Washington Post reporter Ben Guarino writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds that mucus contains sugars that keep potentially harmful germs in check. Graduate student Kelsey Wheeler explains that the study identified that the sugars grafted to the mucins “is responsible for suppressing antagonistic microbial behaviors.”
New York Times reporter Jeanna Smialek writes that Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for their work developing new ways to identify the most effective policy solutions for helping the world’s poor. Prof. Benjamin Olken notes that their approach “has been tremendously influential in reshaping the field of development economics.”
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to MIT Profs. Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and Prof. Michael Kremer of Harvard, writes Delphone Straiss for the Financial Times. Duflo, the second women to women the Economics Nobel, notes that she hopes the award will “inspire many, many other women to continue working and many other men to give them the respect they deserve.”
The AP highlights Prof. Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee’s groundbreaking work aimed at reducing global poverty, for which they were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics. The laureates, “revolutionized developmental economics by pioneering field experiments that generate practical insights into how poor people respond to education, health care and other programs meant to lift them out of poverty.”
MIT Professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo were honored with the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for their work fighting poverty, reports John Detrixhe for Quartz. Detrixhe notes that the laureates “introduced a new approach to getting answers about how to fight global poverty: Their technique involves breaking substantial issues into more manageable questions.”
The AFP spotlights the work of Prof. Esther Duflo, one of the recipients of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics. The AFP notes that Duflo, “has brought fresh perspective to the field of development economics, treading a new path between proponents of huge transfers of aid to poor nations, and those who reject such help as a form of rich-world paternalism.”
Prof. Esther Duflo, who along with Prof. Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer of Harvard was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, speaks with NPR’s Scott Horsley about her research pioneering an experimental approach to studying and alleviating poverty. “The three of us stand for hundreds of researchers,” says Duflo, “who are part of a network that have worked on global poverty.”
New York Times reporter William J. Broad writes that researchers from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute have found that sunlight can degrade polystyrene, a common plastic found in trash, in centuries or potentially decades.
MIT researchers developed a 3-D model of a bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci and found that “not only did it work, but it would have also revolutionized bridge design five centuries ago,” reports Andrew Liszewski for Gizmodo.
Boston Globe reporter Murray Whyte spotlights the Alicja Kwade exhibit on display at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in a roundup of recommended museum shows this fall. Whyte notes that “Kwade brings her playful, monumental modernism to Cambridge with a new solo show.”
Boston Globe reporter John Ellement spotlights the work of John Goodenough, a longtime researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratory who received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on lithium-ion batteries. “During his time at the Lab in the early 1950s, Goodenough was a major factor in the creation of a new type of RAM,” Ellement notes.
Engadget reporter Christine Fisher writes that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that improves the speed and performance of video recognition models. Fisher writes that the new method “reduces the size of video-recognition models, speeds up training and could improve performance on mobile devices.”
Popular Mechanics reporter Jennifer Leman writes that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that uses radio waves to enable neural networks to spot activity through walls. The technology is low resolution and cannot identify faces and has been “proposed as a more secure alternative to visible light cameras, which can easily pick up a number of details.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal about mixing AI into cooking, Jaewon Kang highlights how MIT researchers developed an AI system that generates new pizza recipes. “MIT asked a chef to add final touches to these combinations and make sure they tasted good,” Kang notes. The researchers believe “collaborations between humans and algorithms generate the most creative results.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal David A. Shaywitz reviews Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee’s new book, “More From Less.” Shaywitz writes that McAfee “argues that when the ‘fuel of interest’ is joined with the ‘fire of genius’—that is, when incentive and talent combine—seemingly impossible things can happen, even environmentally friendly ones.”