In the Media

In an article published in Nature, Clara Moskowitz reports on Professor Anna Frebel’s discovery of a tiny galaxy circling the Milky Way, which researchers believe may be a fossil left over from the early universe.

Richard Taylor of BBC News interviews Kent Larson of the MIT Media Lab Cityscope project. Cityscope researchers collect data on the movement of people in and out of Kendall Square in order to help urban planners make more informed decisions.

TIME reporter Doug Aamoth writes about the MIT DARPA Robotics Challenge team’s work with the Atlas robot built by Boston Dynamics. Aamoth reports that the team has been developing code that allows the robot to move faster and be more autonomous.

Boston Globe reporter Michael Farrell writes about how researchers like Professor Seth Teller are reimagining the wheelchair. For the past five years, Teller has been working on designing a, “completely robotic chair that can navigate and learn about a user’s home environment.”

Writing for The Boston Globe, Martine Powers reports on the MIT competition that challenged students to come up with the best interactive visualization and prediction modeling for taxi demand at key spots around the city.  

The Boston Globe profiles Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia and the new low-cost urine test she developed to detect cancer, as well as her work applying engineering techniques to medicine.

The Daily Beast reporter Mike Miesen looks at Sanergy, a company founded by MIT students that manufactures and distributes toilets designed for urban environments with poor sewage infrastructure. The model could improve sanitation in dense urban areas without adequate waste removal.

Lisa Mickey of The New York Times profiles retired professor Leon S. White, who researches poetry inspired by golf. In 2011 White published “Golf Course of Rhymes: Links between Golf and Poetry throughout the Ages,” a collection of golf poems he compiled from around the world.

Robin Young of NPR’s Here & Now interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Institute Professor John Harbison on his work “Songs America Loves To Sing – Old and New Music for Winds, Strings, and Piano,” in which he applies unique progressions and arrangements to well-known, classic songs.

The Economist describes how the Atlantic Razor clam’s digging capabilities inspired Professor Amos Winter to develop a new robot that can dig 20 centimeters into the sea floor in just 20 seconds.

Financial Times reporter Clive Cookson highlights the work of MIT researchers in identifying a new culprit for the Earth’s largest mass extinction. While volcanic activity did contribute to the extinction, Cookson reports, MIT researchers found the main cause was methane-producing microbes.

Professor Alan Guth discusses new research that supports his 1980 theory of cosmic inflation with John Lauerman of Bloomberg News.

Professor Jeffrey Harris discusses his research on tobacco-control policies in Uruguay during a Freakonomics Radio podcast. Harris argues that Uruguay’s use of severe warnings and graphic imagery on cigarette packaging has made the country “a pioneer” in smoking cessation.

John Daly writes about new research from MIT that shows organic materials could be used to conduct electricity and emit different colors of light. The research could have major implications for the development of photovoltaic cells and solar energy

Ryan Grenoble writes for The Huffington Post about Altaeros Energies, a wind energy company founded at MIT.  The company is poised to break the record for highest wind turbine ever, with plans to float an electric-generating device 1,000 feet above a site in Alaska.