Research affiliate Tim Hwang speaks with Aaron Mak of Slate about whether Google is suppressing conservative media outlets in search results. “I don’t think the question is whether or not it’s biased. All these systems embed some kind of bias,” explains Hwang. “The question is: Do we have transparency to how some of these decisions are being made?”
A study by MIT researchers demonstrates how air pollution can significantly reduce profits from solar panel installations, reports Avery Thompson for Popular Mechanics. The researchers found that in Delhi, “electricity generation is reduced by more than 10 percent,” Thompson explains, “which translates to a cost of more than $20 million.”
TechRepublic reporter Nick Heath writes about Julia 1.0, a programming language created by MIT researchers. “The breadth of Julia's capabilities and ability to spread workloads across hundreds of thousands of processing cores have led to its use for everything from machine learning to large-scale supercomputer simulation,” writes Heath.
Axios reporter Dan Primack writes about a new study by Prof. Antoinette Schoar examining the performance of sidecar private equity funds. Primack explains that Schoar and her colleagues found that, “GP-directed sidecar funds had worse average performance than did the main funds raised at the same time by the same firms, while discretionary co-investment funds were basically a wash.”
Fast Company reporter Mark Wilson writes that MIT researchers have developed a new tool for computer-aided drafting software that can optimize the design for any product. Wilson explains that the tool could “help designers optimize their existing processes–and, crucially, deconstruct what works and what doesn’t, sooner.”
Research Scientist Stephanie Woerner speaks with Forbes reporter Joe McKendrick about the best ways for companies to develop digital business models. "Companies have to develop new ways of working, really taking evidence into account when making decisions," Woerner explains.
MIT researchers have found that reducing payments to long-term care hospitals could save the U.S. health care system around $5 billion a year, reports Margot Sanger-Katz for The New York Times. “The history of long-term care hospitals suggests the industry will always innovate ahead of you, and you may actually have to roll up your sleeves and find these pockets of waste,” explains Prof. Amy Finkelstein.
Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Marketplace reporter Molly Wood about the proliferation of fake news. “If platforms like Facebook are to be responsible for the spread of known falsities, then they could use policies, technologies or algorithms to reduce or dampen the spread of this type of news, which may reduce the incentive to create it in the first place,” Aral explains.
New Yorker contributor Judith Thurman visits the lab of Dr. Ev Fedorenko, an alumna and research affiliate at MIT, who is studying the science of language. Fedorenko explains that she is focused on exploring, “how do I get a thought from my mind into yours? We begin by asking how language fits into the broader architecture of the mind.”
CNN reporter Don Lincoln writes that MIT researchers have discovered that it is possible to break a strand of dry spaghetti in two. Lincoln explains that the findings have applications "beyond making dinner. The calculations apply more generally to determining the crack formation of other rod-like structures, like poles used in pole vaulting and other engineering situations.”
WCVB’s Mike Wankum visits the Beaver Works Summer Institute to see how high school students are gaining hands-on engineering experience. Robert Shin, director of Beaver Works, explains that the program is aimed at “inspiring the next generation.”
A new study by Prof. John Van Reenen finds that differences in productivity, sales and wages between companies have contributed to growing income inequality, reports Paul Kiernan for The Wall Street Journal. Van Reenen explains that, “just about all of the increase in earnings inequality has happened between firms rather than within firms.”
Prof. Donald Sadoway speaks with Forbes contributor Arne Alsin about the future of sustainable energy and battery design. “We definitely have to be bolder in our innovation when it comes to what goes beyond lithium-ion,” says Sadoway. “We have to apply the criterion ‘If successful, how big is the impact?’ And we have to have the courage to fail.”
Prof. Fadel Abid speaks with IEEE Spectrum reporter Michael Koziol about a new system his research group developed to enable communication between underwater sources and the air. “We’re very interested in how deep and how high you can go,” says Adib. “Even from a theoretical perspective, we don’t even know what the limits are.”
Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that cellular changes lead to chronic sinus inflammation, reports Allen Cone for UPI. Cone explains that the findings could also “help patients with chronic inflammatory diseases of barrier tissues, such as asthma, eczema, and inflammatory bowel disease.”