Developed by MIT researchers, ConcertCue, an app that provides real-time program notes during live classical music performances, has received a $50,000 grant from the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund, reports Melissa Locker for Fast Company. The foundation awarded 12 grants to “innovative tech organizations and cultural institutions” that use technology to make the arts more accessible in the digital age.
A team led by MIT research scientist Ulrich Faul ‘discovered a gigantic cache of diamonds deep beneath the Earth’s surface,’ writes Avery Thompson for Popular Mechanics. While the diamonds are too deep to be mined, “knowing that they’re there helps us learn more about our own planet and what it’s made of,” Thompson notes.
Researchers have developed a handheld device, inspired by spiders, to allow people to move in zero-gravity, writes Daniel Oberhaus for Motherboard. “I want to be able to move freely in 3D space,” explains Xin Liu, arts curator at the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, “so I design the technologies that allow me to do that.”
By using sound waves, MIT researchers have discovered that part of Earth’s stable crust may contain diamonds, reports Abbey Interrante for Newsweek. “This shows that diamond is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the [geological] scale of things, it’s relatively common,” says research scientist Ulrich Faul.
In a recent blog post, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, Brad Smith, references research by MIT graduate student Joy Buolamwini while calling for government to regulate the use of facial recognition software. Buolamwini’s work “showed error rates of as much as 35% for systems classifying darker skinned women,” reports Dina Bass for Bloomberg.
MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab collaborated with Swiss designer Christoph Guberan on a collection of 4D-printed “functional inflatable lamps, vases, and vessels,” which are now for sale at a New York gallery. “Rather than setting out to create a preconceived set of products, the resulting works were organically formed as an extension of the research process itself,” writes Aileen Kwun for Fast Company.
Carey Goldberg writes for WBUR’s CommonHealth about this year’s USA Memory Championship, which is taking place at MIT. “[M]emory is a skill, it's not an innate capacity," says Robert Ajemian, a research scientist at MIT’s McGovern Institute. "And that's the message that we want to get out, both to the scientific community and to the lay community."
MIT researchers found that the effectiveness of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate increases when supplemented with a common dietary amino acid, writes Victoria Forster of Forbes. Prof. David Sabatini, a co-author on the study, “is hopeful about the prospects for supplementation improving the therapy in the future,” says Forster.
MIT graduate students Ellen Shakespear and Stephanie Lee are opening “an artist workspace and exhibition pop-up,” known as Spaceus, in the historic Roslindale substation, reports Jules Struck for Boston Magazine. The startup, which is partly funded by MIT, “provides a sustainable service to local artists, but also serves as a neighborhood gathering place,” according to Lee.
A new paper by Assistant Prof. Salvatore Vitale finds that studying the rare pairing of a neutron star and a spiraling black hole could allow researchers to determine the universe’s rate of expansion, writes Jeremy Fox of The Boston Globe. The positive detection of a collision could “potentially give a dramatic contribution to our understanding of the universe,” says Vitale.
Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Benjamin Olken speak with NPR’s Jason Beaubien about their efforts to improve Indonesia’s Raskin, or Rice for the Poor, program. "There's a certain tendency among both social scientists and policymakers to assume that the solution to a complex problem has to be complex,” says Banerjee, “and I don't think that's always true."
A new paper by Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson argues that machines and automation will replace specific tasks rather than entire jobs, writes Adi Gaskell for Forbes. As an example, Gaskell notes that there are 26 tasks associated with radiologists, and while “analyzing medical images is well suited to AI, interpersonal skills are currently not.”
By using “nanoparticle ‘backpacks’ with immune-stimulating drugs,” MIT researchers were able to enhance T cells and destroy solid tumors without harmful side effects, reports Allen Cone of UPI. "We found you could greatly improve the efficacy of the T cell therapy with backpacked drugs that help the donor T cells survive and function more effectively,"explains Prof. Darrell Irvine.
Tasker Smith, a technical instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, writes for Make Magazine about his work developing 3-D printed tools to create a custom leather press. “By marrying the versatility of digital design and fabrication with luxurious materials like leather,” writes Smith, “we can supercharge our process and generate customized artifacts worthy of handing down from generation to generation.”
Reporting for WBUR, Bruce Gellerman highlights how MIT Solve brings together innovators to tackle some of the world’s pressing challenges. "Putting your money where your social values are and making connections is what Solve is all about," observes Gellerman.