MIT has been named the best university for social sciences degrees in the United States for 2023 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. “All undergraduate students at MIT take classes in the arts and social sciences and many end up taking joint degrees between the sciences and the social sciences,” writes Times Higher Education.
Researchers from MIT and Mass General Hospital have developed “a deep learning model named ‘Sybil’ that can be used to predict lung cancer risk, using data from just a single CT scan,” writes Sai Balasubramanian for Forbes. “Sybil is able to predict a patient’s future lung cancer risk to a certain extent of accuracy, using the data from just one LDCT [low-dose computed tomography scan],” writes Balasubramanian.
GBH reporter Esteban Bustillos spotlights graduate student Karenna Groff '22, the NCAA Woman of the Year, and her efforts to make a difference both on and off the field, from her work as an EMT at MIT to her efforts to reduce maternal mortality in southern India. “Using sports as a platform to drive forward equity in all these different walks of life has always been something that I want to be a part of,” explains Groff.
The Economist highlights several studies by MIT researchers on income inequality and wages in the U.S., noting that “Clem Aeppli of Harvard and Nathan Wilmers of MIT found that earnings inequality basically reached a plateau after 2012.” Additionally, Prof. David Autor and his colleagues have found that wages for the bottom half of workers have been growing roughly two percentage points faster than for the upper half of workers.
Prof. Admir Masic speaks with NPR host Scott Simon about the concrete blend used by the ancient Romans to build long standing infrastructures. “We found that there are key ingredients in ancient Roman concrete that lead to a really outstanding functionality property in the ancient mortar, which is self-healing,” explains Masic.
Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds the “future energy required to run just the computers on a global fleet of autonomous vehicles could generate as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world today.”
Using statistical modeling, MIT researchers have found that the energy needed to power a fleet of fully autonomous EVs could generate as much carbon emissions as all the world’s data centers combined, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science.
Natalia Rodriguez ’09 speaks with Diverse Issues in Higher Education reporter Pearl Stewart about her work as a biomedical engineer focused on community healthcare. “I work to bring health technologies from the lab to the people, and I also work to bring the needs, the priorities and the strengths of communities back to engineers so they know who they’re designing for,” Rodriguez explains.
MIT spinoff E Ink, an ePaper technology company, has developed new color technology to provided stronger color displays for their devices, reports Harri Weber for TechCrunch. “Eventually, E Ink aims to build a magazine reading experience that’s good enough to win over even the most demanding publishers,” E Ink U.S. business lead Timothy O’Malley ’93 tells TechCrunch.
Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum speaks with Wired reporter Will Knight about AI image generators and the limitations of AI tools. “It's amazing what they can do,” says Tenenbaum, “but their ability to imagine what the world might be like from simple descriptions is often very limited and counterintuitive.”
Forbes reporter Stuart Anderson highlights Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87, a member of the MIT Corporation, and Prof. Hari Balakrishnan as two immigrants who have developed innovative technologies and startups.
Deepak Dugar MBA ’13, PhD ’13 founded Visolis, a biomanufacturing company developing carbon-negative, high-performance materials, reports John Cumbers for Forbes. “We use biology to make platform molecules. And then we use chemistry to turn them into a lot of different products. Because of this unique combination, we have an advantage both in terms of market as well as cost of technology development,” says Dugar.
Boston Magazine reporter Kyle Paoletta spotlights Arthur Jemison MCP ’94, the Chief of Planning and Director of the Boston Planning and Development Agency. “People making the decision every day to be together and to grow together: I’ve always wanted to be in the middle of that,” says Jemison. “Building that bridge.”
Collage New Music, Boston’s longest-running contemporary music group, will be performing at MIT’s Killian Hall on March 12, 2023, reports Lloyd Schwartz for WBUR. Schwartz also notes that Professor Emerita Ellen Harris will be introducing the Boston Camerata production of “Dido and Aeneas” on March 18 at Pickman Hall.
Graduate student Matthew Groh discusses Detect Fakes, a research project he co-created aimed at teaching people how to detect deepfakes, with Wall Street Journal reporter Ann-Marie Alcántara. Groh recommends people pay attention to the context of an image or video, noting that people can “pay attention to incentives and what someone is saying and why someone might be saying this.”