A number of MIT researchers were named as top ten finalists for the Physics World 2021 Breakthrough of the Year. Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle and his colleagues were honored for their work in “independently observing Pauli blocking in ultracold gases of fermionic atoms” and astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration were honored for “creating the first image showing the polarization of light in the region surrounding a supermassive black hole.”
A new working paper co-authored by MIT researchers shows how the transition to remote schooling during the Covid-19 pandemic impacted student achievement, in particular for low-income and minority children, writes The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. The researchers found “the share of students who scored ‘proficient’ or above declined in spring 2021 compared to previous years by an average of 14.2 percentage points in math and 6.3 percentage points in language arts.”
Marcos Berríos ‘06, Christina Birch PhD ’15, and Christopher Williams PhD ’12 are among the ten selected to be a part of NASA’s 2021 astronaut candidate class, reports Emre Kelly for USA Today. “Flanked by T-38 Talon jets to be used over their two-year training course at Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA officials introduces the 2021 class of six men and four women in front of their families, friends, and soon-to-be colleagues,” writes Kelly.
Researchers from MIT and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology have found a vaccine ingredient that may strengthen immune response, reports Natalie Colarossi for Newsweek. This combination-style vaccine ingredient “may boost the effectiveness of inoculations ranging from HIV to Covid-19,” writes Colarossi.
Marcos Berríos ‘06, Christina Birch PhD ‘15 and Christopher Williams PhD ’12 have been selected as part of NASA’s 2021 astronaut candidate class, reports WBUR’s Bill Chappell. “Alone, each candidate has ‘the right stuff,’ but together they represent the creed of our country: E pluribus unum – out of many, one,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Marcos Berríos ‘06, Christina Birch PhD ‘15, Christopher Williams PhD ‘12 are among the ten astronauts selected for the 2021 NASA astronaut class, reports Breanna Kovatch for The Boston Globe. “The class of astronauts were selected from among 12,000 candidates and is the first class in four years,” writes Kovatch.
Writing for The Hill, Prof. Jinhua Zhao, Prof. Franz-Josef Ulm, Research Scientist Anson Stewart and Principal Research Scientist Randolph Kirchain explore how to maximize the impact and effectiveness of the infrastructure spending bill. “Here’s what we should do," they write. "Modernize planning tools to consider systems holistically, get out of technology ruts, and, most fundamentally, measure performance.”
Prof. Kristin J. Forbes has found that "those parts of the consumer-price index influenced by global factors, such as commodity prices, currency fluctuations and global value chains, drove half the changes in the index between 2015 and 2017, up from about 25% in the early 1990s," reports Yuka Hayashi for The Wall Street Journal.
Boston Globe reporter Kay Lazar spotlights how the Broad Institute “has become the region’s powerhouse for monitoring shifts in the genetic makeup of the coronavirus.”
Air & Space Forces Magazine reporter Amanda Miller spotlights the Department of Air Force-MIT AI Accelerator, which is focused on furthering the science of AI. Thanks to such a close connection with “a world-class academic institution,” said Col. Tucker Hamilton, “we’re making advancements revolutionary to the entire field—the entire world.”
A new study by Prof. S.P. Kothari and Prof. Eric So finds that payment for order flow is not bad for investors.The researchers found that “the price improvement for retail investors using Robinhood was better than price improvement that institutional investors receive when they trade small lots of public exchanges,” reports Felix Salmon for Axios.
Reuters reporter Andrea Januta writes that using computer models Prof. Kerry Emanuel has found that hurricanes in the North Atlantic have been growing in intensity and frequency as global temperatures have increasing. Emanuel “turned to computer simulations to recreate climate conditions for the last 150 years. Using three different climate models, he then scattered hurricane “seeds,” or conditions that could produce a storm, throughout the models to see how many seeds developed into storms,” writes Januta.
Graduate student Olumakinde “Makinde” Ogunnaike and Josh Sariñana PhD ’11 join Boston Public Radio to discuss The Poetry of Science, an initiative that brought together artists and scientists of color to help translate complex scientific research through art and poetry. “Science is often a very difficult thing to penetrate,” says Sariñana. “I thought poetry would be a great way to translate the really abstract concepts into more of an emotional complexity of who the scientists actually are.”
A new study by Prof. Kerry Emanuel examining the history of hurricanes finds that North Atlantic hurricanes are increasing in frequency and intensity, write Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow for The Washington Post. Emanuel “employed a novel approach to evaluate past storm activity,” they write. “Rather than relying on historical observations, which may have gaps, he performed climate modeling to reconstruct a continuous record of hurricane activity over the past 150 years from which to gauge trends.”
CNN reporter Ashley Strickland writes that NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission, has discovered an exoplanet approximately the size of Mars where a year lasts for about eight hours. “Astronomers are eager to learn more about these small planets that quickly spin around their stars in less than 24 hours because they are not sure how they form and end up in such an extreme orbit,” writes Strickland.