Prof. Manolis Kellis speaks with BBC reporter Andrew Peach about the discovery of a genetic “master switch” inside fat cells. This switch “decides whether every time we have a meal the excess calories will be stored as fat or whether they will actually be burned away as heat,” explains Kellis.
Kate Darling of the MIT Media Lab speaks with Wired reporter Katie Collins about what the destruction of a hitchhiking robot says about how people relate to robots. "Can we change people's empathy with robots,” says Darling. This is "at the core of what I view as ethics. I don't think robot ethics is about robots, it is about humans."
Prof. Manolis Kellis and his colleagues have discovered a metabolic switch linked to obesity, reports Chukwuma Muanya for The Guardian. “Obesity has traditionally been seen as the result of an imbalance between the amount of food we eat and how much we exercise, but this view ignores the contribution of genetics to each individual’s metabolism,” explains Kellis.
According to The Economist, MIT researchers are using 3-D printing to modernize the coiling method of glass production. The researchers have “already used their device to print a range of objects, including optical prisms and decorative vessels.”
“Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have analysed the genetics behind obesity,” writes Natasha Hinde for The Huffington Post. “They discovered a new pathway that controls human metabolism by prompting fat cells to store fat or burn it away.”
Money reporter Penelope Wang writes about a new study by Prof. James Poterba that examined why Americans often did not have enough money saved for retirement. The researchers found that, “how much subjects had the first year their assets were measured showed the strongest determinant of the amount of the wealth they had at the end of life.”
“MIT's Mediated Matter Group has figured out a way to put molten glass through a 3D printer, creating beautiful sculptures,” writes Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. The printer lays down individual layers of melted glass, bringing it up to a finished sculpture.
Andy Coghlan reports for New Scientist that MIT researchers have found a gene that determines whether fat cells store or burn energy. “You could say we’ve found fat cells’ radiator, and how to turn it up or down,” says Prof. Manolis Kellis.
MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm that can prevent overexposed photos, reports Devin Coldewey for NBC News. The algorithm reconstructs the “parts of the image that would have been too bright, recovering a blue sky or reflection on a shiny object.”
Alice Park reports for TIME that researchers from MIT and Harvard have identified a pathway that controls how much fat cells burn or store. “What these results say is that we can reprogram all the major fat stores in humans by intervening in this particular pathway,” explains Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have discovered how the key gene linked to obesity makes people fat, reports the Associated Press. The study revealed that “a faulty version of the gene causes energy from food to be stored as fat rather than burned.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Jenn Harris writes that MIT researchers have developed a system that allows teams of robots to deliver items. Harris explains that the researchers hope their technique could be used to allow robots to aid in situations like “getting supplies and medicine across a battlefield in a war-torn country.”
Doctoral researcher Daniel Goodwin writes for Scientific American about the need for hackers to sort through the vast amount of neuroscience data. “Particularly in a field like neuroscience, helpers could be invaluable in exploring the daunting wilderness of newly revealed neural networks,” Goodwin explains.
Researchers at MIT and Harvard have developed a new device that can quickly detect Ebola, reports Robert Preidt for U.S. News & World Report. “The new paper-based test takes minutes and the device does not require electricity,” writes Preidt. “The test works in a similar manner to over-the-counter pregnancy tests.”
MIT researchers have developed a technique that can eliminate the washed-out spots found in overexposed images, reports Curt Woodward for BetaBoston. The technique could not only be used in photography, but could also be used for other applications like helping a “self-driving car stay on course despite quick light changes, such as entering a tunnel.”