In an article for Boston Magazine about Massachusetts being named the most innovative state in the country, Garrett Quinn highlights MIT’s role in the state’s success. Quinn writes that Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc., credited MIT as being “one of the main drivers of innovation in Massachusetts.”
Ray Brescia writes for The Huffington Post about a new paper co-authored by Prof. Frank Levy that examines the impact of automation on lawyers. The research suggests that, “at the core of what we value the most about the practice of law are things that lawyers can do better than computers.”
Graduate student Adrian Dalca speaks with Metro reporter Spencer Buell about how the million photos he snapped of the Boston skyline could fuel advances in a variety of areas. “There are more scientific questions you can answer with a lot of data, which you couldn’t do if you only had a few images,” says Dalca.
Kyle Clauss writes for Boston Magazine about graduate student Adrian Dalca, who captured one million photographs of the Boston skyline. The resulting collection, called the Boston Timescape Project, is a “comprehensive collection of view of our fair metropolis, in every season, in every condition,” writes Clauss.
Popular Science reporter Mary Beth Griggs writes that MIT researchers are developing a more efficient incandescent light bulb. Griggs explains that the prototype “is already as energy efficient as some LEDs and fluorescent bulbs currently on the market.”
MIT researchers have developed a technique to increase the efficiency of incandescent light bulbs, reports Matt McGrath for BBC News. "We have this huge challenge that the world is facing right now, global warming and energy efficiency and this gives you one more tool," says Prof. Marin Soljačić.
In an article for The Washington Post about robots and humans, Wendell Wallach highlights Prof. David Mindell’s book “Our Robots, Ourselves.” “Mindell clearly demonstrates that the efforts of people and robots can be complementary and inextricably entangled, and can evolve together,” writes Wallach.
Cade Metz writes for Wired that MIT researchers have developed a system that allows robots to predict how objects will move. Postdoc Ilker Yildirim explains that in order for a robot to be able to assist with household tasks like washing the dishes, it must “deeply understand its physical environments.”
Prof. Frank Wilczek writes for The Wall Street Journal that integrating logic puzzles and games into math lessons could make math a more accessible subject. “We know that people like games of chance and gambling,” writes Wilczek. “These lead naturally into adventures in probability and statistics.”
Prof. David Kaiser speaks with WGBH Radio’s Edgar B. Herwick about what the addition of four new elements to the periodic table means for scientific research and discovery. "It’s kind of like saying you have a map of the wilderness and by exploring it you want to change the map at the same time," says Kaiser.
The Wall Street Journal’s Monika Auger reports that a team of astronomers, including researchers from MIT, have discovered the largest galaxy cluster formed in the early universe. “Astronomers believe that this galaxy cluster probably began forming only a few hundred-million years after the Big Bang,” explains Auger.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Jo Craven McGinty highlights a study by researchers from MIT and Harvard that calculated the damage caused by Volkwagen cheating on emissions standards tests. “We estimated the vehicles affected were driven 40.5 billion kilometers from 2008,” explains Prof. Steven Barrett.
Fortune reporter Hilary Brueck writes that MIT researchers have developed a new flexible battery that can harness energy from a range of motions, including walking. Brueck explains that the “bendy battery works best with normal, human-scale activity, like walking, poking, and bending.”
Chris Sweeney writes for Boston Magazine that MIT researchers were part of a team of astronomers that identified the largest galaxy cluster from the early universe. Sweeney writes that researchers “will continue scouring the data in search of additional galaxies while looking for clues to how the universe formed.”
Prof. Alan Guth speaks with Christina Couch of Science Friday about his career and the cosmos. Of what inspired him to pursue a career in science, Guth recalls conducting experiments with a friend and being “very excited about the idea that we can really calculate things, and they actually do reflect the way the real world works.”