In the Media

Saqib Shah writes for FOX News that researchers from the Media Lab’s Electome project are launching an interactive tool “that compares tweets shared by the White House with a sampling of those shared by the public.”

By fusing graphene into a porous 3-D form, MIT researchers have created a strong, lightweight material, writes Brooks Hays for UPI. “The findings suggest a 3D material's tensile and compressive properties are dependent on the geometry of its structure, not the strength of the 2D material from which it is derived,” explains Hays.

MIT researchers have designed a strong, lightweight material that is ten times stronger than steel, reports Katharine Schwab for Co.Design. “If we can produce the material in big amounts, we can use that to somehow substitute some of the steel used for construction,” says research scientist Zhao Qin. 

A study by MIT researchers provides evidence that California could see an increase in extreme precipitation events due to climate change, according to CBS San Francisco. “Using large scale future projections and factoring in policies to restrict global warming, researchers said the Bay Area could see more of those kinds of storms on a seasonal basis.”

The City of Haverhill will test a solar-powered bench designed by Soofa, a Media Lab spinoff, reports Brenda J. Buote for The Boston Globe.  The city will “track how often the bench is used as a way to measure positive community development.”

The Boston Globe Magazine’s list of some of the most innovative ideas, people, and companies of 2016 features graduate student Dheeraj Roy, whose research suggests that one day optogenetics could potentially be used to help stimulate memories in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

MIT researchers have found that reduced plasticity in the brains of people with dyslexia may explain why they experience difficulties with reading and with processing spoken speech, writes Kevin Murnane of Forbes. Murnane explains that the findings “indicate that dyslexia is not just about reading. It involves a reduction in neural adaptation to a variety of perceptual stimuli.”

Current tax laws do not encourage U.S. corporations to invest foreign profits in this country, writes senior lecturer Robert Pozen in the Boston Herald. Senator Paul Ryan’s plan to make all U.S. exports exempt from corporate taxes is “a bold effort to reform corporate taxes in a way to keep more facilities and jobs in the U.S.,” Pozen writes.

MIT researchers have launched a new project, Treepedia, to catalogue the density of the tree canopy in cities around the world, reports Feargus O’Sullivan for CityLab. O’Sullivan explains that the project is aimed at making “issues of urban and environmental planning (and the data that underpins them) more accessible for non- or semi- professionals.”

CBC News reporter Laura DaSilva writes that MIT researchers have launched a project, called Treepedia, to measure the percentage of land covered by trees in urban areas. Using Google Street View, “the researchers measured the percentage of land covered by trees in 12 cities across the world.”

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Visiting Lecturer Irving Wladawsky-Berger praises MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Competition, a contest that honors companies aimed at improving economic opportunities for all workers. Wladawsky-Berger writes that it’s heartening that MIT is “searching for breakthrough innovations to help improve [the] economic prospects” of workers impacted by advanced technologies. 

CSAIL researchers have found that ride-sharing services could reduce the number of cars on the road by 75 percent, reports Marisa Kendall for The Mercury News. The researchers developed an algorithm that can increase service speeds by 20 percent by rerouting cars to “their most efficient routes, including automatically sending idle cars to areas of high demand.”

UPI reporter Brooks Hays writes that MIT researchers have developed a new model that helps predict the frequency of extreme precipitation events. The researchers found that “a rise in global temperature of 4 degrees Celsius will yield an extra three extreme precipitation events per year in California by the end of the century.”

Kevin Slane writes for Boston.com that a number of the honorees recognized on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list are members of the MIT community. 

A new study conducted by MIT researchers shows that ride-sharing services could reduce the number of cars on the road in New York City by 75 percent, according to the BBC News. The researchers found that “a fleet of 3,000 four-passenger taxis could do the same job as the current fleet of 13,000 yellow cabs in New York City.”