NBC News reporter Kristi Eaton writes about Saathi, an MIT startup aimed at increasing access to sanitary pads for women in rural India. “Only 16 percent [of women] have access to sanitary pads in India,” explains Saathi co-founder Kristin Kagetsu, adding that access is important because it means women “can go to school and work more.”
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with WGBH’s Edgar Herwick about the search for life on other planets, following the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets. "The first thing we’re gonna look for is water vapor in the atmosphere," Seager explains. “If there’s water, we want to look and see if there are gasses that don’t belong that might be produced by life."
Institute Prof. Emerita Mildred Dresselhaus, known for her work deciphering the secrets of carbon, died at 86, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. Dresselhaus’ granddaughter Leora Cooper, an MIT graduate student, explained that by being a role model for women in STEM, “she encouraged me to not just see the changes that needed to be made, but to start making them.”
New York Times reporter Natalie Angier memorializes the life and work of Institute Professor Emerita Mildred Dresselhaus, affectionately nicknamed the “Queen of Carbon” for her pioneering research into the fundamental properties of carbon. Angier notes that Dresselhaus was also “renowned for her efforts to promote the cause of women in science.”
Researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab are cataloging tree cover in cities around the world and have determined that Singapore has the most greenery of the 17 cities surveyed thus far, reports Audrey Tan for The Straits Times. The project is aimed at getting “people to take action to improve urban tree cover in their cities,” says Prof. Carlo Ratti.
Postdoc Julien de Wit speaks with Boston Herald reporter Marie Szaniszlo about the discovery of seven Earth-like planets. De Wit, who is leading the effort to study the planets’ atmospheres, explains that “this is the first time that we’ve found so many small planets — each potentially habitable — around the same star, a star that’s close to us.”
Financial Times reporter Tim Harford writes that a study by MIT researchers explores how a country's exports can influence income inequality. The study shows “a relationship between inequality and lack of economic complexity. Holding other things constant, the simplest economies tend to be the most unequal.”
Postdoc Julien de Wit speaks with NPR reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce about the discovery of seven exoplanets that could harbor the conditions necessary to sustain liquid water. Greenfieldboyce reports that de Wit explained that the planets have a “‘winning combination’ of being temperate, Earth-size and ideally suited for follow-up observations with telescopes to analyze their atmospheres.”
MIT researchers have developed a drug that could reverse hearing loss by regenerating hair cells in the ear, writes Thomas Tamblyn for The Huffington Post. Hearing loss affects about 45 million Americans and “repairing or regrowing those hair cells would be a major breakthrough,” explains Tamblyn.
An international team of scientists, including astronomers from MIT, has discovered seven Earth-sized planets, reports Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. Julien de Wit, a postdoc at MIT who is leading the study of the planets’ atmospheres, explains that repeated observations of the planets, “lifted the veil on the architecture of the system.”
New York Times reporter Kenneth Chang writes about the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets by a team of researchers, including MIT scientists. The discovery makes “the search for life in the galaxy imminent,” says Prof. Sara Seager. “We just have to wait and then make very careful observations and see what is in the atmospheres of the Trappist planets.”
Lilly Chin, a senior in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is one of 15 contestants on the 2017 Jeopardy! College Championship. Chin has advanced through the quarter and semifinal rounds and will compete in the final round of the tournament.
A study by Prof. Michael McDonald details how a black hole in the Phoenix cluster is producing star-making fuel, reports Andy Rosen for The Boston Globe. “It’s an extreme system that doesn’t seem to follow all the rules that we’ve found, so it gives us a clue to what the rules are,” McDonald explains.
In an article about the Abaarso School of Science and Technology in Somaliland, Boston Globe reporter James Sullivan highlights Mubarik Mohamoud, a senior at MIT. Mohamoud came to MIT from Worcester Academy and was the first student from Abaarso to be accepted at an American school.
New research by Prof. David Autor shows that the number of young married women has decreased during recent decades, reports Jenna Smialek for Bloomberg News. Autor found that “the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to global trade may be at least partially to blame” for the decline.