Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press reports on NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is expected to find thousands of exoplanets “around the closest, brightest stars.” “All astronomers for centuries to come are really going to focus on these objects," said senior research scientist George Ricker, who is the mission’s chief scientist. "This is really a mission for the ages.”
Synlogic, founded by Prof. Jim Collins and Associate Prof. Tim Lu, is programming probiotic bacteria to treat certain genetic or acquired metabolic disease, reports Robin Seaton Jefferson for Forbes. One product is used for people whose bodies can’t maintain a healthy level of ammonia and “has been specifically engineered to convert the excess ammonia to a harmless metabolite,” explains Seaton Jefferson.
With NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, set to launch in less than a week, Jay Bennett of Popular Mechanics speaks with TESS Principal Investigator George Ricker of the MIT Kavli Institute. “TESS is really a finder scope,” says Ricker. “The main thing that we're going to be able to do is find a large sample from which the follow-up observations can be carried out in decades, even centuries to come.”
Writing in The Boston Globe, Elise Takahama describes new research by MIT’s Sukrit Ranjan and colleagues that suggests sulfudic anion molecules provide evidence for the origins of life. Takahama also highlights the varying disciplines in the research team, which joined molecular chemistry experts with planetary scientists. “One of the most exciting things,” says Ranjan, is “how different communities, when they talk to each other, can really make dramatic advances.”
Prof. Tod Machover speaks with Mary Louis Kelly and Audie Cornish of NPR’s All Things Considered about capturing the everyday sounds featured in his latest symphony, “Philadelphia Voices.” When recording the Commonwealth Youth Choir, for example, Machover explains that he “asked them to each sing the word Philadelphia in a way that showed something about how they felt about Philadelphia and also something about themselves.”
After several years of experimentation, graduate student Arnav Kapur developed AlterEgo, a device to interpret subvocalization that can be used to control digital applications. Describing the implications as “exciting,” Katharine Schwab at Co.Design writes, “The technology would enable a new way of thinking about how we interact with computers, one that doesn’t require a screen but that still preserves the privacy of our thoughts.”
MIT spinoff ClearMotion is working on a proactive suspension system that would allow for smoother car rides over rough surfaces, writes Jack Stewart for Wired. The system would use actuators that can actually lift the wheel over bumps and potholes, allowing cars using ClearMotion to “play offense” against potentially damaging patches.
Prof. Tod Machover details his experience creating “Philadelphia Voices,” which is “the latest in a series of Machover symphonies inspired by cities,” writes Michael Cooper for The New York Times. “To help organize his library of Philadelphia sounds he used software developed at M.I.T. called Constellation, which can analyze hundreds of sound files by volume, frequency and shape, then visually display them.”
CBS Evening News correspondent Jim Axelrod spoke with Dean Melissa Nobles about the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice law clinic at Northeastern. Nobles is a faculty collaborator with the clinic, which investigates lynching deaths in the U.S. "We are now beginning to change the narrative such that the families who have had that violence visited upon them now can talk about it and it be understood,” said Nobles.
A study by MIT researchers examines molecules present in the early atmosphere to better understand how living things came into existence, reports David Grossman of Popular Mechanics. “Preliminary work by the researchers show that sulfidic anions would likely have quickened the chemical reactions required to convert extremely basic prebiotic molecules into RNA,” explains Grossman.
Four MIT alumni have teamed up with chef Daniel Boulud and will soon open Spyce, a fast-casual restaurant in downtown Boston. The restaurant will complete orders using a device the group first created as students, known as the Spyce Kitchen, “a self-cleaning robotic kitchen, designed to prepare an entire meal in less than three minutes,” writes Jay Cheshes for The New Yorker.
Brian Marquard of The Boston Globe writes about the life of Prof. Morris Halle, who passed away on April 2. Prof. Halle, who helped found MIT’s linguistics program, was “considered one of the field’s most influential scholars,” writes Marquard.
In this opinion piece for The Huffington Post, Sloan senior lecturer Otto Scharmer argues that GDP is an unqualified metric for measuring a country’s success. “We are trapped in a way of thinking that says “bigger is better,” that higher GDP is the solution to our problems,” writes Scharmer, even though we’ve seen that “GDP growth is no salve for deepening inequality across the globe.”
AlterEgo, a device developed by Media Lab graduate student Arnav Kapur, “can transcribe words that wearers verbalise internally but do not say out loud, using electrodes attached to the skin,” writes Samuel Gibbs of The Guardian. “Kapur and team are currently working on collecting data to improve recognition and widen the number of words AlterEgo can detect.”
Prof. Junot Díaz contributed this essay to The New Yorker, which details his personal experience with childhood abuse and its long-lasting impact on him. “No one can hide forever. Eventually what used to hold back the truth doesn’t work anymore. You run out of escapes, you run out of exits, you run out of gambits, you run out of luck. Eventually the past finds you.”