MIT researchers have “developed a free-floating desalination unit consisting of a multilayer evaporator that recycles the heat generated when the water vapor condenses, boosting its overall efficiency,” reports Nell Lewis for CNN. “Researchers suggested it could be configured as a floating panel on the sea, delivering freshwater through pipes to the shore, or it could be designed to serve a single household, using it atop a tank of seawater,” writes Lewis.
In a letter to the editor, Professor Emeritus Donald R. Sadoway writes to The New York Times about the importance of developing new batteries that utilize readily available materials. “We need to attack it the old-fashioned American way: Invent our way out,” writes Sadoway. “This means devise a new battery chemistry that requires no cobalt, no nickel, no manganese and no lithium, but instead is made of substances that are earth-abundant and readily available here in North America.”
The Venus Life Finder (VLF) developed by scientists at MIT will be launched on a Rocket lab Electronic in May of 2023 to search for life in the upper atmosphere of Venus, reports Mark R. Whittington for The Hill. “When it plunges into Venus’ atmosphere it will use an instrument called the ‘autofluorescing nephelometer’ that will use a laser to illuminate organic molecules that may or may not exist 50 kilometers above the planet’s surface,” writes Whittington.
A new study by MIT researchers finds that women being excluded from studies on autism can hinder diagnoses and the development of useful interventions for women and girls, reports Gianna Melillo for The Hill. “Female diagnoses could be missed altogether and an already small pool of study subjects is further reduced,” writes Melillo.
Prof. Jessika Trancik says that the tax incentive in the Inflation Reduction Act may help encourage the transition to electric vehicles due to the income cap for people to qualify, reports Lily Jamali for Marketplace. “I think it’s really important to structure them in such a way that the benefits are equitably distributed across the population,” says Trancik.
Laila Shabir ’10 speaks with Washington Post reporters Jonathan Lee and Marlena Sloss about how the subtle cultural reinforcement of gender roles inspired her to found Girls Make Games, a summer camp where girls and nonbinary children learn the basics of video game development. “It makes sense that kids are attracted to video games because everything that games represent, kids are into,” Shabir said. “If we want to reach people, if we want to make a difference, I think video games have a massive societal influence and we should be tapping into that collectively. Not just on an individual level but as a society and as an employer.”
Prof. Emeritus Stuart Madnick and Keri Pearlson, executive director of Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan, write for The Wall Street Journal about the seven actions that corporate leaders can take to ensure that employees contribute to maintaining a secure organization. “New vulnerabilities emerge every day, as malicious cybersecurity actors find fresh ways to attack or infiltrate organizations. Technology can help, but it can only do so much,” write Madnick and Pearlson. “Just as important is a culture where all employees fill in the gaps—by noticing anomalies, questioning things that might look legitimate but are slightly off in some way, or stopping compromised processes that would otherwise proceed.”
Prof. Emeritus Stuart Madnick writes for The Wall Street Journal about the importance of transparency when companies are impacted by cyberattacks. “It has become clear that through laws and regulations, we need to increase the quantity, quality, and timeliness of cyberattack reporting,” writes Madnick. “Only by having more detailed information on who is getting attacked, how they are getting attacked and what is being stolen can everybody begin to arm themselves with the right defenses.”
Lecturer Mikael Jakobsson, Rosa Colón Guerra (a resident at MIT’s Visiting Artists program), and graduate student Aziria Rodríguez Arce have created a new board game, called Promesa, that more accurately reflects the reality of Puerto Rico’s history and people, reports Maria Parazo Rose for Popular Science. “The game is based on the real-life PROMESA act, which was established by the US government in 2016 in response to the island’s debt crisis, putting American lawmakers in charge of the country’s finances,” explains Rose. “To win, you must settle Puerto Rico’s bills and build up the country’s infrastructure, education, and social services.”
Prof. Edward Boyden has developed a new imaging technique called expansion-revealing microscopy that can reveal tiny protein structures in tissues, reports The Economist. “Already his team at MIT has used it to reveal detail in synapses, the nanometer-sized junctions between nerve cells, and also to shed light on the mechanisms at play in Alzheimer’s disease, revealing occasional spirals of amyloid-beta protein around axons, which are the threadlike parts of nerve cells that carry electrical impulses.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new cost-effective battery design that relies on aluminum ion, reports Robert F. Service for Science. “The battery could be a blockbuster,” writes Service, “because aluminum is cheap; compared with lithium batteries, the cost of materials for these batteries would be 85% lower.”
Temporal thermometers may be less accurate than oral thermometers in detecting fevers among hospitalized Black patients, reports Jacqueline Howard for CNN. This “really reflects the much bigger systematic problem that we have now in the way we design, we innovate, we develop health products – not just medical devices but also medications and interventions,” says Principal Research Scientist Leo Anthony Celi. “We really need to step up in terms of making sure that the research we perform is more inclusive so that we avoid these unintended consequences of the technology that we develop.”
Researchers from MIT are working with the Staten Island Performing Provider System to develop an algorithm that can predict who in the system is at risk for an opioid overdose, reports Maddie Bender for the Daily Beast. “In preliminary testing, Conte’s team and MIT Sloan researchers found their model was highly accurate at predicting overdoses and fatal overdoses, even with delays in the data of up to 180 days,” writes Bender.
Prof. Thomas Kochan writes for Fortune about how California’s new Fast Food Council can positively impact businesses, investors, employers, and workers. The council is “composed of industry, worker, and government representative to set minimum wage, safety, and employment and training standards for workers in large fast food chains and their franchises,” writes Kochan.
Lynn (Lynja) Davis ’77 speaks with Forbes about how after a 29-year career in engineering she has found online stardom as a content creator, with the cooking videos she creates with her son, Tim, scooping up millions of views. “Now I understand the phrase, ‘if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,’” says Davis. “I love making these videos with Tim because it’s so creative and collaborative, and it has made us so much closer.”