Prof. Jonathan Gruber writes for WBUR about health care reform in Massachusetts. Gruber notes that reforms, "raised insurance coverage, improved health and financial security, improved the efficiency of health care, lowered premiums in the non-employer market, and had no meaningful impact on employer-provided insurance coverage or premiums.”
Graduate student Lydia Krasilnikova speaks with the Metro’s Spencer Buell about the visualizations she compiled on what color underwear MIT students wear, based on information reported to dorm mailing lists. “I think the pictures in the pie charts kind of provide a sort of visualization of dorm culture in a different perspective than you usually get,” explains Krasilnikova.
In an article for The Huffington Post, Prof. Nicholas Ashford writes about the importance of considering alternatives to toxic chemicals early in the regulatory process. “An early and serious examination of alternatives to suspect chemicals would not only accelerate the regulation of potentially harmful chemicals, it would also stimulate innovation in products and processes,” Ashford notes.
A team of MIT researchers has been selected as the winner of the Koch Institute research-grant pitch competition for their work on developing a diagnostic platform for early-stage leukemia, reports Amanda Hoover for Boston.com. Hoover explains that the diagnostic method would “single out individual cells during blood tests, highlighting those affected by leukemia.”
BetaBoston reporter Amanda Burke writes that three MIT student inventors have been named winners of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. Burke writes that the MIT students were honored for creating, “a camera that is sharper than the human eye, an electric car transmission, and a fully automatic health-food restaurant.”
Dan Misener reports for CBC News that MIT researchers have developed a new wireless tracking system, called Chronos, that can pinpoint a user’s location to within centimeters. Misener explains that Chronos, “can be used to turn a regular Wi-Fi router into a sort of radar system that can detect objects and where they are in the world.”
Huffington Post reporter Carolyn Gregoire writes that MIT spinoff Synlogic is working on reprogramming gut bacteria to act as a living therapeutic. “It’s become really clear that the bacteria living in us and on us affect our bodies in a variety of different ways — in ways that we never imagined,” explains Prof. Timothy Lu.
Grad student Michael Stepner speaks with Peter O’Dowd of Here & Now about his research examining how the life expectancy gap between the rich and poor has grown. Stepner explains the research suggests an opportunity for local “policies to address these gaps and improve life expectancies for low-income Americans.”
Emily Badger and Christopher Ingraham write for The Washington Post about a study by MIT researchers that examines how poverty impacts life expectancies across the country. “What's especially striking is that the poor live even shorter lives in some places than others. They have longer life expectancies in affluent, cities with highly educated populations,” they explain.
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that people who live in expensive, well-educated cities tend to live longer, reports Jim Zarroli for NPR. Zarroli explains that “the study suggests that the relationship between life expectancy and income is not iron-clad, and changes at the local level can make a big difference.”
Bloomberg News reporter John Tozzi writes about a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that finds a growing disparity between the life expectancies of rich and poor Americans. The researchers found that, “top earning Americans gained 2 to 3 years of life expectancy between 2001 and 2014, while those at the bottom gained little or nothing.”
As part of the Chronicle of Higher Education’s special section on tech innovators, Jeffrey Young spotlights the work of Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning. Young writes that Sarma is transforming higher education “by pushing the lecture model into the margins and using technology to rethink the professor’s role.”
Prof. Emilio Frazzoli speaks with Nicole Dungca of The Boston Globe about his new startup nuTonomy, which is developing a fleet of driverless taxis for Singapore. Frazzoli explains that he feels the biggest impact of autonomous vehicles is in “really changing the way we think of personal mobility, or mobility, in general.”
Prof. Tavneet Suri writes for The Huffington Post that text messages can improve civic engagement in developing countries, if the electoral system is perceived as fair. “While it’s clear that get-out-the-vote text messages have enormous potential to increase civic engagement and participation, it’s also clear that these messages carry an implicit promise of transparency and openness,” writes Suri.
Katie Lobosco writes for CNN Money that a new survey has found that MIT provides one of the best returns on investment for students. Lobosco notes that, “Many MIT grads land high-paying engineering and computer science jobs.”