Research affiliate Pakinam Amer writes for The Boston Globe about her work with the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality creating a deepfake video reimagining the Apollo 11 moon landing. “The film is meant to raise awareness of the power of fake videos — and in turn, fake narratives — and the technology currently at the frontiers of synthetic media and at the center of many a conversation about truth and disinformation,” writes Amer.
Research affiliate Pakinam Amer writes for The Boston Globe about the dangers posed by deepfake technology. Amer writes that as deepfakes “become more widespread and more sophisticated, they’re provoking ever-deeper anxiety, raising questions about whether they can be used to influence political elections, or create a climate of fear and distrust.”
Boston Globe reporter Maria Lovato writes that MIT scientists have uncovered evidence that a mysterious burst of light at the center of the Milk Way may be caused by dark matter. The findings could allow astronomers “to get a better look at dark matter, its properties, and what it’s made of,” Lovato explains.
MIT researchers have found that dark matter may be the source of the gamma rays found at the center of our galaxy, reports Ryan Mandelbaum for Gizmodo. “If it turns out that the signal is dark matter, that’s huge for our understanding of the universe,” explains postdoctoral associate Rebecca Leane.
BBC Click reporter Paul Carter spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new simulation model that can be used to optimize the development of soft robots. Clark explains that the model “understands how springy, stretchy forms can move in an infinite number of ways.”
Senior lecturer Hal Gregersen writes for The Wall Street Journal about how employers can retain their best-performing employees in a competitive labor market. “The best managers are getting creative,” writes Gregersen, “not by offering higher pay pre-emptively, but by thinking more about what would make someone sad to leave, and about whether they are giving employees enough of those things.”
Verge reporter James Vincent writes that MIT researchers have developed a new dataset of images called ObjectNet that is aimed at testing the limits of computer vision. ObjectNet “consists of 50,000 images of objects viewed from weird angles or in surprising contexts,” writes Vincent. “The idea is that ObjectNet can be used to test and assess the capabilities of different algorithms.”
Writing for STAT, Gideon Gil highlights how researchers from MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center are developing a new operation that could improve the functionality and performance of prosthetic hands. “In the new surgery, the muscle couplings are recreated, using tendons as the pulleys linking opposing muscles,” Gil explains.
MIT Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo as well as Prof. Michael Kremer of Harvard, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, will donate their $916,000 in prize money to the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics. “The donations will fund research grants that support the work of development economists and students through 2035,” reports Abbi Matheson for The Boston Globe.
MIT will receive $260 million from the Lord Foundation of Massachusetts, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. “The unrestricted nature of these funds gives us the opportunity to use them to invest in pressing needs that are often difficult to support through other means," said MIT Provost Martin Schmidt.
Research affiliate Judah Cohen speaks with WGBH’s Edgar B. Herwick III about what distinguishes a Nor’easter, an extratropical cyclone powered by "strong differences in temperature," from other storms. As cold air from the Arctic meets warm water and air from the Gulf of Mexico, it creates “a very large temperature differential over a relatively short distance,” says Cohen. “And that temperature differential gives you the energy for these storms.”
Washington Post reporter Emily Langer memorializes Jeanne Guillemin, a research associate and senior advisor at the MIT Security Studies Program, known for her pioneering work investigating the history of biological warfare. Guillemin was a “sought-after analyst of biological warfare,” Langer writes, “blending anthropology, sociology and security studies into a distinctive expertise in a field where men had long outnumbered their female colleagues.”
Janelle Nanos spotlights Profs. Esther Duflo’s and Abhijit Banerjee work aimed at alleviating poverty as part of The Boston Globe Magazine’s “2019 Bostonians of the Year.” Duflo explains that she hopes to inspire future economists interested in tackling social issues, explaining that there “is this tool and way of working that allows you to immediately be helpful and have an impact beyond any individual project.”
Boston Globe reporter Murray Whyte spotlights Alicja Kwade’s new exhibit, “In Between Glances,” on display at the MIT List Visual Arts Center. “Kwade’s work is about nothing so much as the futile joy of trying to make sense of forces beyond our understanding, forces that govern reality at cosmic scale,” writes Whyte.
A new study co-authored by Prof. Simon Jaeger examines the impact of having worker representation on corporate boards in Germany, writes Edward Hadas for Reuters. The researchers found that “putting workers on the board leads to significantly more investment.”