Fast Company reporter Katherine Schwab spotlights Duality, an MIT startup that is using homomorphic encryption to analyze encrypted data without decrypting it. Schwab explains that the “company’s technology could provide an actual solution to the data privacy problem by allowing companies to keep their data fully encrypted and still find patterns in it.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Lindsay McKenzie writes that MIT’s Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access has released a draft set of recommendations aimed at increasing the open sharing of MIT publications, data, software, and educational materials.
Axios reporter Kaveh Waddell writes that a group of economists led by Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson has proposed creating a new metric to measure GDP that accounts for the value of free digital goods and new technologies. The researchers estimate that “hidden benefits from Facebook alone have added 0.05–0.11 percentage points to GDP every year since its 2004 launch,” Waddell explains.
In an article for The Boston Globe about how the city of Cambridge is trying to bring ad-hoc art galleries into empty commercial spaces, Max Reyes highlights Spaceus, a startup founded by two MIT alumna that transforms unused shops into galleries and studio space for artists. “People are stoked that these spaces are no longer empty,” explains MIT graduate and Spaceus co-founder Stephanie Lee.
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala speaks with NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce about recent upgrades made to the LIGO gravitational wave detectors, which should increase their ability to sense previously undiscovered cosmic events. "That's how discovery happens," explains Mavalvala. "You turn on a new instrument, you point it out at the sky, and you see something that you had no idea existed."
The Economist spotlights the work of Prof. David Autor and the influence of his research examining how labor markets respond to disruption. The Economist notes that Autor’s research “is enormously influential, in large part because of his groundbreaking work on the effects on American workers of China’s extraordinary rise.”
MIT researchers have found that some inactive ingredients in medications could play a role in triggering irritation or allergic reactions, reports Bob McDonald for CBC Radio. The researchers hope that, “pharmaceutical companies provide more information to doctors, and that alternative drug formulas can be developed for people with allergies or sensitivities.”
In this video, Mashable spotlights how MIT researchers have developed an origami-inspired soft robotic gripper that can grasp a wide variety of objects.
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters highlights a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that examines the impacts of using solar geoengineering to cut global temperature increases caused by climate change in half. The researchers found that “reducing warming would also offset the increasing intensity of hurricanes and would help moderate extreme rain and a lack of water for farming,” Peters explains.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, visiting lecturer Irving Wladawsky-Berger spotlights how the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing aims to educate students from every discipline on how to responsibly use and develop AI technologies. Wladawsky-Berger notes that “such an interdisciplinary initiative is a truly bold step for any institution.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Melissa Healy writes that a new study by MIT researchers provides evidence that acoustic and visual stimulation could improve Alzheimer’s symptoms. “The study’s central finding — that inducing electrical synchrony touched off such a widespread range of effects — suggests there might be a single key lever that can preserve or restore order in brains made 'noisy' by age and disease,” Healy explains.
Prof. Giovanni Traverso speaks with STAT reporter Shraddha Chakradhar about a study examining how the inactive substances in most medications could trigger a patient’s allergies and intolerances. “As you start taking more and more tablets, then you are also taking more and more of some of these ingredients,” says Traverso. “We want to raise awareness that these ingredients are there.”
LiveScience reporter Stephanie Pappas writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds that massive tectonic collisions in the tropics may have led to the last three ice ages on Earth. “This could provide a simple tectonic process that explains how Earth goes in and out of glacial periods,” explains Prof. Oliver Jagoutz.
In an article for the Financial Times, Ashley Nunes, a research affiliate at MIT, writes about the Ethiopian Airlines crash and examines the limits of automation. “The more automated the system, the more crucial the human operator becomes,” writes Nunes. “That’s because automation doesn’t purge demand for human labour, instead it changes the type of labour needed.”
Axios reporter Steve LeVine highlights how MIT is offering a new edX course focused on the future of work. The course will “track technological history going back to the 19th century, income inequality, labor groups, automation, German manufacturing and more,” LeVine explains.