In the Media

MIT researchers have developed a new programmable, shape-changing smart fiber called FibeRobo that can change its structure in response to hot or cold temperatures, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “FibeRobo is flexible and strong enough to use within traditional manufacturing methods like embroidery, weaving looms, and knitting machines,” writes Paul. “With an additional ability to combine with electrically conductive threads, a wearer could directly control their FibeRobo clothing or medical wearables like compression garments via wireless inputs from a controller or smartphone.”

MIT researchers have designed a wearable ultrasound device that could help make breast cancer screening more accessible, reports Carrie Arnold for National Geographic.  “Early detection is the key for survival,” says Prof. Canan Dagdeviren. “Our humble calculation shows that this technology has the potential to save 12 million lives per year globally.”

Researchers from MIT and Harvard have found that an adult’s ability to “parse the early attempts of children to talk may also help the children learn how to speak properly faster,” reports Jess Thomson for Newsweek. “These adult listening abilities might help children communicate very early and highlight that speech is a good way to share information with others," says postdoctoral associate Stephan Meylan. "That said, there is a lot of diversity in how adults and children interact across the world, both within and across different social and cultural contexts. This means that there are very likely many pathways to understanding language."

Joy Buolamwini PhD '22 writes for The Boston Globe about her experience uncovering bias in artificial intelligence through her academic and professional career. “I critique AI from a place of having been enamored with its promise, as an engineer more eager to work with machines than with people at times, as an aspiring academic turned into an accidental advocate, and also as an artist awakened to the power of the personal when addressing the seemingly technical,” writes Buolamwini. “The option to say no, the option to halt a project, the option to admit to the creation of dangerous and harmful though well-intentioned tools must always be on the table.”

Graduate student Shayne Longpre speaks with Washington Post reporter Nitasha Tiku about the ethical and legal implications surrounding language model datasets. Longpre says “the lack of proper documentation is a community-wide problem that stems from modern machine-learning practices.”

President Biden has awarded Prof. Emeritus Subra Suresh ScD '81, the former dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the National Medal of Science for his “pioneering research across engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences,” reports Alexa Gagosz for The Boston Globe. Prof. James Fujimoto '79, SM '81, PhD '84, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM '84, and David Huang '85, SM '89, PhD '93 were awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, “the nation’s highest award for technical achievement.”

DUSP Lecturer Bruno Verdini PhD ’15 speaks with Jenn Williams of Foreign Policy’s “The Negotiators” podcast to discuss the 2012 Colorado River agreement between the United States and Mexico, and his book, “Winning Together: The Natural Resource Negotiation Playbook.” “If you are recognizing that the feedback loops in natural resource negotiations are going to be complex and unexpected as time goes by, you only have an ability to monitor, be flexible, and address new challenges if you’ve created a mechanism of trust, and in that mechanism implementation follows, even across different political perspectives,” says Verdini. “Because it is in your interest to keep complying.”

A number of MIT spinouts and research projects – including the MOXIE instrument that successfully generated oxygen on Mars, a new solar-powered desalination system and MIT spinout SurgiBox – were featured on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list.

As MIT’s fall semester was starting, President Sally Kornbluth spoke with Ben Wildavsky, host of the Higher Ed Spotlight podcast, about the importance of incorporating the humanities in STEM education and the necessity of breaking down silos between disciplines to tackle pressing issues like AI and climate change. “Part of the importance of us educating our students is they’re going to be out there in the world deploying these technologies. They’ve got to understand the implications of what they’re doing,” says Kornbluth. “Our students will find themselves in positions where they’re going to have to make decisions as to whether these technologies that were conceived for good are deployed in ways that are not beneficial to society. And we want to give them a context in which to make those decisions.” 

Joseph J. Kohn ’53, “who played a key role in extending the mathematics of calculus,” has died at 91, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. “Dr. Kohn studied how mathematical functions behave in the realm of complex numbers,” writes Chang. “This field is esoteric, even to many mathematicians. But the techniques that Dr. Kohn developed have found use in tackling a wide range of problems in mathematics as well as fundamental equations in physics, including Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”

Roofscapes Studio, an MIT startup co-founded by Olivier Faber MArch ’23, Tim Cousin MArch ’23 and Eytan Levi MArch/MSRED ’21, transforms rooftops into greenspaces as part of an effort to combat climate change and provide green spaces in cities, reports Kim Willsher for The Guardian. The team is looking to add, “wooden platforms fixed across the sloping panes to create roof gardens, terraces and even walkways,” in Paris to help prevent the city from overheating. 

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Mitchel Resnick explores how a new coding app developed by researchers from the Lifelong Kindergarten group is aimed at allowing young people to use mobile phones to create interactive stories, games and animations. Resnick makes the case that with “appropriate apps and support, mobile phones can provide opportunities for young people to imagine, create, and share projects.”

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a transparency index used to assess 10 key AI foundation models, reports Ryan Heath for Axios. Heath writes that the researchers emphasized that “unless AI companies are more forthcoming about the inner workings, training data and impacts of their most advanced tools, users will never be able to fully understand the risks associated with AI, and experts will never be able to mitigate them.”

TechCrunch reporter Kylie Wiggers spotlights the SmartEM project by researchers from MIT and Harvard, which is aimed at enhancing lab work using, “a computer vision system and ML control system inside a scanning electron microscope” to examine a specimen intelligently. “It can avoid areas of low importance, focus on interesting or clear ones, and do smart labeling of the resulting image as well,” writes Wiggers.

“Brief Tender Light,” a documentary by Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05, spotlights four African-born MIT students and their experiences with adapting to the culture and challenges in and out of the classroom, reports Celina Colby for The Bay State Banner. “The story of international students, or specifically African students, in the U.S. hadn’t really been told,” says Musah. “Stats that I’ve learned more recently say there are about a million international students in any given year studying in the U.S., of which about 40,000 are African. That seems like a substantial portion of the fabric of American society.”