MIT researchers have developed reconfigurable, self-assembling robotic cubes embedded with electromagnets that allow the robots to easily change shape, reports John Koetsier for Forbes. “If each of those cubes can pivot with respect to their neighbors you can actually reconfigure your first 3D structure into any other arbitrary 3D structure,” explains graduate student Martin Nisser.
To celebrate the list of known exoplanets topping 5,000, New York Times reporter Becky Ferreira spoke with astronomers, actors and astronauts about their favorite exoplanets or exoplanetary systems. “TOI-1233 is an outstanding planetary system with its high number of transiting planets, sunlike host star and its proximity to the solar system,” says postdoc Tansu Daylan of the system he detected along with two high school students he was mentoring.
Educators from the Asia School of Business and MIT have developed a course aimed at teaching central bankers how the market is impacted by bottlenecks and how monetary policy can help, reports Enda Curran for Bloomberg. “The curriculum covers topics that include crisis prevention, behavioral finance, cybersecurity, digital currencies, and ethics,” writes Curran.
Writing for The New York Times, Steven Simon, a fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, and Jonathan Stevenson of the International Institute for Strategic Studies explore the Biden administration’s response to Russia’s nuclear threats. “The United States and NATO should be less deferential to Mr. Putin’s attempt to wield the threat of nuclear weapons,” they write, “not only for the sake of supporting Ukraine but also to ensure global geopolitical stability in the future.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Boston Public Radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about his latest research on a program designed to increase health care access to immigrants across New York. “We reached out through a variety of mechanisms through non-government organizations through social media and we offered them a program to improve their healthcare. We brought them in and what we did was basically just connect them with doctors,” says Gruber.
David J. Collins MA ’59, a pioneer in creating a system to identify railcars and developing a way to scan bar codes with flashes of light, has died at the age of 86, reports James R. Hagerty for The Wall Street Journal. “By developing a system to identify railcars, he helped turn bar codes and their derivatives into an inescapable badge of modern life, used to identify merchandise, inventories, packages and people getting on airplanes,” writes Hagerty.
Boston Globe reporter Michael Blanding spotlights Prof. Hugh Herr’s work with Dr. Matthew Carty in developing a new amputation surgery called agonist-antagonist myoneural interface (AMI) procedure, which reconnects muscles to amplify electrical signals sent along the nerves. “My dream as a scientist is that a person with an arm amputation could play a Beethoven piece at normal speeds and dexterity – and for legs, that a person could dance ballet,” says Herr.
CSAIL researchers have developed a new technique that could enable robots to handle squishy objects like pizza dough, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “The system is separated into a two-step process, in which the robot must first determine the task and then execute it using a tool like a rolling pin,” writes Heater. “The system, DiffSkill, involves teaching robots complex tasks in simulations.”
Researchers from MIT and other institutions have developed a new simulation that illuminates how stars formed in the early universe, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. “It was a neutral, dark cosmos that became bright and ionized as light began to emerge from the first galaxies,” explains Aaron Smith, a NASA Einstein Fellow in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with Olivia Rockeman of Bloomberg about how the large number of vacant cybersecurity positions across the U.S. is cause for concern amid the growing risk of Russian cyberattacks.
The MIT AI Hardware Program is aimed at bringing together academia and industry to develop energy-optimized machine-learning and quantum-computing systems, reports Katyanna Quach for The Register. “As progress in algorithms and data sets continues at a brisk pace, hardware must keep up or the promise of AI will not be realized,” explains Professor Jesús del Alamo. “That is why it is critically important that research takes place on AI hardware."
Mashable reporter Emmett Smith spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new technique to clear dust from solar panels without using water. The new method uses “electrostatic repulsion, where an electrode that glides above the panel electrically charges dust particles and subsequently repels them.”
TechCrunch reporters Christine Hall, Anita Ramaswamy, Connie Loizos and Mary Ann Azevedo spotlight Sribuu, an AI-powered personal financial advisor in Indonesia, co-founded by Nadia Amalia ’20. The company is aimed at helping “users make better money decisions with our wealth management tools and give personalized saving advice based on their financial habits,” they write.
Prof. Ekene Ijeoma speaks with KUER’s Ivana Martinez about his group’s art project, “A Counting,” which spotlights people counting to 100 in their native languages. “I think [this is] speaking to ideas of what it means to live in this diverse society,” said Ijeoma. “And whether or not we're able to live up to the dream of this society, which is — we're a multicultural place. Can we actually be that?”
MIT researchers have utilized a new reinforcement learning technique to successfully train their mini cheetah robot into hitting its fastest speed ever, reports Matt Simon for Wired. “Rather than a human prescribing exactly how the robot should walk, the robot learns from a simulator and experience to essentially achieve the ability to run both forward and backward, and turn – very, very quickly,” says PhD student Gabriel Margolis.