In the Media

Researchers from MIT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have developed a theoretical, high-performance transaction processor for a Central Bank Digital Currency using open-source software, reports Jason Brett for Forbes. "What is clear is that open-source software provides an important way to collaborate, experiment, and implement,” says Neha Narula, director of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative. “In addition to supporting collaboration, monetary systems benefit from transparency and verifiability, which open-source offers."

Fast Company reporter Mark Wilson writes that MIT researchers have developed a new type of material that is two times stronger than steel with just one-sixth the material bulk. “The material has implications for everything from how we build the gadgets we hold in our hands to the buildings we live in,” writes Wilson.

MIT researchers have developed a new material that is as strong a steel but as light as plastic, reports Michelle Shen for USA Today. “It can be easily manufactured in large quantities, and the use cases range from lightweight coatings for cars and phones to building blocks for massive structures such as bridges,” writes Shen.

Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Tom Metcalfe of NBC News about the Venus Life Finder missions, which will carry a robotic space payload partially funded by MIT alumni to Venus to search for signs of life in the planet's atmosphere. “Space is becoming cheaper in general, and there is more access to space than ever before,” says Seager. 

MIT researchers have found a way to use wastewater testing surveillance as a public health tool to identify infectious diseases, reports Marie Szaniszlo for the Boston Herald. “Wastewater testing first started with a discovery by MIT researchers is being used nationwide as an early warning sign,” writes Szaniszlo.

Boston Globe Magazine reporter Courtney Humphries spotlights MIT startup Biobot Analytics, co-founded by Mariana Matus ’18 and Newsha Ghaeli ’17, for using their wastewater and sewage tracking technology to identify Covid -19 in communities across the United States. “Because people shed the virus in their stool before they test positive, Biobot’s data are often a leading indicator of where the infection is heading, arriving ahead of case counts by a few days,” writes Humphries.

New York Times reporter Gina Bellafante spotlights a report from the Sloan School of Management which found that toxic work culture leads to a higher attrition rate than unsatisfactory pay. “Attrition rates in the financial sector hovered around 9 and 10 percent, several points higher than those for the health care and telecommunications industries and nearly twice as high as the figure for the airlines,” writes Bellafante.

Bloomberg reporter Janet Wu speaks with Katie Rae, CEO of The Engine. Rae explains that The Engine backs “those types of founders that are on a mission to do something that will be truly impactful in a positive way to the planet."

Researchers from MIT and Princeton University have found that flooding events will become much more common by the end of the century, especially in New England, reports Evan Bush for NBC. “The researchers used computer modeling to stimulate thousands of ‘synthetic’ hurricanes toward the end of this century and in a scenario where greenhouse gas emissions are very high,” writes Bush.

Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP), a cryptographic method invented by three MIT researchers in 1985, enables authentication of private information without revealing information that could be compromised, reports Victor Shilo for Forbes. “ZKP has the potential to protect privacy in a wide range of cases,” writes Shilo. “By implementing ZKP, businesses and society can evolve to ‘open data 2.0’ where daily transactions are completed in today’s digital economy but without disclosing unnecessary sensitive information.”

New York Times reporter Amanda Morris speaks with Eric Baker, an avid outdoorsperson with chronic debilitating joint diseases, about the GRIT Freedom chair, an all-terrain wheelchair invented by MIT researchers. “With the new chair, Mr. Baker hops curbs, hunts, visits the beach, and can cross mud, rocks and gravel,” writes Morris. 

Forbes reporter Bryan Robinson spotlights a report by researchers from the Sloan School of Management, which found people are quitting their jobs because of toxic workplace culture, not low pay. “The report says toxic workplace culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to an employee quitting,” writes Robinson.

Boston Globe reporter Jim Puzzanghera writes that researchers from MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have developed experimental open-source software, called OpenCBDC, to help further examine a potential Central Bank Digital Currency.  Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative, said she was optimistic that they could develop a system that “can help preserve strong privacy for users.”

Boston Business Journal executive editor Doug Banks highlights new research from MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in developing two sets of computing source code for a hypothetical Central Bank Digital Currency. The researchers “selected concepts from cryptography, distributed systems, and blockchain technology to build and test platforms that would give policymakers substantial flexibility in the potential creation of a CBDC,” writes Banks.

Reuters reporter Jonnelle Marte writes that researchers from MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have developed two different approaches to processing transactions in a hypothetical digital currency. “The first phase of the multi-year project, dubbed ‘Project Hamilton,’ resulted in code that is capable of handling 1.7 million transactions per second,” writes Marte. “Researchers also found the ‘vast majority’ of transactions settled in under two seconds.”