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.”
MIT researchers have developed a new color-changing ink that “reacts to different light to produce various hues,” reports Nick Kwek for BBC Click.
Gizmodo reporter Andrew Liszewski writes that CSAIL researchers have developed “a new spray-on ink that can infinitely change colors, designs, and patterns when blasted with different wavelengths of light.”
Writing for Ms., Julie Wosk spotlights Prof. Dava Newman’s work developing the BioSuit, a form-fitting suit that will provide astronauts greater mobility in space. Newman hopes that the suit will inspire girls and young women. “I do believe they need to ‘see’ themselves as astronauts and aerospace engineers to open up their minds and to allow themselves to accomplish these dreams!”
Principal research scientist Andrew Sutherland and a colleague at the University of Bristol have solved a decades-old math problem known as the “summing of the three cubes.” The team found the answer with the help of the platform the Charity Engine, “which utilizes idle, unused computing power from over 500,000 home PCs to create a crowdsourced and environmentally conscious supercomputer,” writes David Grossman for Popular Mechanics.
MIT researchers have conducted a new examination of the Dead Sea Scrolls in an effort to determine how the documents have lasted so long. Prof. Admir Masic “sought to decode just how this unique parchment was made, in hopes that the ancient technology might also reveal new approaches to preserving sensitive historical documents in the modern age,” writes Evan Nicole Brown for Fast Company.
A report by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future recommends investing in workers to ensure Americans will be able to secure good quality jobs in the future, reports WBUR’s Zeninjor Enwemeka. “Workers in general have not benefited from the technological progress we've experienced in this country nor the productivity growth we've experienced,” explains Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the task force.
Ryan Mandelbaum writes for Gizmodo about the efforts of principal research scientist Andrew Sutherland and others to use a crowd-sourced supercomputer to solve a math problem that scientists have been working on since the 1950s. “You wait and wait and just when you’re at the point of giving up, the number shows up,” said Sutherland. “It’s very gratifying.”
A study from the MIT AgeLab shows that people who take out student loans for their children or grandchildren typically decrease the amount they save for their own retirement. “[I]f one’s loan obligations extend all the way into retirement age, then the time to begin saving may never arrive,” writes AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin for Forbes.