In an article examining graphene, John Colapinto of The New Yorker highlights Prof. Tomas Palacios’ work integrating graphene into everyday objects. “Rather than using graphene to improve existing applications, as Tour’s lab mostly does, Palacios is trying to build devices for a future world,” writes Colapinto.
Professor Clapperton Mavhunga speaks with Jasmine McNealy of New Books in Technology about his childhood, the history of innovation in Africa, and his new book, “Transient Workspaces: Technologies or Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Rachel Emma Silverman writes about Prof. Eric So’s research showing that when companies delay earnings announcements they often have bad news to report. “The predictive power of calendar revisions is really striking,” says Dr. So. “Investors should really pay attention.”
New research by MIT Visiting Scholar Lily Fang shows that stock markets tend to fall after school vacations, Reuters reports. Fang found an "after holiday effect whereby market returns after major holidays are significantly lower than at other times."
Financial Times reporter John Thornhill speaks with MIT alumnus and former British foreign secretary David Miliband about his work with the International Rescue Committee, life in New York City and the European Union.
Curt Nickisch of WBUR reports that MIT, Harvard, MGH and The Boston Globe are joining forces for HUBweek, a weeklong festival focused on innovation to be held in the fall of 2015. “MIT plans to host a huge gathering called SOLVE to tackle with some of the world’s most perplexing problems,” reports Nickisch.
Matt Murphy writes for WBUR about Solve, an event MIT will host next fall as part of the HUBweek innovation festival. The event will focus on “research and problem-solving exercises” aimed at four areas: education, health care, manufacturing, and environmental sustainability and energy.
Yiqing Shao of Boston Magazine reports on HUBweek, a new innovation festival that will be co-hosted by MIT, The Boston Globe, Harvard and MGH. “By uniting so many of the region’s leading institutions, HUBweek itself embodies the open, collaborative spirit that has helped make Greater Boston and Cambridge a hotbed of innovation and new ideas,” said MIT President L. Rafael Reif.
USA Today reporter Matt Krantz examines new research by MIT Visiting Professor Lily Fang showing that stock prices typically fall following long school vacations. “The after holiday effect is largely negative because it’s the bad news that gets largely missed during school breaks,” writes Krantz.
Writing for Popular Science, Kelsey Atherton reports on how scientists from MIT, Harvard and Texas A&M have developed an injectable gel that uses synthetic nanoplatelets to staunch bleeding. “The gel carries within it specially made platelets between 20 to 30 nanometers in diameter, but only about 1 nanometer thick,” writes Atherton.
Nidhi Subbaraman of BetaBoston writes about the affordable wheelchair made out of bike parts developed by Prof. Amos Winter. Winter and his team have now created a second wheelchair that allows riders to “navigate ski slopes and bike trails.”
Boston Globe reporter Michael Levenson writes about HUBweek, an “innovation-themed festival” that aims to showcase Boston. As part of HUBweek, MIT will host “‘Solve’ to brainstorm solutions to problems in education, energy, the environment, manufacturing, and infrastructure.”
“If the festival helps experts in Greater Boston make new connections across disciplines and across institutions — and find common interests and opportunities for collaboration with people around the world — the region as a whole can only benefit,” writes The Boston Globe Editorial Board of HUBweek, which will be co-hosted by MIT.
Cynthia Graber of Scientific American reports that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that turns a smartphone into a sensor that can detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants. "The method was tested with ammonia, cyclohexanone and hydrogen peroxide. And the tags could sense the substances at levels of a few parts per million,” reports Graber.
Through a comprehensive comparison of genetic activity, MIT researchers have found that humans and birds share many of the same singing genes. "There's potential for songbirds to be used to study neurodegeneration – especially conditions like Huntington's," says Dr. Andreas Pfenning of MIT.