In a new study, Prof. Markus Buehler converted 20 types of amino acids into a 20-tone scale to create musical compositions. “Those altered compositions were converted back into a conceptual amino acid chain, which enabled the team to generate variations of proteins that have never been seen in nature,” writes Becky Ferreira for Motherboard.
Carey Goldberg reports for WBUR CommonHealth on the MIT president’s recent letter to the community describing immigration as a kind of oxygen. “In his letter, MIT President Reif adds the force of his own bully pulpit, writing that MIT flourishes because it draws talent from around the globe,” writes Goldberg.
Senior research fellow Joel Brenner participated in a discussion led by WBUR’s Tiziana Dearing about cloud security. “If you want to make your network secure, you really have to do three things,” explains Brenner. “You have to be able to know for certain who’s on it, what is running on it and what traffic is moving through it.”
MIT’s Solve initiative is accepting solutions for its Circular Economy Challenge, which focuses on renewable energy and waste elimination. “Ideas that help communities move towards zero waste and zero carbon through STEM education on new design and production techniques could win the GM Circular Economy Prize,” writes Natalie Parletta for Forbes.
Paul Carter of BBC’s Click highlights CSAIL research to teach a robot how to feel an object just by looking at it. This will ultimately help the robot “grip better when lifting things like the handle of a mug,” says Carter.
AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin writes for Forbes about the similarities and differences between retirement and summer vacation for kids. “Retirement positively dwarfs summer vacation in the amount of time involved—yet many peoples’ plans for retirement look a lot like plans for a summer vacation,” writes Coughlin.
Wired reporter Elizabeth notes how the ScratchJr programming language, which was developed to help teach children how to code, is being used as part of an effort to teach young children the basics of computer programming.
Wired reporter Stephen Witt highlights how researchers at the MIT Instrumentation Lab programmed the Apollo 11 computer, which enabled astronauts to successfully walk on the moon. Witt writes that perhaps the Apollo program’s “true legacy is etched not in moondust but in silicon.”
Prof. Donald Sadoway explains the benefits of battery storage in an Associated Press article about energy storage in Arizona. “Absent battery storage, the whole value proposition of intermittent renewable energy makes no sense at all…People just don’t understand that the battery will do for electricity what refrigeration did to our food supply.”
MIT researchers are developing ways to transform plants into interfaces, reports Katharine Schwab for Fast Company. Schwab explains that the researchers hope to eventually be able to develop “plants that can transfer signals and act almost like a networked computer.”
TechCrunch reporter Jonathan Shieber writes about the women’s rental clothing service Armoire, an MIT spinoff. Shieber explains that Armoire aims to “provide a daily wardrobe for professional women at a price point that could be attractive enough to switch from an ownership to a rental model for fashion.”
Forbes contributor Poornima Peiris highlights some of the technology solutions developed by solvers participating in MIT Solve’s global challenges. Peiris spotlights everything from a new system to grow oyster reefs that can protest coastlines during storms and help filter toxins in water to a device that can be used to remotely monitor vital signs in infants in low-income areas of the world.
Speaking with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money, Prof. David Autor delves into his new research showing that large American cities no longer provide the same opportunities for upward mobility for people without college degrees. “The set of jobs that people without college degrees do has really contracted,” explains Autor, co-director of the MIT Work of the Future task force.
Broad Institute postdoctoral associate Joshua Weinstein has developed a DNA microscope that allows researchers to investigate the locations and identity of DNA molecules, reports Sharon Begley for STAT. “Weinstein has so far used it to image human cancer cell lines and plans to apply the technology to tumors and the immune cells that infiltrate them,” writes Begley, “which might one day guide immunotherapy.”
Writing for the Financial Times about how technology is advancing the field of health care, John Browne spotlights Prof. Bob Langer’s work developing new methods of delivering drugs with improved precision. Browne explains that Langer is working on “a device smaller than a grain of rice that he can inject into a tumour to test the efficacy of dozens of chemotherapy agents in parallel.”