“There’s an enormous richness of information by looking in the water that’s indicative of what’s going in a city in a real-time fashion,” says Prof. Eric Alm in an interview with Wudan Yan of The Daily Beast of his idea to examine public health by tracking the transmission of pathogens in sewers.
Carolyn Johnson of The Boston Globe reports on the annual Chain Reaction event hosted by the MIT Museum. “More than 20 all-ages teams united homemade machines to create a giant post-Thanksgiving chain reaction,” writes Johnson.
Simon Kuper of The Financial Times speaks with Professor Carlo Ratti about urbanism. One of the biggest changes to modern cities, argues Ratti, could be the introduction of driverless cars: “Think how much real estate you are using to store idle pieces of metal that are used for what – an hour a day?”
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Prof. Mildred Dresselhaus speaks with Julianna Goldman of CBS Evening News about her career at MIT and what continues to inspire her to come to work seven days a week. "Every year there's something new that comes along that's too exciting to quit," says Dresselhaus.
Alexandra Sifferlin of TIME reports that researchers from the Broad Institute have uncovered a new way to detect risk of blood cancer. The researchers found that “certain mutations that are not present at birth but instead develop as a person ages—called somatic mutations—may be indicators for later blood cancers,” Sifferlin explains.
New Scientist reporter Jacob Aron writes about MIT graduate student Theodore Yoder’s work upgrading a quantum search algorithm to make it more effective. The new algorithm lets users “hone in on specific answers without knowing in advance how many there are,” Aron explains.
Dr. Shep Doeleman speaks with Rebecca Jacobson of the PBS NewsHour about how scientists at the ALMA Observatory are searching for a black hole to confirm Einstein’s theory of general relativity. “It would be a wonderful confirmation of one of the most beautiful theories that’s ever come out of physics,” says Doeleman.
Ari Daniel of Public Radio International reports on the Climate CoLab conference, run by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, which brought together people from around the world to “crowdsource the problem of what to do about global climate change," says Prof. Tom Malone.
David Weininger reports for The Boston Globe on the Radius Ensemble’s performance of “Nothing is More Important,” a piece composed by MIT Professor Keeril Makan. “Makan's piece begins with an obsessive focus on a single note, from which it never completely escapes,” writes Weininger.
MIT alumnus Dave Smith speaks with Anthony Brooks of WBUR about his company, LiquiGlide. LiquiGlide makes a substance that coats the surface on the inside of containers, reducing friction and allowing fluids to slide out more easily.
Professor Mildred Dresselhaus speaks with NPR’s Audie Cornish about receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Cornish explains that Dresselhaus got her nickname, the Queen of Carbon, based on her work with carbon, which “paved the way for the rise of nanotechnology.”
The Boston Globe reports on the MIT football team’s victory in the first round of the NCAA Division 3 playoffs. The Engineers kicked a field goal to force overtime, “then got a 13-yard touchdown pass from Peter Williams to Seve Esparrago to pull out a 27-20 victory over Husson.”
MIT alumnus Noam Angrist and seniors Anisha Gururaj and Elliot H. Akama-Garren were among 32 Rhodes scholars selected from the U.S. this year, reports Jennifer Smith for The Boston Globe. “The American scholars will join an international group of students chosen from 14 other global jurisdictions, according to the Rhodes Trust,” Smith reports.
Jennifer Tucker writes for The Boston Globe about research conducted by Professor Alex Pentland in the 1990s that helped to lay the groundwork for today’s facial recognition software. Pentland’s linear algebra-based system, dubbed Eigenfaces, could efficiently plot a human face by focusing on ways it deviates from the average.
Two MIT seniors and alumnus Noam Angrist have been named Rhodes Scholars, reports Dave Collins for the Associated Press. “It’s a total dream come true,” says Angrist. “The skills I will get at (Oxford) are just incredible, and I’ll come back into the world fully equipped to do what I love to do.”