WBUR reporter Pamela Reynolds spotlights the Alicja Kwade exhibit that will be on display at the MIT List Visual Arts Center starting in October in a preview of the top art exhibits to see this autumn. Reynolds writes that Kwade’s “alchemical treatment of familiar things may leave viewers questioning distinctions between past and present, fact and fiction.”
MIT researchers have developed a skin patch that could be used to fight melanoma, reports Berkeley Lovelace Jr. for CNBC. “Our patch technology could be used to deliver vaccines to combat different infectious diseases,” explains Prof. Paula Hammond. “But we are excited by the possibility that the patch is another tool in the oncologists’ arsenal against cancer, specifically melanoma.”
Profs. Thomas Malone and Erik Brynjolfsson discuss the future impact of humanoid robots on society with Jason Margolis of PRI’s The World. “The next 10 years could be the best 10 years we've ever seen or the worst decade, and that depends less on the technology and more on the choices we make,” Brynjolfsson says.
Reuters reporter Ann Saphir writes that Prof. Athanasios Orphanides recommended the Federal Reserve adopt a new monetary policy rule to help guide decisions concerning interest rates. “Monetary policy is most effective when it is formulated in a systematic manner, following a clearly communicated monetary policy rule,” Orphanides explains.
Research by Prof. Athanasios Orphanides examines the Federal Reserve’s efforts to improve communications, reports Nick Timiraos for The Wall Street Journal. Orphanides found “the quarterly summary of economic projections from Fed officials and its accompanying interest-rate projections, sometimes referred to as a ‘dot plot,’ would be more valuable if it expressed changes in officials’ uncertainty or confidence in their projections.”
MIT alumnus and philanthropist David Koch has died, reports Steve Peoples and Jennifer Peltz for the Associated Press. Koch was an ardent supporter of cancer research and “donated $100 million in 2007 to create a cancer research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
David Koch, an MIT alumnus known for his philanthropic work, has died at age 79, reports Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Lindsay Fortado for the Financial Times. Koch, who was a basketball star at MIT, “donated or pledged more than $1.3bn in total to causes including cancer research, hospitals and education."
Prof. Kristin Forbes discusses monetary policy, currency wars and what she considers the biggest risk to the global economy with Daybreak Asia on Bloomberg TV. “For me, the biggest concern is what happens next on trade wars and especially the uncertainty around trade wars,” says Forbes.
Tara Roberts, a fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, writes for National Geographic about her experience with Diving With Purpose, a nonprofit that funds “underwater archaeology advocates” who search for and document slave trade shipwrecks. “Fragments of these wooden ships are notoriously hard to find after centuries in the water, but such a small number of finds also points to a larger societal disinterest in their discovery.”
XiaoZhi Lim at The New York Times reports on a new study co-authored by researchers at MIT, which found that “by using a new class of electrolytes composed of ionic liquids, or salts that remain liquid at room temperature,” it may be possible for a supercapacitor to store as much energy as a lithium-ion battery.
MIT researchers have developed a new technique that uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR to create shape-shifting materials on-demand, reports Ewen Callaway for Nature. “The shape-shifting materials could be used to deliver drugs, and to create sentinels for almost any biological signal,” Callaway explains.
Prof. Kevin Esvelt describes the importance of community guidance for his work with Mice Against Ticks, a project that aims to use gene editing tackle Lyme disease. Even if we differ on whether to release engineered Lyme-resistant mice into the woods, ensuring that ecological engineering proposals start small and invite community guidance is a project everyone can support.
Writing for BBC News, Prof. Vipin Narang examines the potential implications of India re-evaluating its nuclear weapons policy. “The nuclear option will be on the table much quicker during a time of crisis,” writes Narang, “and Pakistan's peacetime posture may have to be prepared for more rapid use.”
MIT was named to CNBC’s list of the Top 5 colleges that pay off the most for business school students, reports Abigail Hess for CNBC.
Popular Mechanics reporter David Grossman writes that MIT researchers have designed a new experiment to help identify the rate at which oxygen in the universe is produced. Grossman explains that the study could “lead toward better being able to understand if a dying star will take on the form of a black hole or a neutron star.”