MIT researchers have developed an inhalable form of messenger RNA that could be used to help treat patients with lung disease, reports Christopher Intagliata for Scientific American. Intagliata explains that researchers hope to one day “use this technique to help cystic fibrosis patients.”
ABC News reporter Layne Winn spotlights MIT alumna Payal Kadakia’s company ClassPass, which streamlines the process of finding and booking fitness classes. Kadakia, a lifelong dancer, was inspired to start the platform when searching for a new ballet class. Kadakia says she, “fought for a way to keep dance in my life and with ClassPass I believe I'm fighting for everyone else to keep their passion in their life.”
Prof. Emeritus and Nobel laureate Peter Diamond speaks with Meghna Chakrabarti of On Point about U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to increase the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent. “That will raise a lot of money that we could [use to] address some of our shortfalls and that will help us prepare for the large costs coming from climate change,” says Diamond of the proposal.
Nature reporter Alexandra Witze highlights the TESS satellite’s success in uncovering new exoplanets outside our solar system. Senior research scientist George Ricker feels, “TESS works better than team members had dared to dream,” Witze writes, adding that “its four cameras can see objects 20% fainter, and focus more sharply, than originally expected.”
The Economist spotlights Prof. David Autor and graduate student Juliette Fournier’s research examining the economic prospects for Americans without college degrees. Autor and Fournier found that, “the earnings of workers without a college education have scarcely risen in 50 years, after adjusting for inflation; for men they have fallen. This stagnation coincided with tectonic changes in American employment.”
NASA’s MIT-led TESS mission has discovered a new exoplanet orbiting a star 53 light years from Earth, reports Mike Wall for Space.com. The “sub-Neptune” planet is “about three times bigger than Earth, which means it's likely gaseous rather than rocky,” writes Wall.
At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Prof. David Autor presented new research showing that middle-skill jobs for Americans without college degrees are becoming increasingly rare in dense areas, reports Jeanna Smialek and Peter Coy for Bloomberg News. “It’s not clear where the land of opportunity is for non-college adults,” says Autor.
CNN reporter Ashley Strickland writes that NASA’s planet-hunting satellite TESS has discovered another exoplanet 53 light years away. Strickland explains that the exoplanet orbits “a bright neighboring star in the Reticulum constellation, with a 36-day orbit and a surface temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Prof. Max Tegmark speaks with Forbes contributor Peter High about his work trying to ensure that AI technologies are implemented in a way that is beneficial to society. “If we plan accordingly and steer technology in the right direction, we can create an inspiring future that will allow humanity to flourish in a way that we have never seen before,” says Tegmark.
MIT researchers have developed a new app called Perdix that allows users to create 2-D nanostructures using DNA strands, reports Jesus Diaz for Fast Company. Engineers could use Perdix to print nanoscale parts for applications in cell biology, photonics, quantum sensing and computing, Diaz explains.
NASA’s MIT-led TESS mission has discovered a new exoplanet that is about three times the size of Earth, reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. “There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time,” explains postdoctoral fellow Diana Dragomir. “But we were lucky, and we caught the signals, and they were really clear.”
Verge reporter Loren Grush writes that NASA’s MIT-led TESS mission has discovered a third exoplanet. “The important thing about this system that’s especially unique is it’s near to us,” says postdoc Diana Dragomir. “What that means simply is we can study this system in detail. We can measure the mass of the planet and measure things about the star.”
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Living Lab Radio about NASA’s New Horizons mission, which captured pictures of the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraft. “We have an incredibly healthy spacecraft,” says Binzel. “We’ve shown incredible capability of these instruments, and with a little bit of luck we'll find another object that's up on the path ahead and we'll just keep exploring.”
In an article for Quartz about the role the media will play in influencing voters in India’s upcoming general election, Sahil Wajid highlights Prof. Emeritus Noam Chomsky’s book, “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.” The book is a “seminal work on systemic bias afflicting the corporate news industry,” writes Wajid.
Writing for The Boston Globe, members of the Media Lab’s Scalable Cooperation research group argue that independent oversight is needed to ensure that new AI technologies are developed in an ethical manner. “AI is the new framework of our lives,” they write. “We need to ensure it’s a safe, human-positive framework, from top to bottom.”