In the Media

MIT has been named to The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education’s list of the top private colleges in the Northeast.

An app developed by researchers from MIT, Harvard and other institutions allows people to self-report Covid-19 symptoms, reports NBC Boston. “We are generating models to be able to predict the emergence of new infectious hotspots to be able to get finer, more gradual details in terms of where the virus has spread to," explains Prof. Feng Zhang.

Prof. Jonathan Parker speaks with Boston Globe reporter Tim Logan about how federal stimulus checks will help serve as a financial safety net for many recipients. “The purpose now is to make sure people survive,” says Parker. “We don’t want people going back to work right now.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Eric Sondheimer spotlights Archana Mohandas, who plans to attend MIT in the fall. “Running helped me balance my academics. Both went hand in hand. I don’t usually react to things, but it was definitely exciting,” says Mohandas of her acceptance to MIT.

Writing for the Financial Times, research affiliate Ashley Nunes argues that a bailout for the airline industry should include transparency about how airlines price services. “I realise that fees may be integral to an airline’s survival and agree that airlines should be allowed to profit,” writes Nunes. “I also believe that prices set by airlines should bear some resemblance to the actual cost of operating the flight.”

Steve Lohr of The New York Times chronicles how a team in New York, inspired by the open-source ventilator design from the MIT E-Vent group, developed a lower cost ventilator now in production. Lohr writes that the “hurry-up engineering feat” relied on human networks, and the network of MIT professors, students and alumni in particular stands out.  

Fast Company reporter Adele Peters writes that a new low-cost ventilator, which was based on an open-source design developed by MIT researchers, has been approved by the FDA for emergency use. Adele explains that the device “was inspired by a prototype previously developed at MIT that modifies a hand-operated ventilator so that it can pump automatically.”

MIT researchers have transformed the protein structure of the novel coronavirus into music as part of an effort to better understand how the pathogen functions, reports Reuters. “You would need many different images, many different magnifications to see with your eyes, what your ears can pick up with just a couple of seconds of music,” explains Prof. Markus Buehler.

TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that the Spiro Wave emergency ventilator, which is based on a design developed by MIT researchers, has been approved by the FDA. The prototype design was developed at MIT “as one way to alleviate the shortage that resulted from the COVID-19 crisis,” Etherington writes.

Members of a robotics team in Afghanistan are working to design a prototype ventilator with locally available components, and using a blueprint from MIT researchers to help inform their work, reports Tameem Akhgar for the Associated Press. “It will be excellent to see it tested and locally produced,” says Prof. Daniela Rus of the team’s effort.

The New York Times spotlights Prof. Kerry Emanuel’s book, “What We Know About Climate Change” in a roundup of recommended reading on climate change. “Emanuel sounds the alarm in a measured and scientifically sound way, making clear what we know and what we don’t know,” notes The New York Times.

Research affiliate Mohammad Haft-Javaherian speaks with PC Mag reporter Ben Dickson about how he was inspired during MIT’s Green AI Hackathon to consider the carbon footprint of the AI systems he was developing. “I changed my plan and stayed for the whole hackathon to work on my project with a different objective: to improve my models in terms of energy consumption and efficiency,” says Haft-Javaherian,

Profs. Simon Johnson, Kate Kellogg and Retsef Levi write for The Boston Globe about how to help protect both residents and staff at long-term care facilities from Covid-19. The authors note that testing must be immediately expanded, personal protective equipment must be supplied to front-line staff and increases in staffing and wages are needed to help reduce deaths.

Science reporter Warren Cornwall spotlights Prof. Lily Tsai’s research examining the most effective methods for encouraging people to follow public health guidelines. Tsai is currently working in Sierra Leone on developing a dynamic map “showing potential hot spots where cooperation could be difficult, and what kinds of actions are likely to help ease acceptance of physical distancing and other measures.”

Research fellow Christopher Barrett speaks with STAT reporter Elizabeth Cooney about new findings suggesting that some Covid-19 patients develop widespread blood clots and that blood thinners could be a potential treatment.