The Boston Globe
"In an effort to attract more high school students to science, two teams at MIT took inspiration for projects from reality TV and from online games."
In the Media
Financial Times
"Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made the first films of semiconductor nanocrystals that conduct electricity and are free of cracks."
The Economist
"A marine robot uses sonar to scan for tiny limpet mines attached to a ship’s hull. But military dolphins and sea lions are not out of a job just yet."
CNN Money
"A decade ago (MIT's Dick) Yue pushed academia to take its most valuable asset—teaching—and give it away."
The Economist
"A new type of solar panel can turn infra-red light, not just the visible sort, into electricity."
Nature
"A new high-coverage DNA sequencing method reconstructs the full genome of Denisovans — relatives to both Neandertals and humans — from genetic fragments in a single finger bone."
Wired
"A team of bioengineers has genetically engineered skeletal muscle tissue to produce a protein that reacts to light, and plans to use it to build a robot with realistic manoeuvrability."
Popular Science
"Bioengineers at MIT have genetically modified muscle cells to respond to light, which could be used to make easily controllable robot muscles that look and act like the animals on which they're based."
The New York Times
"As a child, (Junot Diaz) the author of the new story collection 'This Is How You Lose Her' loved the unabashedly smart Encyclopedia Brown. 'Smart was not cool where I grew up.'"
The Economist
"To what extent can social networking make it easier to find people and solve real-world problems?"
The New York Times
"Is post-traumatic stress disorder underdiagnosed or overdiagnosed?"
Boston Herald
"A Hub medical-miracle team is working on a breakthrough that may someday lead to a 'smart heart' — implant-ready artificial tissue rigged with super-sensitive triggers that could sound an alarm when a patient’s ticker is off-kilter, and possibly even fix the faux organ without so much as a call to the doctor."
CNN
"Scientists are working on a futuristic tissue engineering venture to grow better solutions for damaged or missing organs."
Nature
"Automated assistance may soon be available to neuroscientists tackling the brain’s complex circuitry, according to research presented last week at the Aspen Brain Forum in Colorado."
The New York Times
"All the funds raised for the presidential and Congressional races so far pale in comparison to the money expected to rush in after the party conventions this week and next."