Times Higher Ed reporter Matthew Reisz memorializes the life and work of Prof. Angelika Amon, a “trailblazing” scientist known for her research into the life cycle of cells. “Angelika existed in a league of her own,” says Whitehead fellow Kristin Knouse. “She had the energy and excitement of someone who picked up a pipette for the first time, but the brilliance and wisdom of someone who had been doing it for decades.”
Beth Baniszewski ’05 speaks with Boston Magazine reporter Scott Kearnan about the TurDunkin’, “a Coolatta-brined turkey covered in confetti sprinkles” and her food blog, Unwholesome Foods, which she started with friends at MIT.
Reporting for WBUR, Katie Lannan writes that Dalila Argaez Wendlandt SM ’93 has been confirmed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and will be the state’s first Latina high court justice. Lannan notes that Wendlandt “earned an MIT master's degree in engineering before embarking on a law career.”
Judge Dalila Argaez Wendlandt SM ’93 has been confirmed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, reports Matt Stout for The Boston Globe. Gov. Charlie Baker noted that Wendlandt will bring “intellectual horsepower, kindness, and grace” to the court.
Axios reporter Bryan Walsh writes that during the virtual AI and the Work of the Future Congress, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, noted that “education and training are central to helping the current and next generation thrive in the labor market.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that “changes in coronavirus levels in wastewater preceded rises and falls in positive test results by four to 10 days,” reports Kim Tingley for The New York Times. The findings suggest that “sewage surveillance could play an important role in helping contain the pandemic.”
Smithsonian reporter Rasha Aridi writes that MIT researchers have found that longing for social interaction elicits a similar neurological response to a hungry person craving food. The researchers found that “after a day of fasting, they noted that they were uncomfortable and had intense food cravings. After social isolation, they felt lonely and unhappy and yearned for interactions.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that lack of social contact can lead many people to crave interactions in a similar manner as they do when experiencing hunger, reports Katherine Dunn for Fortune. The researchers found that “10 hours without any social contact, for many people, led to a kind of psychological and physical craving that's on the same level of intensity as 10 waking hours without food.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines how the rural-urban divide is reshaping American politics. “Between 2016 and 2020, votes shifted most in the middle of that rural-urban continuum,” writes Stewart. “These regions’ voters are likely to be most prone to shifting again in 2024.”
Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, speaks with Annie Nova of CNBC about the Task Force’s new report, which lays out recommendations for ensuring Americans are able to secure good jobs in an era of automation. “We’re suggesting that people have access to affordable education and training,” says Reynolds. “I think there’s a real opportunity to help transition people and educate workers without four-year degrees.”
Prof. Martin Zwierlein speaks with Madeline Sofia and Emily Kwong of NPR’s Short Wave about his work with ultracold quantum gases and observing superfluid states of matter. “Luckily we have techniques to actually take rather beautiful pictures of this quantum soup of these whirlpools of individual atoms,” says Zwierlein, “to try and make it out of this invisible realm and make it very real, touchable.”
MIT researchers have uncovered evidence that humans crave social contact in the same way they crave food, reports Ali Pattillo for Inverse. The study, “provides empirical support for the idea that loneliness acts as a signal – just like hunger – that signals to an individual that something is lacking and that it needs to take action to repair that," explains former MIT postdoc Livia Tomova.
PlateJoy, a company founded by MIT alumna Christina Bognet, “offers a sophisticated digital platform that helps take some of the guesswork, challenge and waste out of eating for better health,” writes Elaine Howley for U.S. News & World Report.
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights Particles for Humanity, an MIT spinoff that is developing a new technology that makes it possible to deliver multiple doses of a vaccine in one shot. “The new technology works like traditional drug delivery,” writes Peters, “but with the addition of tiny time-release capsules filled with antigens, the part of the vaccine that stimulates the immune system so that it can later respond to a virus.”
Prof. Eric Alm speaks with New York Times Magazine reporter Kim Tingley about how studying wastewater can provide public health officials with advance warning of an uptick in coronavirus cases. “If you want to really understand what’s going on in a city on a basic chemical, biological level, you should be looking at the wastewater," says Alm.