A survey developed by Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen identifies several habits of highly-productive people, reports Prachi Bhardwaj for Money. “Probably the most important habit is whether you are geared to accomplishing a lot rather than putting in a lot of hours,” explains Pozen. “That leads to the second most important thing, which is whether you’ve defined your highest priorities and you’re focused on your highest priorities.”
In this video, Reuters explores how MIT researchers have developed a robot that can automatically sort recycling. The robot uses a pressure sensor to squeeze items to determine how they should be sorted.
Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney spotlights the “Arresting Fragments: Object Photography at the Bauhaus,” exhibit on display at the MIT Museum. The exhibit “conveys a particular sense of why the Bauhaus was so influential,” writes Fenney.
Prof. Frank Wilczek writes for The Wall Street Journal about how the first image of a black hole could help scientists gain a better understanding of how galaxies form and evolve. “To a thinking mind, the image reflects the glory of understanding, and to an alert imagination it opens new portals into space, time and deep history,” writes Wilczek.
Axios reporter Ina Fried spotlights how graduate student Arnav Kapur has developed a system that can detect speech signals. “The technology could allow those who have lost the ability to speak to regain a voice while also opening up possibilities of new interfaces for general purpose computing,” Fried explains.
In the wake of a fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, Prof. Catherine Clark speaks with Here & Now’s Robin Young about how Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” inspired France to rejuvenate the cathedral. Clark explains that the book reminds her of how, “this is a structure that is built by time and history itself and each generation adds their stones.”
In an article for the BBC, Melissa Hogenboom highlights a study by MIT researchers that finds the U.S. cities with the highest amounts of air pollution had the highest crime rates. Hogenboom writes that while the study was correlational, “it accounted for factors like population, employment levels, age and gender – and pollution was still the main predictor of increased crime levels.”
Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane writes about how TESS has discovered an Earth-sized planet orbiting a star 52 light years from Earth. “The new planet HD, 21749c, orbits the star HD 21749. It circles the star in 7.8 days,” Finucane explains. “The planet is probably rocky and uninhabitable, with temperatures on the surface of up to 800 degrees.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, Profs. Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson underscore how federal investment in scientific research could be used to help ease income inequality in America. “Scaled-up and deployed strategically across most states, we estimate that an investment of $100 billion per year in public research and development could help create 4 million good new jobs,” they write.
The MIT-led TESS mission has discovered its first Earth-sized exoplanet, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. “There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time,” says postdoctoral fellow Diana Dragomir. “But we were lucky, and we caught the signals, and they were really clear."
Forbes contributor Jamie Carter writes that TESS has identified an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a star 52 light years from Earth. The planet "takes about eight days to orbit the host star and is similar in size to Earth at 89% its diameter,” writes Carter. “A likely rocky world, it's thought to have surface temperatures as high as 800°F /427°C.”
Writing for Wired, Prof. Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab, argues that online platforms should be designed to encourage young people to learn and explore through high-quality content. “We need to recognize that young people will make contact with commercial content and grown-ups online, and we need to figure out better ways to regulate and optimize platforms to serve participants of mixed ages,” writes Ito.
A new study by MIT researchers provides evidence that the first life on Earth likely came from shallow ponds, not oceans, reports the Xinhua news agency. The researchers found that primitive ponds that were about “10 centimeters deep had higher concentrations of nitrogen, a key ingredient for life on Earth.”
Don Sousa, who coordinates shipments for the MIT Haystack Observatory, speaks with Atlantic reporter Marina Koren about the complex process of shipping petabytes of data from telescopes around the world to compile the first image of a black hole. Koren writes that for Sousa, “the photo is the culmination of years’ worth of effort by astronomers and shipping experts alike.”
BBC Click spotlights how CSAIL researchers have developed a robot that can automatically sort recycling. “Many paper and plastic cups look the same, but by introducing the ability to squeeze the object and to know whether it is flexible or not we are able to go one step beyond what today’s methods can do, explains Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL.