Prof. R. Scott Kemp and his colleagues have created a new method for identifying nuclear warheads without revealing sensitive information, writes Emily Benson of New Scientist. "The technique offers a way out of a tricky catch-22," explains Benson.
Science magazine’s Ben Panko describes a new technique developed by Prof. R. Scott Kemp and colleagues that "nuclear inspectors can use to verify whether a warhead is active, inactive, or a fake—all without learning anything about its design." Panko refers to the method as "a kind of physical encryption that allows warhead scanning without revealing too much."
Loukia Papadopoulos explains her favorite quotes by Prof. Donald Sadoway on the future of clean energy. “When Sadoway began his work on the liquid metal battery, he purposely ignored many established paradigms in his own field and chose instead to reach across disciplines to generate new insight,” writes Papadopoulos in The Huffington Post.
In an article for Forbes, Sloan alumna Isabel Fernandez-Mateo describes research she conducted with Prof. Roberto Fernandez examining the lack of female candidates placed by hiring firms. “My research suggests that the glass ceiling starts to appear much earlier in the process than previously thought,” she writes.
Olivia Quintana from The Boston Globe speaks to Prof. Richard Binzel one year after the New Horizons spacecraft transmitted photos of Pluto’s surface to Earth. “In the past year we’ve decided to try to understand what we’re seeing,” says Prof. Binzel. “It’s an active planet. There are processes going on. Its surface is constantly changing.”
Fortune reporter Jeremy Quittner writes about a new study by MIT researchers that examines why women are less likely to get VC funding than men. The researchers found that “women-owned companies do a certain amount of self-sorting into industries that are probably less risky, and so also lack high-growth potential that VCs find most attractive.”
In a BBC News article about the resurgence of bicycling, Kent Larson, director of the Changing Places group, describes the bicycle his group is developing. “You think of the demographic profile of [a] bike rider now as quite limited,” says Larson. “We are working on an electric vehicle that we think of as democratising bike lanes."
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Sherry Turkle argues that augmented reality games prevent children from making real connections. “If we are not vigilant, seeing the world through a lens — albeit not darkly — can be a first step toward accepting a dreamscape as sufficient unto the day,” says Turkle.
In his latest project, Alan Kwan, a student in MIT’s Art, Culture and Technology program, makes umbrellas float through the air like jellyfish using drones, writes Thom Leavy for Popular Science. “People have this perception of drones as weapons and I’m trying to push this work in the direction of the poetic,” says Kwan.
CSAIL researchers trained a robot to analyze and make scheduling suggestions in a hospital labor ward, writes Kelsey Atherton for Popular Science. Atherton writes that “by adding in a robot that can analyze scheduling needs, hospitals could make better informed decisions.”
A new study co-authored by Prof. Josh McDermott finds that musical preference may stem from cultural origins, writes Vivian Wang for The Boston Globe. “It raises the possibility that things vary a lot more from culture to culture than people might have wanted to accept,” says McDermott.
A paper co-authored by Prof. Josh McDermott examines the musical preferences of a society with minimal exposure to Western culture, writes Chelsea Leu for Wired. “Maybe an innate bias for consonance exists, but that doesn’t mean every culture develops it,” Leu writes regarding the society’s lack of preference for consonant or dissonant sounds.
By studying how people from different cultures respond to consonant and dissonant chords, MIT researchers have found that musical tastes may be rooted in cultural origins, not biology, writes Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. The results “underscore the degree of variation that exists across cultures in terms of how people hear and evaluate music," explains Prof. Josh McDermott.
Atlantic reporter Ed Young writes about a study by MIT researchers that finds musical preferences may be cultural in origin. The researchers examined the musical preferences of remote Amazonian village and found they “don’t care about consonance or dissonance. They can tell the difference between the two kinds of sounds, but they rate both as being equally pleasant.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that culture and not biology may be responsible for our musical tastes, writes Amina Khan for The Los Angeles Times. The researchers found that “people who haven’t been exposed to Western music don’t find certain ‘discordant’ sounds unpleasant at all,” suggesting that musical preferences are not innate.