In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. M. Taylor Fravel examines why China is so inflexible when it comes to territorial disputes at sea. “Now that China is stronger,” Fravel writes, “many citizens believe it needs an unchallenged presence in the South China Sea that reflects its perceived status and capabilities.”
Scarlett Ho writes for The Huffington Post about an MIT startup, fireflies.ai, aimed at helping people foster and maintain connections. “All you have to do is forward an email from the contact you wish to keep in touch with to Fireflies, set reminders, add notes, and Fireflies will adapt over time, sending meaningful insights for you.”
Hae Young Yoo writes for The Boston Globe that Ori, a spinoff out of the MIT Media Lab’s CityHome research project, “is creating furniture for urban spaces -- not just smaller pieces, but smarter ones, equipped with robotics that move on demand.”
Wired reporter Margaret Rhodes writes that Media Lab spinoff Ori is developing transformable furniture to help maximize living spaces. “With the push of a button—or, with future versions of the software, at the sound of a voice or wave of a hand—pieces of Ori furniture will slide up, down, or over, reconfiguring spaces in mere moments.”
In an article for Bloomberg View, Noah Smith highlights a paper by Prof. Daron Acemoglu, in which he argues that government is essential to economic development. Smith writes that Acemoglu’s new theory, makes the case that “a strong and effective state…isn’t the bane of innovation -- it’s a necessary and crucial input.”
Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen writes in The Boston Globe about how to fix the nation’s system for taxing foreign profits of U.S. corporations. Pozen writes that politicians should “find a way to reduce the US corporate tax rate and bring back foreign profits to the United States, while helping rebuild our infrastructure and create jobs.”
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Simon Johnson questions the ability of U.S. banks to weather another recession. Johnson writes that he thinks the U.S. should require our largest banks “to have a great deal more equity so they could absorb more of their own losses, and not dump them…on the public.”
An image created by researchers at the Koch Institute that shows red nanoparticles carrying MicroRNAs to an aggressive breast tumor is featured in the National Cancer Institute Cancer Close Up project. Washington Post reporter Laurie McGinley explains that the photographs are intended to spark public interest and encourage young people to consider a career in microbiology.
Wired reporter Joshua Sokol speaks with Profs. Janet Conrad and Lindley Winslow about how they helped the Ghostbusters team infuse the film with science, and how they hope the film’s portrayal of female scientists will inspire viewers. Winslow says the movie is important “because middle school girls will watch it. It will put that seed in their head.”
CNN reporter Sara Ashley O’Brien writes that CSAIL researchers have demonstrated that a robot could help schedule tasks in a hospital’s labor and delivery unit. The researchers trained a robot to understand a nurse’s scheduling decisions and “90% of the time the Nao robot made suggestions that doctors and nurses carried out.”
Research Scientist Caleb Harper speaks with ABC News' Justine Quart about his work developing growing chambers that can be used to cultivate plants around the world. Harper explains that he wanted to “create a tool that other people could use to solve problems. I’m just a tool maker for the next generation of farmers.”
MIT alumnus Jason Strauss’ startup creates and mails postcards based off your smartphone photos, writes Madeline Bilis for Boston Magazine. “Users text a photo to a phone number, include an address and a message, provide payment information for a $2 processing fee, and voilà, a postcard is printed and shipped,” explains Bilis.
A study conducted by researchers with the Singaore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology examines how coal use could cause water strain in parts of Asia, writes Audrey Tan for The Straits Times. The study’s findings suggest that higher coal use “could suppress rainfall in China, India and across South-east Asia,” explains Tan.
In a Wall Street Journal series examining the roots of America’s current economic disillusionment and how it is impacting the presidential election, Jon Hilsenrath and Bob Davis highlight Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Research Scientist Andrew McAfee’s work examining how technology impacts jobs, and Prof. David Autor’s research on how trade with China has affected the U.S. labor market.
In a New York Times column, MITEI researcher Howard Herzog argues that carbon capture should be part of a portfolio of low-carbon energy options used to tackle climate change. “The magnitude of the climate challenge is so large, we need as many options as possible, including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture,” writes Herzog.