Tim Bowler reports for the BBC News that a new study by MIT researchers finds that workplace chatter can increase productivity. The researchers found that “those who interacted most with their co-workers had the highest productivity - whether or not they were talking about work or sport.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Colleen Flaherty reports on a study by MIT researchers on a data-driven model aimed at providing predictions of faculty research success. The study suggests that “operations research scholars recommended for tenure by the new model had better future research records, on average, than those granted tenure by the tenure committees at top institutions.”
A team of MIT students has developed a device that can convert text to braille in real-time, reports Devin Thorpe for Forbes. Undergrad Jialin Shi explains that the team hopes the device “will be able to increase the braille literacy rate, and in turn, increase the employment rate of adults with significant vision loss.”
In an article for The Wall Street Journal about creating the perfect cup of coffee, Robert Lee Hotz highlights postdoc Christopher Hendon’s research on the chemistry and physics of coffee making.
Guardian reporter Mark Harris writes about research scientist Caleb Harper’s work developing sensor-controlled systems that could allow farmers to grow food in varying conditions around the world. Harper has also developed a system to share data on optimal growing conditions in the hopes of providing “access to biology in the same way that HTML gave us access to the internet.”
Kevin Murnane of Forbes spotlights five innovations developed by CSAIL researchers in 2016. Murnane highlights an ingestible origami robot, a 3-D printed robot with solid and liquid components, a robot that can assist with scheduling decisions, an artificial neural network that can explain its decisions, and an algorithm that can predict human interactions.
Research engineer Michael Sacarny joined forces with the Charles River Alliance of Boaters to develop a map charting the Charles River basin, reports Daniel Adams for The Boston Globe. The chart “promises to become a foundational tool of multiple efforts to study, navigate, and manage the increasingly crowded Charles.”
In this KQED segment, reporter John Sepulvado remembers MIT alumnus Nicholas Walrath, who died in the warehouse fire in Oakland, California. Walrath’s friends describe him as “a hyper-intelligent, humble, athletic man in constant search of understanding why the world — and people — existed.”
Writing for The Los Angeles Times, Prof. Arnold Barnett proposes that electoral votes be awarded based off of a candidate’s share of each states’ popular vote. Barnett writes that this reform would be a “compromise between the electoral college and the national popular vote, each of which has a clear tendency to favor one of the two major political parties.”
MIT researchers have developed a technique to make big data more manageable, writes Kevin Murnane for Forbes. The technique creates "coresets" that can be used by data analysis tools “often applied in computer vision, natural language processing, neuroscience, weather prediction, recommendation systems and more.”
In their round up of the top science stories of 2016, Science News highlighted several MIT research breakthroughs. The top story of the year was the successful detection of gravitational waves by researchers from MIT, Caltech and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. Another highlight was the discovery by Prof. Susan Solomon that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is shrinking.
Kat Chow of NPR’s Code Switch, speaks with Prof. Ruth Perry about the origins and evolution of the term “politically correct.” "The attack on the 'politically correct,'” Perry explains, " is an attack on the theory and practice of affirmative action.”
Anant Agarwal, president of edX, writes for The Huffington Post that MicroMasters programs, which provide new pathways to master’s degrees through online and on-campus courses, could help close the skills gap. Agarwal notes that MIT’s MicroMasters pilot in Supply Chain Management, “demonstrates the innovative power of MicroMasters to expand access to higher education at a truly massive scale.”
Prof. James Collins has been named one of The Boston Globe’s “2016 Bostonians of the Year” for his work developing a paper-based test that can detect the Zika virus in just a few hours. Neil Swidey notes that Collins also developed a “workflow for how this new platform could be adapted to meet future crises.”
Richard Florida writes for The Atlantic’s CityLab site about Prof. Emeritus Peter Temin’s research examining how growing class and racial divisions in America are creating a dual economy. In the new, highly-segmented economy, “education, which was once a force for the homogenization of the labor force,” Temin argues, “has become a barrier reinforcing the dual economy.”