Researchers at MIT have discovered that pictures of food appear to stimulate strong reactions among specific sets of neurons in the human brain, a trait that could have evolved due to the importance of food for humans, reports Sascha Pare for The Guardian. “The researchers posit these neurons have gone undetected because they are spread across the other specialized cluster for faces, places, bodies and words, rather than concentrated in one region,” writes Pare.
Prof. Joshua Angrist speaks with CNBC about how his research on schooling and education has helped shaped government policy. “We don’t make specific policy recommendations, but we do encourage policy makers to look at the evidence,” says Angrist. “Whenever there is something on the public docket that is related to education policy, we always encourage both voters and politicians to look at the evidence.”
Prof. Sara Seager and her team have organized three missions to Venus to search for signs of life in the clouds surrounding the planet, reports David Axe for the Daily Beast. Each mission “would fling a probe into the toxic planet’s acidic atmosphere and collect data on the presence, or absence, of something resembling life,” explains Axe.
Jamie Earl White BS ’10, MS ’12 speaks with Fast Company reporter Clint Rainey about his startup, Unit of Work, which provides free consulting to workers trying to unionize their workplaces. “Our goal is to get resources to workers in underserved workplaces, but not make them a part of our own union,” says White. “We act more like consultants who help them get where they want to be with unionizing their workplace.”
Prof. Donald Sadoway and his colleagues have developed a battery that can charge to full capacity in less than one minute, store energy at similar densities to lithium-ion batteries and isn’t prone to catching on fire, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “Although the battery operates at the comparatively high temperature of 110°C (230°F),” writes Wilkins, “it is resistant to fire because it uses an inorganic salt that can’t burn as its electrolyte, the material that allows charge to flow inside a battery.” Sadoway explains that “this is a totally new battery chemistry."
Researchers at MIT have developed an artificial intelligence sensor that can track the progression of Parkinson’s disease in patients based on their breathing while they sleep, reports Conor Hale for Fierce Biotech. “The device emits radio waves and captures their reflection to read small changes in its immediate environment,” writes Hale. “It works like a radar, but in this case, the device senses the rise and fall of a person’s chest.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu notes that “the decline in popular support for democracy is greater in the United States than elsewhere, especially among the young,” reports Thomas B. Edsall for The New York Times. Acemoglu explains that “one way to address the discontent with contemporary democracy among so many voters on the right would be to implement traditional center-left economic policies, including many supported by the Biden administration,” writes Edsall.
Writing for The Hill, President L. Rafael Reif and Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman, CEO & co-founder of Blackstone, praise the new “CHIPS and Science Act” and highlight the need for further action on the ‘Science’ part of the law. “We urge Congress to capitalize on this bipartisan momentum and appropriate the funds that the bill authorizes,” they write. The nation's "future competitiveness, prosperity and security all rely on technological leadership. To sustain its strength in the long term, the U.S. needs to invent and manufacture the next new technologies.”
MIT researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence system that uses a person’s breathing pattern to help detect Parkinson’s sisease, reports Susannah Sudborough for Boston.com. “The device emits radio signals, analyzes reflections off the surrounding environment, and monitors the person’s breathing patterns without any bodily contact,” writes Sudborough.
Researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab have found that academics missed out on forming new connections during Covid-19 lockdowns, hindering academic collaboration, reports Tom Williams for Times Higher Education. “Colleagues associated more with previous collaborators, which could create closed loops of communication, rather than with new potential collaborators, which enables the critical exchange that stimulates research and innovation,” says postdoctoral researcher Daniel Carmody.
Researchers at MIT and other institutions have developed an artificial intelligence tool that can analyze changes in nighttime breathing to detect and track the progression of Parkinson’s disease, reports Casey Ross for STAT. “The AI was able to accurately flag Parkinson’s using one night of breathing data collected from a belt worn around the abdomen or from a passive monitoring system that tracks breathing using a low-power radio signal,” writes Ross.
Prof. Ariel Furst, and alumna Claire Beskin and Loewen Cavill were named the winners of the first annual MIT Female Founders Pitch, reports Stephanie MacConnell for Forbes. Furst’s company, Pharmor, has developed an inexpensive protective coating that allows microbes to be produced and transported in non-ideal conditions. Beskin’s company, Empallo, uses machine learning to unlock information on siloed patient data. And Cavill’s company, AuraBlue, has developed a wearable device that can predict hot flashes and enable a cooling pad to counteract the change in body temperature in menopausal women.
Loh Down on Science host Sandra Tsing Loh spotlights Prof. Cathy Wu and graduate student Vindula Jayawardana and their work developing a new method for self-driving vehicles that would help minimize idling at red lights. “In their method, self-driving can be taught to minimize stops at red lights. To make this work, traffic lights and self-driving cars would have sensors. This would let them check in with each other on their surroundings,” says Loh.
MIT scientists have discovered a new method to maximize wind farm output, reports Gwen Egan for Boston.com. “While there are pros and cons to this strategy, it’s possible that it could allow for smaller wind farms that take up less land to produce more energy,” says Prof. Michael Howland. “It’s critically important we do this now, as we embark on building much more offshore wind. We need to ensure that our future wind farms maximize efficiency to increase the pace of decarbonization.”
Researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology have examined the impact of tech startups working in close proximity, reports Cheryl Winokur Munk for The Wall Street Journal. The researchers found that “'knowledge spillovers' were greatest between dissimilar startups that worked within 20 meters (22 yards) of each other,” writes Munk. “Working in such close range allowed for socialization, which in turn led to idea sharing about the types of technology the startups were using as part of their overall tech infrastructure.”