Prof. Daniela Rus speaks with Siti Rahil of Kyodo News about how researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) are working autonomous vehicles. Rus explains that a challenge facing the field is enabling driverless cars to operate in environments where "some of the cars are driven by people and some of the cars are driven automatically."
Prof. John Hauser writes for CBS News about his research examining how companies can rebuild customer trust. “It’s critical to actually prove, again and again, that a company and its products can indeed be trusted – and customers must be provided with tangible, observable proof that a company has changed its ways and the quality of its products.”
Prof. Emeritus Stephen Erdely, who taught at MIT from 1973 to 1991 and also served as chair of the music department, died on Feb. 25, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. Marquard writes that Erdely, an acclaimed violinist, “delighted audiences with duets through the years” with his wife, pianist Beatrice Erdely.
CBS News reporter William Harwood writes that MIT alumnus Jack Fisher, a NASA flight engineer, is on his way to the International Space Station for a planned 135-day mission. Harwood notes that Fisher is an Air Force colonel and former test pilot with a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT.
In a WBUR segment examining efforts to make electrical grids more resilient, Bruce Gellerman highlights how MIT researchers are developing a digital test bed that “will set national standards for the control devices that will manage the complex microgrids, making sure power from large utilities meshes perfectly with that produced by local intermittent sources like wind, solar and backup batteries.”
CNN reporter Kaya Yurieff writes that MIT researchers have created a device that can harvest drinking water from the air, even in desert climates. “I'm most excited about being able to realize a functioning device in these remote areas and to be able to provide clean water to all the people who need it," says Prof. Evelyn Wang.
A new study by MIT researchers provides evidence that running can be socially contagious, reports Gretchen Reynolds for The New York Times. Prof. Sinan Aral explains that the study showed, “In general, if you run more, it is likely that you can cause your friends to run more.”
In an article published by Scientific American, Amin Al-Habaibeh writes about a device developed by MIT researchers that can extract drinking water from the atmosphere. Al-Habaibeh notes that the device’s ability to harvest water in dry regions, only using solar power, makes it a “particularly promising technology for harvesting water in arid or desert regions of the world.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Amina Khan writes that a study by MIT researchers shows that exercise can be contagious. The researchers found that a “runner’s peers did influence him or her to run more — but they also discovered that not all users influenced their buddies equally. Individuals were more likely to be prodded to up their game by less-active peers.”
President L. Rafael Reif speaks with Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach about the potential impact of proposed budget cuts to federally-funded scientific research. Achenbach writes that Reif notes, “America’s leadership in science is at stake.”
MIT researchers have developed a device that captures pollution emitted from a car’s tailpipe, and turns it into high-quality ink, reports Melissa Lott for Scientific American. “A typical ballpoint pen holds about 0.25 milliliters of ink – meaning that one vehicle can produce almost 3 pens worth of ink per minute,” explains Lott.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Hannah Furfaro highlights Treepedia, an online tool developed by researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab, that analyses tree cover in cities around the world. “Street greenery is a really important part of the urban environment,” explains postdoctoral fellow Xiaojiang Li.
MIT researchers have developed a device that draws water from the air using solar power, writes David Morris for Fortune. The device could serve as a possible solution for regions facing issues with water access, and “could unleash massive growth in regions where it’s still a problem, both at home and abroad,” concludes Morris.
In a piece for WBUR about digital health startups, Rachel Zimmerman spotlights Cake, a company co-founded by MIT alumna Suelin Chen. Zimmerman explains that Cake is a web platform aimed at helping “make decisions about death feel easier.”
Boston Globe reporter Beth Teitell spotlights how Chris Miller, a staff member at Lincoln Lab, examined ridership of the bikes in Boston’s bicycle-sharing system as part of a data visualization challenge. Miller found “six of the system’s 1,800 bikes had been ridden only once or twice each in all of 2016. The average bike in service makes close to four trips — per day.”