Matt McFarland reports for CNN that MIT researchers have developed temporary, gold-leaf tattoos that serve as wearable devices “that add a personal touch of style.” The tattoos can interface with smartphones, store data like movie or bus tickets, or display moods by changing colors, McFarland explains.
CNBC explores MIT’s history of developing alternative energy technologies and educating people around the world about sustainable energy. Graduate student Natasha Wright explains that MIT brings people together working on policy, business and technology, making it “easy to transition these technologies into the real world.”
MIT researchers have created temporary wearable gold leaf tattoos that can project a user’s mood and allow them to control nearby devices, writes Haniya Rae for Popular Science. “We wanted to build an output display that allowed for a more aesthetically pleasing look,” says graduate student Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, of the motivation behind the tattoos.
Temporary tattoos created by MIT researchers that allow users to control their electronic devices could one day make remote controls obsolete, writes Thomas Tamblyn for The Huffington Post. Tamblyn explains that the tattoos are made “using gold metal leaf, which means that it’s cheap, skin-friendly and can support a range of different input options.”
MIT alumna Danielle Appleton writes for TIME that in order to encourage females to pursue careers in STEM fields, women must mentor other women. “The path to changing female representation is very much about being a physical presence in the STEM world. We need to show young women that we exist, that we are here for support and that they are of value."
A National Academies panel chaired by MIT Prof. Jacqueline Hewitt “says the United States should rejoin a partnership with the European Space Agency... to study gravitational waves in space,” reports Daniel Clery for Science. “The community very much wants to see LISA [the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna] go forward,” explains Hewitt.
MIT researchers have developed a new system for protecting patient privacy in genomic databases, reports Anna Nowogrodzki for Nature. The system “masks the donor's identity by adding a small amount of noise, or random variation, to the results it returns on a user’s query,” Nowogrodzki explains.
MIT researchers have found that almost 90 percent of cars on the road could be replaced with electric vehicles, reports Amrith Ramkumar for Bloomberg. The researchers found switching to electric vehicles could lead to a “60 percent reduction in total U.S. gasoline consumption and a 30 percent decrease” in emissions from transportation.
A study by MIT researchers finds that electric cars could replace most of the cars on the road, reports Chris Mooney for The Washington Post. “87 percent of vehicles on the road could be replaced by a low cost electric vehicle…even if there’s no possibility to recharge during the day,” explains Prof. Jessika Trancik.
Sam Thielman writes for The Guardian that MIT researchers have found that electric vehicles would meet the needs of most American drivers. Prof. Jessika Trancik says her vision is that people would own electric vehicles, “but then being able to very conveniently get an internal combustion engine vehicle to take that long road trip.”
Prof. S.P. Kothari writes for The Wall Street Journal that federal student loans should be increased for STEM students to help close the science, technology and engineering skills gap. “If the nation is serious about staying competitive in the global race for STEM talent, then targeting student loans is one solution that can and should earn bipartisan support.”
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.”