In the Media

A new working paper co-authored by MIT researchers finds that federal investment in R&D leads to increased private sector R&D spending, reports Jamie Powell for the Financial Times.

Quartz reporter Sarah Scoles spotlights research scientist Christopher Carr’s work developing “autonomous tools that could someday travel to Mars, collect samples, extract their genetic material, and sequence it—no humans required.”

Prof. Simon Johnson writes for The Wall Street Journal about the impact of health care plans on American businesses and entrepreneurs, and examines Senator Elizabeth Warren’s health care proposal. Johnson notes that, “if health-care costs continue to grow unchecked, America’s businesses will be ruined.”

MIT students Phoebe Li and Amber VanHemel speak with NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro about their quest to set a new world record for the longest hot dog toss and catch. “We found the easiest way to throw the hot dog was to throw at end over end so that it would kind of just spin like a Ferris wheel towards Amber,” says Li.

Writing for USA Today, senior lecturer Sharmila C. Chatterjee explores how brick-and-mortar stores can compete with online retailers. “As long as brick-and-mortar retailers play to their strengths by integrating with online, developing creative partnerships, and providing customers with stimulation, meaningful human interactions, and unique offerings, there is room for both to thrive,” Chatterjee writes.

Nature reporter Ewen Callaway spotlights a study by MT researchers that finds scooped papers receive only a quarter fewer citations than papers that were the first to report the same discovery. “You get a meaningful advantage for being first, but being scooped may not be as devastating as people seem to fear,” says graduate student Carolyn Stein.

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, research scientist Matthias Winkenbach explores the feasibility of using drones for package delivery. “Many demonstration and research projects around the world have shown the technology behind drone delivery can work,” writes Winkenbach. “Only economic and regulatory reality—rather than hype fueled by the venture-capital world—will determine whether it is commercially viable.”

TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes that MIT researchers have developed a new robotic platform that can perform experimental trials numerous times. Coldewey explains that the platform can not only perform an experiment, but can also “intelligently observe the results, change the setup accordingly to pursue further information, and continue doing that until it has something worth reporting.”

Symmetry Magazine spotlights the work of Prof. Kerstin Perez, what inspired her to become a physicist and her favorite part of the experimental process. "I like building things with a small group of people who are all trying to get something to work,” she says. “I find that really exciting.”

Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear spotlights MIT students Phoebe Li and Amber VanHemel and their mission to set a new Guinness World Record for the world’s longest hot dog toss. “I definitely have a knack for weird things,” says VanHamel of the inspiration for this feat. “The more random the better.”

Inverse reporter Mike Brown writes that MIT researchers have developed a new transparent coating for solar panels that improves electrical conductivity. “The ability of our vapor deposited conducting polymer layers to integrate into next-generation light-weight solar cells has the potential to simplify the roof top installation process,” explains Prof. Karen Gleason.

Motherboard reporter DJ Pangburn writes that a new immersive interactive art exhibit developed by MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality shows a deepfake video of President Richard Nixon delivering an alternate moon landing speech. “Rather than exploring deepfakes within the context of current news, the team was thinking about what it meant to retroactively rewrite a past event,” writes Pangburn.

MIT researchers have developed a protective coating to help seeds grow in currently unusable soil, reports Kristin Toussaint for Fast Company. “If you go to Morocco, you see land that was fertile 10 years ago is not fertile now due to the salinity of the soil, so our plan is to try to mitigate that,” explains Prof. Benedetto Marelli. 

WGBH's Craig LeMoult reports that MIT is teaming up with Harvard, G.E., Fujifilm and five area hospitals to build a center dedicated to new genetic and cell therapies. “How we make the medicines better, not just how we make better medicines — that is what this facility can really enable," explains Associate Provost Krystyn Van Vliet.

In an article for USA Today, Prof. Ariel White examines how incarceration impacts voting in the U.S. “State lawmakers and election officials must act swiftly to ensure that detained individuals can exercise their right to vote,” writes White. “Local sheriffs and election officials should make plans to facilitate jail voting.”