In an article for Nautilus, Elizabeth Preston writes about Prof. Lydia Bourouiba’s work examining how rain can spread crop diseases. Through a close examination of high-speed images, Bourouiba found that how raindrops bounce off different plant leaves “is really at the root” of the spread of pathogens among plants.
A new study co-authored by MIT Prof. Joseph Doyle found that juveniles who were incarcerated were less likely to return to school and more likely to return to jail as adults, reports Chris Sweeney for Boston Magazine. “If you want to be tough on crime, locking up juvenile offenders is counterproductive,” says Doyle.
BetaBoston reporter Nidhi Subbaraman writes that MIT researchers have developed a small self-folding robot that they hope will one day lead to bio-compatible robots that “could enter the body, perform surgery guided from afar, and dissolve away as harmlessly as surgical stitches.”
Saki Knafo of The Atlantic interviews Professor Zeynep Ton about the efforts companies are taking to make employees happier and more productive. “A good job is more than just higher wages,” says Ton. “A good job is also a productive job.”
In this video, Jared Bowen reports for WGBH on a retrospective of Professor Joan Jonas’ work at the MIT List Visual Arts Center. “One only has to experience it and you get immersed in it,” says List Visual Arts Center Director Paul Ha of Jonas’ work.
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about research scientist Felice Frankel, who is credited with making scientific research more accessible through her photos. Prof. John Rogers of the University of Illinois says that Frankel, who is teaching an edX course this summer, has “played a significant role” in advancing science photography.
Dennis Overbye of The New York Times speaks with Dr. Sheperd Doeleman about his work attempting to capture the first picture of a black hole. “If something is dancing around the edge of the black hole, it doesn’t get any more fundamental than that,” says Doeleman. “Hopefully we’ll find something amazing.”
An MIT team competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge finished in sixth place during the final competition of the challenge, reports Hiawatha Bray for BetaBoston. “I thought it was amazing and inspiring, and it really gave the public a good picture of what the state of the art in robotics is,” says MIT postdoc Scott Kuindersma.
Students from MIT and Harvard are biking across the country, stopping in rural communities along the way in an effort to get kids excited about science, the AP reports. "We can't teach them programming in a day, but we can get them excited about programming," says MIT freshman Drew Bent.
A team led by Professor Markus Buehler has created a device that can produce spider silk, writes Andrea Alfano for the Tech Times. Buehler explains that silk produced by this new device is, “a lot more modifiable than spider silk,” and could be used to create synthetic organs.
In an article for The New York Times about the increasing demands placed on workers, Tony Schwartz writes about Prof. Zeynep Ton’s research, which indicated that allowing employees to slack can make them more effective. “Employees operating with some slack, Ms. Ton explained, add value that those pushed to the limit cannot,” Schwartz writes.
Boston Globe reporter Katherine Landergan writes that during MIT’s 2015 Commencement, U.S. CTO Megan Smith ’86, SM ’88 urged graduates to “be kind, be inclusive, be open.” President L. Rafael Reif asked graduates to have a “bold willingness to disrupt the status quo, to make the world a better place.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Zweig writes about anti-poverty research, highlighting an MIT study that showed intervention methods can be effective at alleviating poverty. Prof. Esther Duflo says that, “We are trying to promote a culture of learning that will permeate governments and NGOs and businesses to such an extent that it will become par for the course.”
Miles O’Brien of the PBS NewsHour reports on how scientists are developing cheaper and more efficient tests for Ebola, highlighting Prof. Lee Gehrke’s simple diagnostic kits. Gehrke explains that the test his team developed is “very simple, requires no refrigeration, no power, no special training.”
MIT researchers have developed a test that can accurately detect cancer in urine, reports Megan Scudellari for The Boston Globe. “Bacteria can grow in tumors as small as 1 millimeter, so the urine test has the potential to detect liver tumors — which tend to be small and dispersed — very early on, which would improve survival rates for patients,” Scudellari explains.