Shawn Donnan of the Financial Times writes about a new MIT study examining gossip. Prof. Abhijit Banerjee explains that the study shows, “your sense of who is the office gossip is generally very good and that if you want to spread information you should do it by that person.”
Lina Zeldovich of The Atlantic writes about how Prof. Eric Alm and one of his graduate students tracked their bacterial fluctuations for a year to better understand how daily activities influenced their microbiome. “We just don’t know much about the functional role of any of these bugs,” says Alm.
Professor Thomas Kochan writes about the recent Market Basket protests for WBUR’s Cognoscenti blog. “The recent Market Basket dispute did more to demonstrate how outmoded and inadequate America’s labor law is than any scholarly paper or government study commission could ever do,” writes Kochan.
The BBC’s Science Hour highlights new MIT research exploring how emotions are linked to memories. Researchers found that the emotional associations of specific memories could be reversed in mice.
MIT Professor Carlo Ratti and Cornell University Professor Steven Strogatz write for The Huffington Post about their research examining the benefits of taxi sharing. They write that their analysis shows by sharing taxis, “the total number of taxi trips in New York City could be reduced by 40 percent, fleet operation costs and pollution could be reduced by 30 percent.”
Arnie Cooper of Newsweek writes about the new MIT study that found taxi sharing could have significant impacts on New York City’s transportation system. Researchers in the MIT Senseable City Lab envision a future application that would facilitate ride sharing.
Writing for CNBC, Hazma Ali reports on new MIT research showing that humans prefer to receive orders from robots rather than humans. "Our findings showed that our subjects strongly preferred when the robot scheduled the work of the team,” explains graduate student Matthew Gombolay.
In a piece for The New York Times about poverty in America, Thomas B. Edsall highlights Professor David Autor’s work examining unemployment rates of American men. Autor and graduate student Melanie Wasserman found that for boys, “growing up in a single-parent home appears to significantly decrease the probability of college attendance.”
In a piece for WBUR, Tom LeCompte interviews Professor John Leonard about the future of self-driving cars. Leonard believes that self-driving cars could be developed to handle even Boston’s notoriously difficult traffic. “Robots should just be able to navigate the way we navigate,” says Leonard.
BBC News reporter Victoria Gill writes about new MIT research showing that the tiny hairs, or cilia, on corals draw in nutrients by stirring up water. "Corals could provide a general model for understanding ciliary processes related to disease," says MIT Professor Roman Stocker.
“Labor Day traditions call for celebrating worker struggles of the past that helped produce better working conditions for all. This year we have a bona fide case in our backyard that may just usher in a new era of workplace dynamics that future labor commentators will herald,” writes Prof. Thomas Kochan in a piece for Boston.com about the Market Basket protests.
U.S. News & World Report’s Alan Neuhauser writes about the MIT taxi-sharing study. "This research shows what would happen if people have sharing as an option. And that choice is becoming increasingly popular, as the availability of real time information in our pockets allows us to make immediate, informed decisions based on our needs and resources," says Prof. Carlo Ratti.
Michael Casey of Fortune reports on the new MIT study that examines taxi sharing in New York City. The researchers found that more than 95 percent of taxi trips could be shared with only a minimal inconvenience to passengers.
BetaBoston reporter Nidhi Subbaraman examines new MIT research on the benefits of sharing a cab. The researchers found that implementing a taxi-sharing system “would translate to cuts in emissions and traffic congestion, as well as untold improvements to the sanity of commuters stuck in rush-hour traffic,” Subbaraman writes.
Kenneth Chang and Joshua Krisch report for The New York Times on the new MIT study showing that if New Yorkers shared taxis they could significantly reduce cumulative trip lengths, which would help alleviate traffic and air pollution in the city.