In the Media

MIT News Press Center

IEEE Spectrum reporter Mark Anderson highlights how Prof. Jeehwan Kim’s research group has developed techniques to produce ultrathin semiconducting films and harvest the materials necessary to manufacture 2-D electronics. Anderson explains that the group’s advances could make possible such innovations as high-efficiency solar cells attached to a car’s exterior and low-power, long-lasting wearable devices.
October 19, 2018
EdX and seven partner universities are now offering nine fully fledged master’s degrees starting at just $9,000, reports Forbes contributor Josh Moody. “Existing industries are evolving while new fields are emerging, and there is a clear demand for the advanced knowledge needed to succeed in this new workplace,” says MIT Prof. Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX.
October 18, 2018
MIT researchers have developed a way to prevent the theft of sensitive data hidden on a computer’s memory, writes TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker. Storing sensitive data in different memory locations creates “clear boundaries for where sharing should and should not happen, so that programs with sensitive information can keep that data reasonably secure,” explains graduate student Vladimir Kiriansky.
October 18, 2018
Prof. Angelika Amon received this year’s Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her “contributions to finding significant solutions to curing human diseases,” while Profs. Chenyang Xu, Daniel Harlow, Matt Evans and research scientist Lisa Barsotti received New Horizons Prizes for “early-career achievements in their respective fields,” reports Xinhua.
October 18, 2018
Prof. Mark Harnett has found that each individual cell in the human brain could operate like a mini-computer, reports Clare Wilson for New Scientist. Wilson explains that “the study has revealed a key structural difference between human and mouse neurons that could help explain our superior powers of intelligence.”
October 18, 2018
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Eric Lander, president of the Broad Institute, argues for enabling cancer patients to become actively involved in cancer research. “Patients must have an active voice in decisions. Patient data should never be sold,” Lander writes. “Researchers anywhere should have rapid access to the de-identified clinical and genomic data, to ensure that anyone can make discoveries.”
October 18, 2018
Prof. Angelika Amon is a recipient of this year’s Breakthrough Prize “for her work on aneuploidy, irregularities in the number of chromosomes,” which could lead to a new understanding of cancer, writes Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Prof. Chenyang Xu, Prof. Matt Evans and research scientist Lisa Barsotti received New Horizons Prizes in physics, while Prof. Daniel Harlow received one in math.
October 18, 2018
MIT’s new college of computing represents the Institute’s “first fundamental restructuring in nearly 70 years,” writes Kaveh Wadell of Axios. The college is intended to connect parts of the Institute that have been “siloed from MIT's technology focus” and encourage students “to develop ‘bilingual’ skills: that is, to study computing and another discipline together.”
October 18, 2018
A study by MIT researchers successfully eradicated two strains of drug-resistant bacteria using encapsulated probiotics and antibiotics, writes UPI reporter Allen Stone. The researchers believe “these probiotics can replenish the gut microbiome after treatment with antibiotics,” and they hope to use this method to develop new types of bandages.
October 18, 2018
Sloan Prof. Zeynep Ton speaks with Andrew Hill of the Financial Times about The Good Jobs Institute, which she co-founded to help companies create better jobs. Ton suggests that retailers “simplify the way stores operate, standardize processes, train staff to fill multiple roles…and schedule more employees than are needed so they can perform better and engage with customers.”
October 18, 2018
The Media Lab’s Open Agriculture Initiative is releasing a Personal Food Computer, which uses the same algorithms as the lab and is “capable of growing four plants at a time,” reports Howie Kahn of The Wall Street Journal. Research scientist Caleb Harper hopes the PFC technology, which will be piloted in Boston-area schools, “will expand our knowledge of cultivation on a rapidly changing planet.”
October 18, 2018
Financial Times reporter Jemima Kelly reports that MIT researchers have developed a low-power chip that is hardwired to perform public-key encryption. Kelly writes that the chip is “potentially a game-changer for simple, low-powered products such as smart sensors used by industry to gauge things such as temperature and pressure, as well as health monitors.”
October 17, 2018
Taylor Pettaway of the Boston Herald writes that MIT’s new college of computing will be one of the university’s largest structural changes made since 1950. Offering classes in different fields, “students will be able to experience on campus new computational tools and these new abilities transform academics on campus with every study,” says Provost Martin Schmidt.
October 16, 2018
President L. Rafael Reif joins Bloomberg Bay State Business to speak with hosts Peter Barnes, Janet Wu and Pat Carroll about MIT’s $1 billion commitment to furthering the study of computer science and AI through a new college for computing.
October 16, 2018
MIT’s new college of computing will teach students how to apply computer science and artificial intelligence in their specific field of study, writes Dave Gershgorn for Quartz. Gershgorn notes that researchers studying the impact of AI on society “have consistently suggested the expansion of interdisciplinary education, on the grounds that computer scientists can sometimes overlook the nuances of other fields.”
October 15, 2018