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.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Brian Gormley speaks with Dr. Leo Anthony Celi, a principal researcher scientist at IMES, who encourages hospitals to share electronic medical data on intensive care patients. “De-identified data from 60,000 such cases now are freely available in a database called Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care,” writes Gormley of Celi’s work. “Scientists regularly publish papers based on this repository.”
Prof. Aviv Regev speaks with NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce about her work with the Human Cell Atlas trying to catalogue every cell in the human body. “We don't need to analyze every individual cell out of 37 trillion because the cells kind of repeat themselves,” says Regev. “All we need to do is sample enough of them from enough region in order to get comprehensive coverage.”
TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey highlights how MIT researchers have found that tiny satellites, called CubeSats, equipped with lasers could help keep telescopes on track while they are gathering information in space. The light emitted from the lasers could allow satellites “to calculate their position and the minute changes to their imaging apparatus caused by heat and radiation.”
TechCrunch reporter John Biggs writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that allows users to reverse-engineer complex items by deconstructing objects and turning them into 3-D models. Biggs writes that the system is a “surprisingly cool way to begin hacking hardware in order to understand it’s shape, volume and stability.”
WCVB-TV’s Mike Wankum visits MIT to learn more about Prof. Nicholas Fang’s work developing a new film that can be coated on windows and can block up to 70 percent of incoming solar heat. Wankum explains that the film “could lead to a future with less need for air conditioning.”
Writing for Forbes, Prof. David Mindell explores the concept of using work, in particular the duties a home health aide performs, as a Turing test for the abilities of AI systems. “In this era of anxiety about AI technologies changing the nature of work,” writes Mindell, “everything we know about work should also change the nature of AI.”
Prof. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, speaks with The Washington Post about the significance of China successfully landing a spacecraft, called Chang’e 4, on the far side of the moon. “Certainly there will be some great new science,” Zuber said. “But I would say the landing of Chang’e 4 is a teaser for what comes next.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Sara Cardine spotlights a book by four MIT students that offers encouragement and insights on growing up. “Upperclassmen, and adults for that matter, you think they have everything together,” explains undergraduate and co-author Mina Fahmi. “It helps to be reminded everyone’s still trying to figure things out.”