Quartz reporter Madis Kabash highlights how Media Lab researchers are developing a device, dubbed Mnemo, that automatically records and retrieves a person’s memories. The project team aims to “build a memory bank big enough to help people with memory loss,” explains Kabash.
MIT alumnus Kofi Annan, former United Nations secretary general, has died at age 80, the Associated Press reports. Annan, “one of the world’s most celebrated diplomats,” earned a master’s degree from the Sloan School of Management.
FOX News reporter James Rogers writes that MIT researchers have detected a new galaxy cluster that had been obscured by the bright light emitted from a supermassive black hole. “Located just 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, the cluster consists of hundreds of individual galaxies,” Rogers explains.
Boston Globe reporter John Hilliard writes about the legacy of former UN secretary general and MIT alumnus Kofi Annan, citing reflections Annan offered in his 1997 MIT Commencement Address. “Science and international organizations alike are constructs of reason, engaged in a permanent struggle against the forces of unreason,” said Annan. “Science and international organizations alike speak a universal language and seek universal truths.”
Media Lab researchers have developed a desk that transforms based on the user’s mood, reports Madis Kabash for Quartz. Kabash explains that the desk collects, “over 30 biological signals including heart-rate, facial-expressions, and posture,” and then adjusts lighting, changes images on a screen and plays different sounds on a speaker to help the user destress.
Engadget reporter Jon Fingas writes that MIT researchers have developed an encryption method that can secure sensitive data in neural networks without slowing machine learning systems. The method, notes Fingas, could “lead to more uses of internet-based neural networks for handling vital info, rather than forcing companies and institutions to either build expensive local equivalents or forget AI-based systems altogether.”
In an article for Forbes, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin writes about the physical and emotional impacts of social isolation and loneliness. Coughlin stresses the importance of “developing new solutions for our modern epidemic of social disconnectedness -- whether they are new technologies, community initiatives, forward-thinking policies, or just plain increased awareness.”
Graduate student Vishal Patil speaks with NPR’s Rebecca Hersher about his work determining how to snap dry spaghetti in two. Patil found that, “when you twist it, you don't have to bend it as much before it breaks. When there's less bending in it, the snap-back — as the spaghetti tries to become a straight rod again — is weakened, so that no more fractures can occur.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III writes for The Washington Post about a new report from the MIT-run Elections Performance Index (EPI) showing that election administration improved from 2012 to 2016. “The latest EPI shows that we can use objective metrics to chart any policy change aimed at improving voting, and that it’s not as difficult as we thought,” explains Stewart.
HUBweek, an annual festival co-founded by MIT that focuses on ideas for the future, will include a two-day Change Maker Conference this year. J.D. Capelouto writes for The Boston Globe, another HUBweek founder, that this new event “will address a variety of topics, including enabling technologies, diversity, inclusion and accessibility, and civic thinking.”
Using mathematical modeling, a mechanical fracture device and a camera, MIT researchers found that dry spaghetti can be split into two pieces, reports Allyson Chiu for The Washington Post. The findings could be applied to studying fracturing, explains graduate student Vishal Patil, who notes that, “there’s still a lot to be discovered about fracture control, and this is an example of fracture control.”
Researchers from MIT’s Urban Risk Lab are collaborating with Portland State University and Portland General Electric on a new emergency preparedness project called PREPhub. The researchers are developing structures that will serve as public gathering places and will allow the public to access information and connect with family, friends and community members after a disaster, reports Mary Loos for KATU.
TODAY reporter Alessandra Bulow speaks with Prof. Jörn Dunkel about how he and his colleagues figured out how to snap a strand of spaghetti without it shattering into many pieces. Bulow notes that the noodles must be bent and twisted at the same time, and “you have to twist really strongly,” explains Dunkel.
Prof. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Jon Marcus about the growing interest in space and exploration in America. “Discovery, pure and simple, is truth. It’s pure. It’s a beautiful thing,” says Zuber, who has directed several NASA missions and chairs the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Advisory Council.
A study co-authored by Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and graduate student Daniel Rock finds that specific tasks, not jobs, are likely to become automated, writes Joe McKendrick for Forbes. The researchers explain that, “machine learning technology can transform many jobs in the economy, but full automation will be less significant than the re-engineering of processes and the reorganization of tasks."