Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Margery Eagan and Jared Bowen on Boston Public Radio about the ethics of offering vaccine booster shots in the U.S. when many nations are struggling with vaccine scarcity. “This is really a moment where, going forward, the world has to figure out a more effective strategy,” said Gruber. “We need to think about how we’re going to set up institutions to deal with these kinds of tradeoffs in the future.”
New York Times columnist Peter Coy spotlights a new working paper by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examining democracies. “Democracies breed their own support only when they are successful: all of the effects we estimate work through exposure to democracies that are successful in providing economic growth, peace and political stability, and public goods,” Acemoglu and his co-authors write.
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights LiquiGlide, an MIT startup that has developed a non-toxic lubricant that can be used to ensure each drop of a product slides out of the bottle, lessening waste and making recycling easier. “We all think when we throw a bottle into a recycling bin it will get recycled, but recycling is almost impossible when product is left behind and you need a significant amount of water to clean it,” says Prof. Kripa Varanasi. “So the reality is that some of this packaging actually ends up in a landfill.”
Matthew Shifrin writes for The Boston Globe about his personal experience using the TRANSFORM device created by the Tangible Media Group, an interactive display that fuses technology and design to render 3-D models in real-time. Shifrin, who is blind, notes that TRANSFORM allowed him “to track facial expressions like a sighted person would, and its larger size lets me feel the nuances that I can’t feel on a real face.”
Dezeen reporter Rima Sabina Aouf writes that MIT researchers have created an inflatable prosthetic hand that can be produced for a fraction of the cost of similar prosthetics. “The innovation could one day help some of the 5 million people in the world who have had an upper-limb amputation but can't afford expensive prostheses.”
Fortune reporter Nicole Gull McElroy spotlights how the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Master’s Degree program in Integrated Design and Management (IDM), “ is an effort to blend, in a first-of-its-kind approach, engineering and business degrees under the business school’s umbrella.”
“Real Talk for Change,” a new civic engagement campaign launched by MIT researchers, aims to give voice to regular people across the City of Boston, especially those who feel ignored, reports Meghan E. Irons for The Boston Globe. “We see this as the first step to building what I like to call a new civic infrastructure,’’ says Professor of the practice of community development Ceasar McDowell. “We need new ways to do democracy in this country that are really about honoring the experiences that people have on the ground.”
Wired reporter Max G. Levy writes that MIT researchers have developed a glue inspired by barnacles that can adhere to wet tissues and stop bleeding in seconds. “For us, everything is a machine, even a human body,” says research scientist Hyunwoo Yuk. “They are malfunctioning and breaking, and we have some mechanical way to solve it.”
Engineers at MIT have developed a soft, inflatable, neuroprosthetic hand that allows users to carry out a variety of tasks with ease, reports Emmett Smith for Mashable. “People who tested out the hand were able to carry out quite complex tasks, such as zipping up a suitcase and pouring a carton of juice.”
A new report by Prof. Justin Reich and Jal Mehta of Harvard proposes a new path forward for rethinking K-12 schools after Covid-19, reports Paul Darvasi for KQED. “The report recommends that educators build on the positive aspects of their pandemic learning experience in the years ahead,” notes Darvasi, “and supports increased student independence to cultivate a safe and healthy environment that is more conducive to learning.”
Tim Brothers of the MIT Wallace Astrophysical Observatory speaks with Boston Globe reporter Thomas Farragher about the importance of reducing artificial light pollution. “There are a lot of other reasons you should care about light pollution. Maybe it’s health,” says Brother. “The reason the bugs aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing — feeding or living or pollinating — is the same reason we’re not doing the right thing.”
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Amy Finkelstein explores the need to reign in prices of drugs administered by physicians. “Economists tend to favor letting the private sector set prices, but this requires a well-functioning market,” writes Finkelstein. “In trying to base its payments on what other customers pay, Medicare has distorted the market for physician-administered drugs beyond reason.”
Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu writes for Project Syndicate about why the U.S. and its allies never reconsidered a top-down state-building strategy in Afghanistan. “In viewing nation-building as a top-down, ‘state-first’ process, US policymakers were following a venerable tradition in political science,” writes Acemoglu. “The assumption is that if you can establish overwhelming military dominance over a territory and subdue all other sources of power, you can then impose your will. Yet in most places, this theory is only half right, at best; and in Afghanistan, it was dead wrong.”
Writing for The Guardian, Sam Levine spotlights Prof. Charles Stewart’s work investigating election administration during the 2020 presidential election. Levine writes that Stewart plans to “dig deeper into ballot rejection rates. Among rejected ballots, about a third went uncounted because of signature matching problems. Around 12% were rejected because the voter missed the deadline to return the ballot.”
Prof. John Sterman speaks with CNBC reporter Diana Olick about the impacts climate change will have on supply chains and how businesses can prepare. “What you want to do as a company is find ways to cut your emissions that also improve your resilience and generate other benefits for you, so that the risks that you face are lower,” says Sterman.