Jennifer Rumsey MS ’98 has been named the first female CEO of Cummins Inc., a truck engines and power-generation equipment manufacturing company, reports Brooke Sutherland for Bloomberg. “Rumsey’s technical background is exactly what Cummins needs right now as the company pivots from its legacy as a maker of diesel engines and plots its role in the energy transition,” writes Sutherland.
Ifueko Igbinedion PhD ’22, Marlyse Reeves PhD ’22 and Wharton alumni Isoken Igbinedion, and Simone Kendle founded Parfait, a company that uses technology to more efficiently design and create wigs, reports Ron Miller for TechCrunch. “The four women have built a solution that lets women simply choose a wig and answer a series of questions to come up with the final design,” explains Miller. “They have mixed this with machine learning to help with sizing and proper tinting, while bringing in human stylists to make the final decisions when needed.”
MIT researchers have developed a new system that enabled the mini robotic cheetah to learn to run, reports John Koetsier for Forbes. ““Traditionally, the process that people have been using [to train robots] requires you to study the actual system and manually design models,” explains Prof. Pulkit Agrawal. “This process is good, it’s well established, but it’s not very scalable. “But we are removing the human from designing the specific behaviors.”
Prof. Wanying Kang and her colleagues have found that “the way ice covers the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus suggests that the oceans trapped beneath it may be only a little less salty than Earth’s oceans,” reports By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. “The researchers found that saltier subsurface oceans correspond to thicker ice on a planet’s poles than over its equator and vice versa for less salty water,” writes Padavic-Callaghan.
Prof. Jesús del Alamo speaks with Ann Fisher of WOSU’s All Sides with Ann Fisher about the importance of supporting domestic chip manufacturing in the U.S., and the need to help encourage students to pursue careers in the semiconductor industry. “Universities and colleges train over 50% of the semiconductor workforce,” says del Alamo, “and so investing in education, investing in the infrastructure, both human but also physical infrastructure that supports education and research, is really critical in the long run.”
CAMP4, a startup founded by Prof. Richard Young, is developing a new class of RNA-based therapies to treat genetic diseases, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe. The “startup’s experimental approach will allow it to dial up the output of genes to treat genetic diseases, with an initial focus on a severe form of epilepsy and life-threatening live diseases,” writes Cross.
Fast Company reporter Nate Berg spotlights the work of Liminal, a non-profit research group developed by students from MIT and Harvard that is focused on sustainable development in small towns. “Liminal brought 18 architecture and urbanism students from MIT to Abruzzo for a three-week immersion in the region,” writes Berg, “to learn about local priorities and develop design visions for the future of its small towns.”
Institute Prof. Emeritus Peter Diamond speaks with Boston Globe reporter Scot Lehigh about the Fed’s attempts to control inflation. “My message to the Fed would be, yes, we need to cool the economy, but we need to go slowly in doing so, and see how this plays out, because we shouldn’t have confidence in our predictions,” says Diamond.
Scientists at MIT are developing a self-boosting vaccine that can provide multiple doses of a vaccine via a single injection, reports Darko Manevski for Newsweek. The technology “could be particularly useful for administering childhood vaccinations in regions where people do not have regular access to medical care,” writes Manevski.
Researchers at MIT and the University of Waterloo have discovered two properties of accelerating matter that they believe could lead to the direct observation of the Unruh effect, reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo. “We’d like to build a dedicated experiment that can unambiguously detect the Unruh effect, and later provide a platform for studying various associated aspects,” says Prof. Vivishek Sudhir.
MIT scientists are developing self-boosting vaccine technology that could allow people to receive all of their vaccine doses in one shot, reports The Economist. This technology “would be a game-changer, not only for future pandemics but also for vaccination programs in remote regions where it is harder to deliver boosters,” The Economist notes.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Ernest Moniz, former secretary of energy, makes the case for addressing climate change and energy insecurity collectively. “US decision makers in the public and private sector need to implement data-driven plans that reflect real needs and enable a credible and sustained energy transition to zero-carbon energy in the mid-century time frame,” writes Moniz.
Ross Trethewey, co-host of This Old House, visits Prof. Vladimir Bulović, director of MIT.nano, to learn more about the future of solar technology, including an electricity-generating film that can be applied to windows and other materials. “Dramatic advancements are on the horizon,” says Bulović. “We can make solar cells that don’t weigh very much at all so deployment of them on top of your roof could be as simple as unrolling a carpet and stapling it to the roof with a plug. Maybe your windows will be turned into solar cells.”
MIT researchers have created a thin, lightweight and flexible loudspeaker that is as thin as a few sheets of paper and can stick to most surfaces while producing high quality sound, reports Kendra Redmond for Science News Explores. “Because the design is so flexible and durable, companies could potentially integrate speakers into T-shirts or other personal items,” writes Redmond. “Or users could make their own.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniela Hernandez spotlights the work of Media Lab Research Scientist Andreas Mershin in developing sensors that can detect and analyze odors. Mershin “is focusing on medical applications of olfaction technology. Inspired by dogs that have demonstrated an ability to sniff out malignancies in humans, he’s working on an artificial-intelligence odor-detection system to detect prostate cancer.”