Matt Juul writes for Boston Magazine that a team of MIT students and alumni are competing in the Red Bull Flutag competition, which challenges participants to develop human-piloted gliders. Alumnus Mike Tomovich explains that the MIT team was motivated to compete by a desire to share their “passion for engineering and inspiring the next generation of engineers.”
Fortune reporter David Morris writes that MIT researchers have developed a technique for producing temporary tattoos that can serve as computer interfaces. The researchers “used gold leaf to construct a range of sensing surfaces for capacitive touch input, conductors for heat-sensitive displays, and antennae for short-range wireless communications.”
MIT alumna Ashley Smith speaks with Boston Globe reporter Marisa Dellato about the team she is leading in the upcoming Red Bull Flutag competition. “I’ve been looking for things to do outside work that will help push me as a person, like facing my fear of heights and learning a new skill,” says Smith.
In an article for The Boston Globe, Kevin Hartnett explores a study co-authored by Prof. Danny Fox that examines why children confuse the words “and” and “or.” The researchers found that “children may conduct exactly the same logical process as adults, but arrive at different conclusions because they run that process over a narrower set of alternative sentences.”
Prof. Alex “Sandy” Pentland speaks with Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s On Point, about his study examining friendship. “If you’re trying to lose weight…50 percent of the time you are likely to reach out to people who really actually aren’t going to help that much,” Pentland explains, adding that people should be looking to mutual friendships for support.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Vanessa Nason highlights how students from the Salem public schools participated in a competition to develop code for MIT-designed robots on the International Space Station. “The teams were tasked with solving a challenge developed by MIT students. They worked for five weeks coding small robots to perform maintenance functions on the ISS.”
In an article for The Huffington Post about why virtual assistants have trouble understanding accents, Philip Ellis highlights how researchers from MIT have compiled a database of written English composed by non-native speakers. Ellis explains that the aim is "to create a richer context for machine learning” systems.
Gabrielle DiBenedetto writes for Boston Magazine that researchers from MIT CSAIL have developed a robot that can help nurses schedule tasks. DiBenedetto writes that the robot “learns how to perform the scheduling job similarly to how a human would: through observation.”
CNBC reporter Robert Ferris writes that MIT researchers have developed new technology that could allow windows to shift from transparent to opaque. “Solutions such as these could greatly reduce the demand for air conditioning, which is currently booming around the world,” writes Ferris.
Inside Higher Ed reporter Colleen Flaherty writes that researchers from MIT and around the world are publicly defending the late Prof. Suzanne Corkin’s work with patient H.M. in response to a highly critical publication. When “so many scholars rise to defend the reputation of a deceased colleague,” says Arthur Caplan, head of NYU’s Division of Bioethics, “that speaks volumes both about her and the problems that exist in the book.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Josh McDermott dispels the theory that musical preference is rooted in biology, writes Jacqueline Howard for CNN. "We need to accept and document the differences in how other cultures hear the world. The opportunities to do so are rapidly diminishing with the diffusion of Western music around the world,” says McDermott.
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines how American voters have become increasingly concerned about the fairness of the electoral process. “The best hope is for a combination of voices, both partisan and nonpartisan, to remind Americans of the mechanisms in place to ensure that votes are counted fairly.”
A team of MIT researchers has received an EPA grant to install a network of air quality sensors to study Hawaii’s volcanic smog, reports Greenwire’s Sean Reilly. The sensors will provide residents with real-time information as well as “a data set that can be used to explore pollutant variability and other topics,” explains Reilly.
Prof. Charles Stewart III writes for The Washington Post that the latest Pew Charitable Trust Elections Performance Index shows there has been improvement in U.S. election administration. Stewart explains that the index gauges “performance across several dimensions of election administration, including the quality of voter registration, ballot casting, and vote counting.”
Prof. Elfatih Eltahir speaks with the BBC’s Ed Butler about whether desalination could be an effective remedy for water shortages in the Middle East. Eltahir notes that current desalination methods use “a lot of energy to basically distill water…and could have very high costs and could contribute to the potential for global warming.”