Curt Woodward writes for BetaBoston about how MIT graduate student Ben Letham developed a formula for measuring the misery and difficulty of a particular winter. Woodward explains that Letham’s formula, which gave more weight to snowfall concentrated in short periods of time, showed that “this winter’s snow was more relentless, and more miserable to live through, than any other.”
BetaBoston reporter Curt Woodward writes about a new study by researchers from the MIT Laboratory for Social Machines examining how the government of Jun, a small town in southeastern Spain, is using Twitter to interact with residents. The researchers found that “residents’ tweets are incorporated into livestreamed city council meetings.”
Research by Prof. John Gabrieli demonstrates that poverty can have a negative impact on the adolescent brain, writes Brooks Hays for UPI. “When researchers at MIT scanned the brains of some 54 students, they found high-income students (in comparison with lower-income peers) have thicker cortex tissue in areas of the brain linked with visual perception and knowledge acquisition,” Hays writes.
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray writes about how Prof. Amos Winter and graduate student Natasha Wright are testing their solar-powered desalination system in a competition aimed at finding cheaper and more efficient ways to provide clean water to the developing world. “It’s a two-billion-person problem,” says Winter. “That’s a pretty motivating problem.”
Graduate student Lina Colucci speaks with Elisabeth Pain of Science about combining her passion for dance with her work as an engineer. Colucci explains that she is using her knowledge of “biomechanics to change the materials and structural design” of ballet shoes.
MIT researchers have developed a thumbnail-mounted sensor that can be used as a wireless track pad, reports Marie Szaniszlo for the Boston Herald. The device, “puts Bluetooth and a battery into a package that you can stick to your fingernail and can send data wirelessly to your phone,” Szaniszlo explains.
MIT has launched the Online Education Policy Initiative to investigate and make recommendations about the future of online learning, Inside Higher Education reports. The initiative “will over the next nine months release reports, host workshops and lecture series, and eventually make recommendations about online learning.”
Lauren Beavin of Boston Magazine speaks with A.M. Turing Award recipient Michael Stonebraker about why Boston is such a great place for computer scientists. The Boston tech scene "is way above critical mass, and the quality of life here is very, very high,” Stonebraker explains.
The Economist highlights “Strategy Rules,” a new book co-authored by Prof. Michael Cusumano that draws lessons from the careers of three tech executives. “The book provides plenty of insight to help navigate a world that is ever more driven by IT.”
A team of MIT researchers has found that the brain’s cortical thickness differs between low-income and high-income teenagers, reports Lyndsey Layton for The Washington Post. “The thing that really stands out is how powerful the economic influences are on something as fundamental as brain structure,” said Prof. John Gabrieli.
Richard Waters reports for The Financial Times about “Strategy Rules,” a book co-authored by Prof. Michael Cusumano that draws lessons from the careers of tech giants Steve Jobs, Andy Grove, and Bill Gates. The authors “boil their observations down to five lessons, some of which offer more teachable moments than others.”
Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. Daron Acemoğlu argues that reform rollbacks in Turkey have caused the country to lose ground on economic progress. Acemoğlu explains that, “modest improvements in economic and political institutions can trigger rapid productivity growth.”
Chun Han Wong writes for The Wall Street Journal about a study coauthored by MIT graduate student Yiqing Xu that finds an ideological divide in China based on geography. The researchers found that, “provinces with higher levels of economic development, trade openness, urbanization are more liberal than their poor, rural counterparts.”
A new study by researchers from MIT and Harvard finds a geographic divide between liberals and conservatives in China, reports Michael Forsythe for The New York Times. “China may even be divided, much like the United States, into ‘red’ conservative provinces mostly in the poorer rural interior and richer, urbanized ‘blue’ coastal provinces,” writes Forsythe.
Prof. Philip Sharp writes for The Huffington Post that the government needs to increase support for cancer research. Sharp and his co-author Sherry Lansing, founder and CEO of The Sherry Lansing Foundation, explain that current progress again cancer “can be turned into a tidal wave if we as a nation devote the right level of funding, intensity, and collaboration.”