In an op-ed for the Deseret News, graduate student Ryan Hill describes a House-passed tax bill as “devastating” to graduate students, highlighting a provision that designates tuition waivers as taxable income. “The new tax deeply undermines our nation’s commitment to basic research and technological innovation,” writes Hill.
MIT spinoff Optimus Ride will be bringing autonomous vehicles to a new development in South Weymouth, reports Adam Vaccaro for The Boston Globe. The company is currently running tests in the streets, “but it expects to haul passengers around the development site as part of a pilot program at some point in 2018,” writes Vaccaro.
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala speaks with Massive reporter Prabarna Ganguly about her work engineering high-precision laser beams to detect signals from deep space, the long hunt for gravitational waves and her hopes for future generations of scientists. Ganguly writes that Mavalvala is, “one of the stalwarts in a long, arduous, and deeply human discovery of faraway perturbations rippling through the universe.”
Research fellow Audrey Jiajia Li writes about President Trump intervening on behalf of three college basketball players arrested in China for shoplifting. “It is ironic that Trump, who campaigned on law and order issues, does not seem to feel the slightest moral compunction about asking a strongman to interfere in his country’s justice system,” Li concludes.
Science reporter Philip Shapira highlights Prof. Neil Gershenfeld’s new book, co-written with his brothers, about digital fabrication. Shapira writes that the, “Gershenfelds engagingly alert us not only to the opportunities that digital fabrication presents but also to the societal and governance challenges that the widespread diffusion of this technology will generate.”
Prof. Timothy Lu speaks with STAT reporter Eric Boodman about his work trying to harness bacteria to treat disease. Lu notes that his lab is also currently working on, “building these genetic circuits for therapeutic applications, but instead of targeting bacteria, we’ve been focused on using human cells.”
Washington Post reporter Martin Weil writes about this year’s recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship. Two MIT students were named Rhodes Scholars this year - Mary Clare Beytagh and Matthew Chun. Weil writes that Chun is, “designing the first prosthetic knee intended specifically for use in the developing world.”
Boston Magazine reporter Hayley Glatter spotlights how two MIT seniors - Mary Clare Beytagh and Matthew Chun - were among this year’s winners of the Rhodes Scholarship.
Boston Globe reporter Alyssa Meyers writes that MIT researchers have observed how the flu spreads between cells in the body. “Once it’s infected a cell and has commandeered its inner workings, the virus makes copies of itself that gather into buds attached to the membrane. The buds then break free from their host and go on to infect other cells.”
WGBH News reports that Massachusetts residents will soon have the opportunity to take online courses through edX. General Electric, Microsoft and Partners Healthcare, “will pay for thousands of Massachusetts residents to take online courses in artificial intelligence, health care management and other in-demand fields.”
Researchers at MIT will begin studying how Boston-area drivers interact with driver assistance systems, reports Aarian Marshall for Wired. Research Engineer Bryan Reimer explains that he and his colleagues hope to gain a better understanding for how, “driving is beginning to transform from one where the human has primary oversight responsibility to one where the human is actively engaged in a robotic interaction with the vehicle.”
AP reporter Gene Johnson writes about this year’s group of Rhodes Scholars, which includes two MIT students, Mary Clare Beytagh and Matthew Chun. Johnson highlights how Chun, “leads a team designing the first prosthetic knee for use in the developing world.”
A new study by MIT researchers shows how stress can lead people to make risky decisions, reports Kristin Hugo for Newsweek. “The study lends insights into how neurological disorders affect people. It could be the stress of dealing with inabilities to function properly and staving off cravings, compounded with the chemical effects on the brain, that are influencing people’s uninhibited behavior.”
STAT reporter Hyacinth Empinado highlights Media Lab Research Scientist David Kong’s new project Biota Beats, which uses bacterial data as the basis for hip-hop melodies. “Music is one of the great universal languages of our human society. We thought this would be a really, really wonderful way to engage the broader public and get them excited about science through music,” said Kong.
Wall Street Journal reporter James Hagerty memorializes the life and work of MIT alumnus Vanu Bose, a member of the MIT Corporation who founded a company aimed at bringing cellular service to, “underserved areas including Rwanda and dead zones in the mountains of Vermont.” Prof. John Guttag, one of Bose’s thesis advisers, notes that, “Vanu was an incredibly optimistic person.”