In an article for The Boston Globe Magazine, Neil Swidey highlights MIT as a model of “what an athletics-affirming but recruitment-light culture might look like.” “Despite refusing to put a thumb on the scale for athlete applications, MIT has produced a successful sports program that enhances, rather than detracts from, its academic reputation,” explains Swidey.
Fast Company reporter DJ Pangburn spotlights how researchers in the Mediated Matter Group have created polymers derived from organic materials that are designed to decompose. Pangburn explains that “the group’s biopolymers are designed to decompose upon reaching the end of its product life cycle, returning to the earth instead of being destined for a dump.”
CSAIL unsealed a time capsule containing artifacts from computing history at MIT after a self-taught programmer cracked the capsule’s cryptopuzzle, reports Kathryn Sotnik for NECN. MIT alumnus, Bob Frankston, who programmed the first electronic spreadsheet, noted “it’s really a reminder in a sense how long ago it was, and how much people today take these things for granted.”
Eric Kane reports for 7 News on how a time capsule at the Stata Center was unsealed at MIT this week after a Belgium programmer solved the cryptopuzzle sealing the container. The time capsule contained “MIT computing artifacts and material relating to the invention of the Internet, the ethernet, and the digital spreadsheet.”
Graduate student John Urschel discusses his new book and passion for both math and football on Fox and Friends. “Football coaches, they tell their best players to dream big,” says Urschel. “I would love to see math teachers telling their students you can be an elite mathematician, you can be a top physicist, you can even dream to be the next Einstein.”
May Mobility, a company founded by MIT alumnus Edwin Olson, will begin offering a free shuttle service on autonomous electric minibuses in Rhode Island, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. Bray explains that the company “mapped the shuttle route with lasers, which are extremely accurate, and uses an onboard laser-based guidance system that constantly confirms the bus is on track.”
MIT researchers have identified a method to help AI systems avoid adversarial attacks, reports Matthew Hutson for Science. When the researchers “trained an algorithm on images without the subtle features, their image recognition software was fooled by adversarial attacks only 50% of the time,” Hutson explains. “That compares with a 95% rate of vulnerability when the AI was trained on images with both obvious and subtle patterns.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Lindsay McKenzie writes that a new AI system developed by MIT researchers to summarize the findings of technical scientific papers could “be used in the near future to tackle a long-standing problem for scientists -- how to keep up with the latest research.”
Prof. Nick Montfort speaks with Vice reporter Daniel Oberhaus about Synchrony, a demoparty he founded that allows computer programmers to showcase their artistic inventions. “One of the things I really like about the demoscene is that we don't really have a tradition of it in North America,” says Montfort. “That means we have the opportunity to make something up, something that's inviting, diverse, and different.”
Graduate student John Urschel visits the Today Show to discuss his new book and what inspired him to pursue a PhD in mathematics. Urschel explains that his mother tried to ensure that “whatever I wanted to be the only thing that would limit me was a lack of talent, bad luck, lack of hard work, but it wasn’t going to be the household I was born into or a lack of resources.”
Bloomberg News reporter Carol Massar spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a robot that can identify and sort recyclables. “The system includes a soft Teflon hand that uses tactile sensors to detect the size of an object and the pressure needed to grasp it,” Massar reports. “From there it can determine if it’s made of metal, paper or plastic.”
President Emerita Susan Hockfield speaks with Jim Braude of WGBH’s Greater Boston about her book, “The Age of Living Machines.” “We are looking at a population of over 9.7 billion by 2050,” explains Hockfield. “We are not going to get there without war or epidemics or starvation if we don’t develop technologies that will allow us to provide energy, food, water, health and health care sustainably.”
Boston Globe reporter Ann Trieger Kurland spotlights how MIT alumnus David Dussault has invented a device that can create an iced coffee in a minute or less. The quick process brightens and captures “the aromatics, nuances, and flavors of coffee at its peak; that is, when it’s just been brewed,” Trieger Kurland explains.
Boston Globe reporter Bryan Marquard memorializes the life and work of senior lecturer emeritus James D. Livingston. Marquard notes that Livingston and his wife, Dr. Sherry H. Penney, “together left a professional legacy that stretched from Boston to Albany, from academia to private industry, from classrooms to boardrooms.”
MIT researchers have found that tracking specific changes in the number of chromosomes inside prostate cancer cells might help determine whether tumors should be treated, reports Robert Preidt for HealthDay News. “Besides giving new insights into how prostate tumors form and spread, the chromosomal data might someday be employed clinically to inform risk stratification and treatment decisions,” Preidt explains.