Prof. Mohammad Alizadeh and his colleagues "have developed a way to approach network monitoring that provides flexibility in data collection while still keeping both the circuit complexity of the router and the number of external servers low," writes Amy Wallace for UPI.
Steve Annear of The Boston Globe writes about the tradition of MIT students building a roller coaster to welcome freshmen to campus. “It was a good part of the reason that I became a mechanical engineer and I know that’s also true for other people,” says senior Andrea Meister.
Two new papers from CSAIL researchers “aim to help doctors make better use of the digital information they’re presented with,” writes Adi Gaskell for The Huffington Post. One examines a tool that uses ICU data to choose the best treatment option based on a range of symptoms, while the other facilitates “predictive models based upon an electronic health record system.”
Prof. Max Tegmark speaks to Ian Sample of The Guardian about the likelihood of creating superintelligent AI. “From my perspective as a physicist, intelligence is simply a kind of information processing formed by elementary particles moving around, and there’s no law of physics that says we can’t build machines more intelligent than us,” says Prof. Tegmark.
As the population ages and the labor force decreases, the U.S. can remain one of the world’s youngest populations with continued immigration, write Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, and research associate Luke Yoquinto. “There is broad agreement that slashing the raw number of immigrants to the U.S. would be an economic mistake.”
Damien Garde of STAT highlights Prof. Li-Huei Tsai’s research on the HDAC2 enzyme in an article about Alzheimer’s research. “If we can reduce HDAC2 expression in Alzheimer’s disease models, we can reactivate the genes [that] actually rescue learning and memory,” says Prof. Tsai.
A study co-authored by MIT researchers shows that climate change will cause toxic cyanobacteria algae to increase. The algae, which thrive in warmer conditions, can cause “neurological damage, liver damage, gastrointestinal problems, irritation of eyes, ears and skin, and other health problems,” if ingested, writes Craig Lemoult of WGBH.
An MIT study finds that the Earth’s mantle was 200 degrees Celsius hotter three billion years ago than it is today. That finding shows “that the Earth's ancient crust was made up of a much denser, iron- and magnesium-enriched material than today's rocky mantle,” writes Amy Wallace for UPI.
Lowell Sun reporter Chris Lisinski spotlights the total eclipse viewing party held at MIT’s Wallace Observatory in Westford. Lisinski notes that the Observatory, “hosted close to 200 people, many of them young children, for a viewing of Monday's "Great American Eclipse."
Salon’s Heather Digby Parton highlights research from Prof. Ethan Zuckerman regarding the effects of online media on the last election. The study found that clickbait news sites “received amplification and legitimation through an attention backbone that tied the most extreme conspiracy sites.”
Jessica Van Sack writes for The Boston Herald about the book “Whiplash,” which was co-written by Media Lab director, Prof. Joi Ito. With the nine principles of the Media Lab as a guide, the book functions as a user’s manual for the 21st century, writes Van Sack.
Large crowds gathered at MIT's Kresge Oval to observe the solar eclipse using special glasses or catching a glimpse from telescopes, reports Monica Madeja of NECN.
In this Wall Street Journal article, senior MIT Sloan lecturer Robert Pozen and Prof. S.P. Kothari explain the causes of inflated executive pay. As a solution, Pozen and Kothari write that compensation committees should, “be required to disclose the revenues and market capitalizations of the peers they select.”
More than 100 people gathered on the lawn of the Wallace Observatory to view the solar eclipse, reports CBS Boston. “I think it just happens to be a special event where the entire country is able to see the same event at the same time,” says Senior Research Support Associate Tim Brothers.
More than 5,000 people gathered at MIT’s Kresge Oval to watch the solar eclipse, reports Michael Levenson, Steve Annear and Sara Salinas of The Boston Globe. In addition to a few hundred pairs of eclipse glasses, two telescopes were available to detect sunspots and sun flares.