A new smart pill the size of a quarter, developed by a team of researchers from MIT, Caltech and NYU, could one day help doctors more easily identify issues in a patient’s digestive tract. “Such a device could offer an alternative to more invasive procedures in humans, such as endoscopy, that are currently used to diagnose motility disorders,” writes Nina Massey for The Independent.
Prof. Gio Traverso and his colleagues at Caltech and NYU have developed a smart ingestible sensor that may offer a less invasive way to diagnose gastrointestinal disorders. “The hope is the device will allow doctors, armed with the exact location of a GI tract disruption, to better target care — and give patients a diagnostic option they can use at home,” reports Lizzy Lawler for STAT.
Researchers from MIT and Caltech have developed a pill-shaped ingestible sensor that can be monitored as it moves through the GI tract, allowing doctors to more easily diagnose gastrointestinal disorders, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “The ability to characterize motility without the need for radiation, or more invasive placement of devices, I think will lower the barrier for people to be evaluated,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso.
Former Prof. Lael Brainard will be appointed as director of the National Economic Council for the White House economic team, report Jeff Stein and Tyler Pager for The Washington Post.
A study co-authored by Senior Lecturer Donald Sull found that the top factor in employee retention is corporate environment, reports Ellen Rosen for The New York Times. Sull says that a toxic work culture was “10 times more predictive of having a higher-than-industry-average attrition rate than compensation.”
Ronald McNair PhD ’76 was a part of NASA’s class of 1978, which was the first group of astronauts to include women, people of color, and scientists, reports Alexandra Witze for Nature. The class of 1978 “was a time of huge change for NASA,” writes Witze. “It was time for a new type of astronaut for a new type of spaceship.”
Bloomberg reporters Simon Kennedy and Chris Anstey write that Kazuo Ueda PhD ’80, who is expected to be named the Bank of Japan’s next governor, is one of the many prominent students of former MIT Prof. Stanley Fischer PhD ’69. The emphasis at MIT was “economics about the real world," said Fischer. “The faculty makes the place but the students also make the place. One of the reasons you go to MIT is because you have the best students in the world.”
Motherboard reporter Tatyana Woodall writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that AI models that can learn to perform new tasks from just a few examples create smaller models inside themselves to achieve these new tasks. “Learning is entangled with [existing] knowledge,” graduate student Ekin Akyürek explains. “We show that it is possible for these models to learn from examples on the fly without any parameter update we apply to the model.”
Associate Prof. Sarah Williams speaks with Erin Langer at Metropolis about the Civic Data Design Lab’s Motivational Tapestry, a large woven art piece that uses data from the United Nations World Food Program to visually represent the individual motivations of 1,624 Central Americans who have migrated to the U.S. “By allowing a dialogue to open up and be less defensive, art allows us to understand and conceptualize an issue from a different vantage point,” explains Williams.
Prof. Sarah Williams speaks with Erin Langer at Metropolis about the Civic Data Design Lab’s Motivational Tapestry, a large woven art piece that uses data from the United Nations World Food Program to visually represent the individual motivations of 1,624 Central Americans who have migrated to the U.S. “By allowing a dialogue to open up and be less defensive, art allows us to understand and conceptualize an issue from a different vantage point,” explains Williams.
Alumnus Kazuo Ueda has been nominated to lead Japan’s central bank, reports Toru Fujioka for Bloomberg.
Xander, an MIT spinoff founded by Alex Westner SM ’98, has developed glasses that generate real-time captions of conversations for the wearer, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “The glasses have their own processor and front-facing microphones and are designed to convert conversational speech into text captions,” writes Pressman.
Researchers from the MIT Center for Real Estate Research and elsewhere have found that high carbon dioxide levels can contribute to students achieving lower scores on standardized tests, reports Brandon Kochkodin for Forbes. “Poor air quality is a widespread issue that seems to affect the bulk of the student population,” says Prof. Juan Palacios.
MIT OpenSpace is hosting their annual Winter Family Day on February 25, 2023, reports Hanna Ali for WBUR. “The event promises hands-on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) programming for all ages, as well as live, local music, games and food trucks,” writes Ali.
MIT has been named one of best university in the U.S. for the economic value it returns to its students, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes.