A study by Prof. Tanveet Suri shows that a mobile-money service called M-Pesa had a long-term impact on poverty in Kenya, writes Tina Rosenberg for The New York Times. The researchers found that M-Pesa “helped women graduate from subsistence agriculture to small business, perhaps because having an M-Pesa account gives a woman her own money…and a greater sense of agency.”
In an article for The Atlantic, Prof. Ethan Zuckerman proposes creating a public social media platform that focuses on “aggregating and curating, pushing unfamiliar perspectives into our feeds and nudging us to diversity away from the ideologically comfortable material we all gravitate towards.”
BBC News reporter Roland Pease explores the burgeoning field of synthetic biology. “I think what makes synthetic biology interesting is that it's bringing together engineers and physicists with molecular biologists to model, design, and build molecular components that can then be used to rewire and reprogram living cells for a variety of applications,” explains Prof. James Collins.
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about NATO, arguing that the alliance is a crucial component of U.S. security policy. “Should the alliance shatter, all the social infrastructure that allows people to collaborate will break with it,” Levenson explains.
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Fotini Christia and graduate student Tugba Bozcaga analyze whether Turkish referendum rallies held in Europe influenced election results. The researchers found that rallies did not influence the election outcome, and that "deep-seated cleavages between Turks and Kurds, as well as divisions within Turks…ultimately determined the outcome of the referendum.”
Boston Globe reporter Kay Lazar writes about an event held at MIT “aimed at building alliances among diverse groups now also targeted for hate.” The event was organized by the Massachusetts chapter of the Indian American Forum for Political Education.
WCVB reporter Mike Wankum visits MIT to learn about a device, developed by MIT students, that converts text to braille. Undergraduate Charlene Xia explains that, “it’s not just enough to make something cool,” adding that she and her teammates want to make a device that "actually makes a difference in the world.”
Prof. Abhijit Banerjee and Prof. Vipin Narang were highlighted as part of Open Magazine’s list featuring some of the leading thinkers on India. Banerjee was spotlighted for his research on alleviating poverty in India, and Narang for his work examining India’s nuclear doctrine.
Prof. Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute, writes for The Washington Post about the importance of federal funding for scientific research, noting that scientific advances help drive the American economy. “When scientific breakthroughs spawn new industries and jobs, those benefits occur right here in the United States,” Lander explains.
Fox 25’s Kacie Yearout reports that a team of MIT students has developed a portable tool that converts text to braille in real-time. The students were awarded a Lemelson-MIT prize for their invention, which “uses a small camera with optical character recognition software to scan any printed material and convert it into a braille cell.”
In an article for Scientific American, Kavya Balaraman writes that MIT researchers have found that climate change could impact rainfall conditions over the Nile, potentially exacerbating water conflicts. Prof. Elfatih Eltahir explains that with the increased frequency of El Niño and La Niña, “we are projecting enhanced variability in the Nile flow.”
In an article for The Boston Globe about electric bike systems, Hiawatha Bray writes about the Copenhagen Wheel, a battery-powered wheel developed by MIT researchers. “The wheel turns almost any standard bike into a two-wheeled Tesla,” writes Bray, who recently tested the wheel on the streets of Boston.
Jordan Graham writes for The Boston Herald about a panel discussion at MIT on the future of work, which featured Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt. During the discussion, Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson noted that “there’s huge opportunities for creating new kinds of jobs, new kinds of work using technology.”
The New York Times' David Leonhardt writes about a study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein showing that as health care premiums rise, low-income families increasingly forgo insurance and use emergency care. Leonhardt explains that emergency care, “tends to be expensive, raising costs for other patients, and it’s often not as good as preventive care.”
Researchers in the MIT Self-Assembly Lab have developed a new method for 3-D printing that could enable large-scale production of 3-D printed objects, reports Alexandra Simon-Lewis for Wired. The process, called rapid liquid printing, “enables the precise creation of customized products,” in a liquid gel suspension.