Writing for Wired, Ash Carter, an innovation fellow at the MIT Innovation Initiative, spotlights a number of “technologists, activists, and policymakers who are thoughtfully creating and using technology in ways to protect the public good and help shape a better future.”
Paul Ha, director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center, is serving as one of the advisors to Simone Leigh, the first Black artist selected to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale, reports Andrea Shea for WBUR.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. D. Fox Harrell, Francesca Panetta and Pakinam Amer of the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality explore the potential dangers posed by deepfake videos. “Combatting misinformation in the media requires a shared commitment to human rights and dignity — a precondition for addressing many social ills, malevolent deepfakes included,” they write.
Guardian reporter Fiona Harvey memorializes the life and work of Institute Professor Emeritus Mario Molina, known for his research uncovering the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer. Harvey notes that Molina’s work, “will also help to avert ruin from that other dire emergency, the climate crisis.”
NBC News reporters Lindsay Hoffman and Caroline Kim spotlight graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s work uncovering racial and gender bias in AI systems in a piece highlighting women who are “shattering ceilings, making groundbreaking discoveries, and spreading public awareness during the global pandemic.” Hoffman and Kim note that Buolamwini’s research "helped persuade these companies to put a hold on facial recognition technology until federal regulations were passed.”
Third-year student Casey Johnson speaks with Washington Post reporter Luz Lazo about his work exploring the feasibility of using GPS technology to determine when a scooter is on the sidewalk. Lazo explains that Johnson wrote a “surface categorization algorithm to detect the periodic cracks in a sidewalk. He then added an accelerator sensor — which costs less than $1 — to detect when the scooter is being used on an asphalt road versus a concrete sidewalk.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that Black Americans pay more than any other group to own a home, reports Anna Bahney for CNN. "The small differences compounding over the life of the mortgage and during home ownership can add up," explains Senior Lecturer Edward Golding. "Even if it is a few hundred dollars a year here and there, it can amount to another year's salary families would otherwise have."
Wall Street Journal Jason Gay spotlights a new study co-authored by Senior Lecturer Richard Price that explores the physics behind the spiraling flight of a thrown football. “Physicists get interested in stuff that bores other people,” Price explains. “When you combine torque with the gyroscopic effect of the angular momentum, the two work together, so that in an average sense, the spin axis is very close to tangent to the path.”
Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about his research examining the impact of social media on everything from business re-openings during the Covid-19 pandemic to politics.
Institute Professor Emeritus Mario Molina, known for his work demonstrating the risk of CFCs to the ozone layer, has died at age 77, reports Emily Langer for The Washington Post. Langer notes that Molina was also “a prominent voice in debates about how best to combat climate change.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, argues that the U.S. needs to take steps to ensure that "science benefits society and society trusts science…In the 2020s, the decision-making must include a much wider range of people, who will need to be prepared to grapple thoughtfully with hard choices.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that Black homeowners in America continue to have to pay more to own a home, reports Reuters. The researchers found that “the annual difference of $743 in mortgage interest payments, $550 in mortgage insurance premiums and $390 in property taxes, when invested over 30 years results in lost retirement savings of $67,320 for Black homeowners.”
MIT Prof. Charles Stewart III and Stanford Prof. Nathaniel Persily write for The Washington Post about a new survey they conducted that finds “registered voters harbor worries about voting in this election that diverge in predictable ways, given their partisan affiliations. Despite these worries, most are confident that their ballots will be counted accurately.”
In an article for The Guardian, Prof. Kathleen Thelen explores how the U.S. media can help ensure the credibility of the upcoming presidential election. “We need bipartisan and authoritative panels to work with the networks as returns start to come in,” write Thelen and her co-authors. “Ideally, the media should create an independent panel of election certification, drawn from a diverse body of experts representing both major parties.”
Writing for The Hill, Martin Greenwald, deputy director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, explores the potential of fusion power. Greenwald examines how recent advances in high-temperature superconductors and recent investments in fusion technology from the private sector could “alter the landscape and offer the possibility of a dramatic speed-up in the development of this new energy source.”