Washington Post reporter Justin Wm. Moyer highlights graduate student Ensign Christian Montgomery’s participation in the International Burn Camp, as part of an effort to support and inspire young people living with burn scars. “My scar is just something on my skin,” said Montgomery. “It’s not any deeper than that.”
NBC MACH reporter Denise Chow writes that researchers at MIT have created the blackest material to date using carbon nanotubes. “It was unexpected — like a proper scientific discovery,” explains Prof. Brian Wardle. “We were working on a new way to grow nanotubes, and when you make a new material, its properties may be interesting.”
Using a computing platform that applies unused processing power from home computers, researchers have solved a longstanding mathematical mystery by finding three cubes that sum to 3, reports Ryan Mandelbaum for Gizmodo. “Having access to this kind of computational power is like giving an astronomer a new telescope that is 100 times more powerful than any that existed before,” explains principal research scientist Andrew Sutherland.
MIT alumnus Cody Friesen, a professor at Arizona State University, has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for his work developing long-lasting rechargeable batteries and solar panels that extract drinking water from the air, reports Max Jungreis for The Boston Globe. Friesen’s innovations “are truly improving lives,” said Lemelson Foundation Executive Director Carol Dahl.
New Scientist reporter Donna Lu writes that researcher from MIT and several other institutions have found a solution to the mathematical problem known as the sum of three cubes, which asks “whether any integer, or whole number, can be represented as the sum of three cubed numbers.”
Inspired by CAST artist-in-residence Diemut Strebe, MIT researchers have developed a new material that is 10 times blacker than existing materials, reports Kendall Trammell for CNN. “The material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, which are microscopic filaments of carbon,” Trammell explains.
Prof. Sara Seager and postdoc Thomas Evans speak with WGBH’s Edgar Herwick about the quest to discover new planets in distant solar systems. “The hope one day is to find an Earth twin around a sun-like star and to be able to recognize it as such and to know that we’re not alone," Seager explains.
Prof. Brian Wardle speaks with CBC Radio reporter Carol Off about how, in collaboration with CAST artist-in-residence Diemut Strebe, his group has developed a new black material that absorbs 99.95 percent of visible light. Wardle explains that “the art really pushed the science in a different direction, which I think is an interesting and unexpected result.”
Forbes contributor Joe McKendrick spotlights a new report from the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, which examines the impact of AI on the workforce. “To achieve the optimum balance between AI and human initiative, the MIT team urges organizations to ‘redesign workflow and rethink the division of tasks between workers and machines.’”
Fast Company reporter Mark Wilson writes that a collaboration between CAST artist-in-residence Diemut Strebe and Prof. Brian Wardle led to the creation of the blackest material ever made. “It’s pretty interesting that the artist in my group influenced the science,” says Wardle. “Without that collaboration, we wouldn’t have looked.”
In a scientific development inspired by art, MIT researchers have developed the blackest material ever created using carbon nanotubes, reports Hannah Osborne for Newsweek. “The ultra-dark material could have practical applications in telescopes, helping to reduce glare while looking out into space,” writes Osborne.
Popular Mechanics reporter Dave Grossman explores how MIT scientists and artists have created the blackest material ever. Grossman explains that the material could have potential applications in fields including astronomy, “where it could assist space telescopes discover exoplanets.”
Motherboard reporter Becky Ferreira writes about how MIT researchers have created the darkest material ever developed using carbon nanotubes. “This is a proper unexpected scientific discovery," explains Prof. Brian Wardle. "I think a much blacker material can be engineered given things like morphology of the carbon nanotubes that we know how to control."
Boston Globe reporter Maria Lovato writes that MIT researchers have detected the ringing of an infant black hole, allowing them to calculate the black hole’s mass and spin. “This is very exciting; we’re going to be learning all types of things,” explains postdoctoral fellow Maximiliano Isi. “It’s a good time to be a gravitational scientist.”
Gizmodo reporter Victoria Song writes that MIT researchers have created a material that is 10 times blacker than any to date. The material is being made from “vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, which are microscopic carbon filaments. The engineers grew the carbon nanotubes on chlorine-etched aluminum foil, which then captured more than 99.995 percent of incoming light in lab testing.”