marcus targeted the home market allowing property managers to “use temperature-controlled food lockers as vending machines to offer meals, snacks, and more in the lobby or another common area,” writes Stengel.

Boston Globe reporter Janelle Nanos spotlight Spoiler Alert, an MIT startup that works with major food brands to save food that might have gone to waste. “One of our core beliefs is that waste is no longer a necessary or acceptable cost of doing business,” said Spoiler Alert cofounder and chief product officer Emily Malina MBA ’13. “Everything we do is geared towards moving perishable inventory faster to benefit brands, retailers, consumers, and the planet.”

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Li-Huei Tsai underscores the need for the Alzheimer’s research community to “acknowledge the gaps in the current approach to curing the disease and make significant changes in how science, technology, and industry work together to meet this challenge.” Tsai adds: “With a more expansive mode of thinking, we can bridge the old innovation gaps and cross new valleys of discovery to deliver meaningful progress toward the end of Alzheimer’s.”

Prof. Stuart Madnick shares tips with NBC reporter Mike Manzoni about how to shop safely online this holiday season and protect your personal information. “If you get a notice from Best Buy that they are having a sale, that is relatively benign. If they ask you to fill in credit card information, then you want to be real cautious,” says Madnick.

Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, and Luke Yoquinto, a research associate at the AgeLab, emphasize the importance of increased investment in aging-related research in an article for The Boston Globe. Coughlin and Yoquinto call for “ramping up age-related disease research across the board: not just in health care and robotics, but also in smart-home tech, user design, transportation, workplace technologies, education and training, and nutrition. R&D in these fields won’t just improve lives; it will also strengthen tomorrow’s economy.”

A new report by researchers from MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab, the Migration Policy Institute and the World Food Programme investigates the motivations and costs of migration from Central America, and finds that migrants spend $2.2 billion every year trying to reach the U.S., reports Catherine E. Shoichet for CNN.  "That is an extreme amount of money," explains Prof. Sarah Williams. "That $2.2 billion is all paid for by the migrants themselves, so the risks, both in terms of debt and personal risk, is borne by the migrant."

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Li-Huei Tsai underscores the need for the Alzheimer’s research community to “acknowledge the gaps in the current approach to curing the disease and make significant changes in how science, technology, and industry work together to meet this challenge.” Tsai adds: “With a more expansive mode of thinking, we can bridge the old innovation gaps and cross new valleys of discovery to deliver meaningful progress toward the end of Alzheimer’s.”

Writing for Popular Science, Sarah Scoles spotlights DAILy (Developing AI Literacy) initiative, a project by MIT researchers and students aimed at teaching middle schoolers “the technical, creative, and ethical implications of AI, taking them from building PB&Js to totally redesigning YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.”

CNET science writer Monisha Ravisetti spotlights MIT researchers who have successfully recorded the scale formation of butterfly wings during its transformation. “Understanding their schematics could ultimately benefit constructed materials like windows and thermal systems and even bring an ethereal quality to textiles,” writes Ravisetti.

Andy Rivkin ’91 speaks with Boston Globe reporter Andrew Brinker about his work on NASA’s DART mission, which is aimed at testing whether a rocket could be used to help steer an asteroid away from Earth. “I’ve always been interested in stars and space and planets since I was a kid,” said Rivkin. “At MIT, I was in the earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences department, and that’s when I started looking at asteroids. And then as a graduate student, I studied asteroids. And then I ended up doing my dissertation on them. It sort of all started [at MIT].”

MIT Provost Martin Schmidt has been named the next president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where he received his undergraduate degree, reports the Associated Press. “Marty is a unifying, visionary leader, and a renowned scholar in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science," said Arthur F. Golden, chair of the Rensselaer Board of Trustees.

MIT researchers developed a new control system for the mini robotic cheetah that allows the robot to jump and traverse uneven terrain, reports Jules Suzdaltsev for Mashable. “There’s a camera for processing real-time input from a video camera that then translates that information into body movements for the robot,” Suzdaltsev explains.