CNN reporter Matt McFarland writes that CSAIL researchers have proposed that outfitting cars with cruise control systems that maintain equal distances between cars could help alleviate phantom traffic jams. The researchers’ simulations showed, “keeping the same distance between the vehicle in front and the vehicle trailing a car prevents traffic jams.”
Boston Globe reporter Tim Logan writes that Roche Bros. Supermarkets will open a Brothers Market in MIT’s One Broadway Building. Steve Marsh, managing director of MIT’s Real Estate Group, explained that a grocery store was, “so important to those who live and work in Kendall that we worked to incorporate it in the earliest possible phase of our development.”
CSAIL researchers have found that if drivers could maintain an equal distance between cars they would be able to reduce the number of traffic jams, reports Matt Burgess for Wired. The researchers found that, “by adding sensors to the back of cars that take into account the speed of following vehicles, it will be possible to better regulate traffic.”
MIT spinout Ginkgo Bioworks has not only maintained its founding members, but also recently raised $275 million from investors, writes Matthew Herper for Forbes. Herper predicts that excitement surrounding synthetic biology companies will continue because “private money is getting excited about the idea of designing biology.”
Writing for Scientific American, Prof. Alex “Sandy” Pentland explains how new digital technologies are making it possible to build more efficient financial networks and decentralize the control of money. “That we can now create monetary systems that are truly understandable means we can potentially build the tools for minimizing risk, avoiding crashes, and maintaining individual freedom from intrusive governments and overly powerful corporations.”
Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss has been named to The Boston Globe’s list of the 2017 Bostonians of the Year for his work starting a new revolution in astronomy. Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz notes that Weiss, “shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for conceiving and shepherding a set of observatories that allowed scientists to prove Einstein’s assertion about gravitational waves.”
Newsweek reporter Sydney Pereira writes that MIT researchers have engineered a plant that can glow in the dark by embedding nanoparticles into the plant’s leaves. “Further optimization could one day lead to plants that could illuminate entire work spaces or sprays that can be coated onto trees to transform them into streetlights,” Pereira explains.
Meghna Chakrabarti of WBUR’s Radio Boston speaks to Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello ‘01 about the needs and the status of the island, plans to rebuild infrastructure, and how the new tax plan will affect Puerto Rico’s economy. Rossello was in Boston for the MIT Conference on the Resilient Reconstruction of the Caribbean.
Boston Globe reporter David Abel reports on Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló's ’01 visit to MIT for the Conference for the Resilient Construction of the Caribbean. The governor shared his frustration with proposed federal tax policies while expressing optimism about working with MIT on solutions for climate-resilient reconstruction after this fall’s hurricanes.
Prof. Deborah Ancona and Senior Lecturer Hal Gregersen write for the Financial Times about the importance of collaborative leadership, highlighting how the development of the memorial to honor Officer Sean Collier was a collective effort. “To ‘step up’ and to ‘step aside’ — as needed — is the new way to lead in a world of distributed information and talent,” they note.
CBS Boston spotlights how Portal Instruments, an MIT startup, is bringing a needle-free injector to the market, which could change the way people take medicine. The device, “fires a pressurized spray to penetrate the skin, instead of piercing the skin with traditional needles.”
Boston Globe reporter Mark Shanahan spotlights Senior Lecturer Ken Urban’s new holiday song, “The Time of the Year.” “I had an idea to write a song that was truthful about the holidays — or at least more ambivalent than the stuff you hear in stores,” said Urban.
In an article for The Week, John Holden speaks with Prof. Kripa Varanasi about what inspired him to pursue a career science. Varanasi recalls how his mother, “was instrumental in driving my ambitions. She used to buy me amazing electronics kits when I was a kid.”
Research engineer Bryan Reimer speaks with Ashley Halsey of The Washington Post about the need for a national conversation to determine how safe driverless cars should be before they become more widely available. “Unless we have defined how safe is safe enough — and we are in agreement — the nature of politics is that fingers will point at each other,” says Reimer.
MIT researchers have developed a new technique to 3-D print genetically engineered bacteria into a variety of shapes and forms, reports Karen Hao for Quartz. The technique could eventually be used to develop such devices as, “an ingestible living robot that secretes the correct drug when it detects a tumor.”