Senior Lecturer Peter Senge speaks with C. M. Rubin of The Huffington Post about learning systems in business and education. Senge says that what connects “business and education is the need to grow an organizational climate or culture that supports ongoing collaboration, risk-taking, and a deep sense of purpose and commitment.”
CNBC reporter Robert Ferris writes that MIT researchers are developing a fabric that acts as a “second skin” and has vents that open when a person begins sweating. Ferris explains that, “the vents open and close by means of tiny bacteria borrowed from an unlikely place — Japanese cooking.”
Nidhi Subbaraman reports for BetaBoston on new jetpack technology being developed by a team from MIT, Draper, and NASA. “The team has tested the technology in a virtual reality simulator, where astronauts were challenged to tackle a Martian landscape obstacle course dotted with orange pylons while wearing jetpacks,” writes Subbaraman.
MIT researchers have devised a technique for desalinating water, reports Nina Godlewski for Boston.com. “The process, called shock electrodialysis, filters water through a material made of small glass particles,” writes Godlewski. “When an electric current is introduced to the system, the water divides into areas of high or low salt concentration.”
Jonathan Amos reports for BBC News on the discovery of a nearby exoplanet that is orbiting a red dwarf star. Amos explains that researchers are interested in studying Earth-sized exoplanets as “it may be their best bet of establishing whether or not life exists beyond our Solar System.”
Prof. Maria Zuber, Vice President for Research, speaks with WGBH Morning Edition host Bob Seay about MIT’s plan to confront climate change. Underscoring the need to engage everyone in the solution -- academic research institutions, governments and industry -- Zuber remarked, "MIT, although we're a top institution, we are humble enough to realize that we can't do this alone. Climate change is a complex problem, it's a global problem, and it's going to require all the smart people... to scale up and make this a global solution."
Prof. Kathleen Thelen speaks with Washington Post reporter Henry Farrell about the differences between Denmark’s and the United States’ labor market practices. Thelen says that Denmark’s “labor market policies are precisely designed to move the unemployed into training programs that enhance their marketable skills.”
Alvar Saenz-Otero, director of the Space Systems Laboratory, speaks with WGBH Radio’s Edgar Herwick about the problem of space debris. Otero and his team are “refining a system that would enable a spacecraft to match the spin of a piece of space junk, capture it, and haul it out of orbit.”
In an article for Scientific American, Katherine Hamilton writes about the fourth annual Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Symposium (C3E), which highlighted the increasing role women are playing in clean energy. The symposium was started by the U.S. Department of Energy in conjunction with the MIT Energy Initiative.
Huffington Post reporter Nitya Rajan writes that the discovery of an Earth-sized exoplanet by MIT researchers could be an important step in the search for extraterrestrial life. The planet is “close enough for experts to better understand the different types of atmospheres that could support life.”
The New York Times’ Zachary Woolfe writes about Prof. Tod Machover’s work “Symphony in D,” the latest in his series of city symphonies. Woolfe writes that the piece is “an explosion of energy, found sounds, live-music snippets and reminiscences featuring spoken and played interpolations from a range of Detroit artists.”
STAT reporter Andrew Joseph writes about optogenetics and Prof. Edward Boyden’s work developing this technique for turning neurons on and off. “There are just huge frontiers out there for which optogenetics will be one of our most powerful tools,” said Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute.
In an article for USA Today, Colin Chilcoat highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Elfatih Eltahir that indicates that climate change could cause the Persian Gulf to experience severe heat with greater regularity. Greenhouse-gas buildup could raise “temperatures to intolerable seasonal highs and [increase] the frequency and severity of extreme heat waves,” writes Chilcoat.
Samie Al-Achrafi writes for The Huffington Post about Senior Lecturer Otto Scharmer’s new book “Leading From the Emerging Future,” which examines the structural issues that lead to repeated economic mistakes.
MIT researchers have developed a new hydrogel that is 90 percent water, reports Carmen Drahl for Forbes. The new hrydogel “adheres to surfaces like glass, titanium, aluminum, and ceramics with a toughness approximating that of nature’s interfaces between tendons and bone."