In the Media

Prof. Jinhua Zhao takes a car ride through Boston with GBH “Curiosity Desk” host Edgar B. Herwick II to discuss the concerns and benefits of self-driving technology entering the city. “We pay a lot of attention to how good AV [Autonomous Vehicle] safety needs to be, but it’s important for us to understand how bad we have been—the current system is [bad],” says Zhao. “When human drivers are aggressive, they actually indeed pose a challenge on AV—which is that AV needs to learn how to be assertive. If you’re too conservative, you’ll just be stuck there going nowhere.”

An article by ZME Science reporter Jordan Strickler showcases FAAV, the flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle, by Assistant Prof. Raphael Zufferey that can dive underwater and take flight like an aquatic bird in order to take underwater measurements and samples. “Our dream vision is for oceanographers, marine biologists, and members of coastal communities to launch this robot from a boat, or from shore, and it would fly close to the area of interest, such as an iceberg or a port facility, or over a pod of whales,” says Zufferey.  

Associate Prof. Areg Danagoulian has developed a satellite equipped with specialized neutron detectors that he hopes will fill the gaps in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons in space without a way to verify satellites are not carrying them. “[I]f the concept proves to be practical enough to someone in charge, it could finally give us a way to verify that there really aren’t any nukes floating precariously over our heads,” writes Luis Prada for Vice. 

NPR’s Ari Daniel features a new, winged robot by Assistant Prof. Raphael Zufferey that can swim and fly like a diving bird. "Thinking of a wing that could operate in both [air and water] somewhat efficiently seems implausible," Zufferey recalls thinking. He plans to use the robot for a range of applications, including monitoring harmful algal blooms, fish stocks, and coastal erosion.  

Senior Research Associate Jim Walsh discusses the aftermath of recent airstrikes between the U.S. and Iran with Robin Young, host of WBUR’s “Here & Now.” “Neither side can force the other to do its bidding. So, we’re caught in this sort of stalemate,” says Walsh. “How can you cut a deal with another leader, or another country if you don’t believe a word they say, and you think they’re going to turn around and do the opposite thing tomorrow?” 

Research Affiliates Mathilde Poyet and Mathieu Groussin are featured by The New York Times Magazine reporter Jeneen Interlandi for their comprehensive fieldwork collecting diverse, microbial samples from communities across the globe to understand how differences in diet, lifestyle and industrialization affect microbiome health. “Microbes don’t like antibiotics, for obvious reasons,” Groussin says. “They don’t like C-sections, which rob them of the opportunity to colonize new human territory. And they hate ultra processed diets. All three of those are more prevalent in an industrialized world.” 

Gizmodo’s Ellyn Lapointe reports on a new paper from Associate Prof. Areg Danagoulian, which offers a  solution to verifying satellites aren’t carrying hidden nuclear weapons in space: an inspector satellite able to indicate the presence of uranium from neutron signals via sensor technology. Danagoulian’s proposal seeks to fill the gaps of The Outer Space Treaty (OST), established in 1967 and signed by 118 countries to ban nuclear weapons in space, which “has always lacked robust means of verification for space-based nuclear threats,” says Danagoulian. 

In a new study, Associate Prof. Areg Danagoulian proposes a satellite-based sensor that could monitor suspicious craft for signs of nuclear activity in space with 99% accuracy, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “You can fake intelligence, but you can’t fake physics,” says Danagoulian. “The goal right now is to get national labs to use this work for their own research, and to get policymakers to seriously consider this technology as a potential part of national technical means.” 

Scientific American’s Adam Kovac highlights a paper by Associate Prof. Areg Danagoulian that proposes a satellite to detect and police hidden nuclear weapons in space by detecting spallation, the ejection of neutrons, from the bombardment of high energy protons, and uranium atoms. “If you detect those neutrons, that itself can be a telltale sign that there is an unusual amount of uranium on the satellite, and it’s most likely to be a nuclear weapon,” Danagoulian says.

Prof. Thomas Levenson speaks with Financial Times’ “The Story of Money” podcast hosts, Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth, about his book, Money for Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism and how the South Sea Bubble, the 1720 stock market crash surrounding the British South Sea Company, compares to the current political climate. “One of the things about the South Sea Bubble itself is it’s almost always told as a morality tale: look at what greed does for you. It drives you mad, it ruins nations,” says Levenson. 

Financial Times reporter Michael Peel features CubeSat, a proposed satellite sensor by Associate Prof. Areg Danagoulian, able to identify hidden nuclear weapons in space.  “If one state suspects another of placing a nuclear weapon in orbit, the absence of a verification mechanism makes the crisis harder to manage,” says Danagoulian. “If a bad-faith actor knows that their attempt will be discovered via inspection, they will be more likely to decide it's not worth pursuing.” 

CNBC’s Greg Iacurci interviews Prof. Andrew Lo about the potential pitfalls of relying on AI for financial advice. “One of the things about LLMs [Large Language Models] that I find particularly concerning is that no matter what you ask it, it’ll always come back with an answer that sounds authoritative, even if it’s not,” says Lo. “When it comes to very, very specific calculations of your own personal situation, that’s where you have to be very, very careful.”

Times Higher Education ranks MIT as the number one university for business degrees in their 2026 World University Rankings list, highlighting the Sloan School of Management’s MBA courses, executive training programs, and broad undergraduate management course offerings. “There is an emphasis on innovation across all these topics. Many influential new ideas in business, including the field of system dynamics, were born out of work at the Sloan School.”

WBUR’s Amelia Mason highlights the MIT Museum’s acquisition of the project archives of renowned architect I.M. Pei ’40, which includes details from some of Pei’s most famous works, such as the Louvre’s glass pyramid and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. “ It's an exciting moment for MIT,” says Jonathan Duval, MIT Museum assistant curator of architecture. “I.M. Pei's archive really belongs here. This is where he started his architectural career and education. It’s a homecoming.”

In a Bloomberg article, reporter Robb Mandelbaum highlights the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute (AIDE), a new venture by senior lecturer Paul Cheek, which delivers an indexed ranking of how 337 S&P 500 companies are deploying AI and how their implementation and strategy compares to their competitors. “Everybody now needs to be bringing AI literacy into their organization,” Cheek says. “I want my students going in with a very adaptable mindset that best prepares them to apply AI.”