GBH reporter Renuka Balakrishnan spotlights “True or False,” a game featured in the MIT Museum’s “AI: Mind the Gap” exhibit, which invites visitors to guess the difference between a real and deepfake video. The exhibit “provides tips visitors can use outside the walls of the museum to improve media literacy in real life,” writes Balakrishnan.
Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein about how warm Arctic waters and cold continental land have led to a stretched polar vortex, leading to a massive winter storm that will impact a large swath of the country. According to Cohen, “as far back as October 2025, changes in the Arctic and low sea ice were setting up conditions for the kind of stretched polar vortex that brings severe winter weather to the U.S.,” writes Borenstein.
MIT’s Hayden Library held an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of Wikipedia, reports Dana Gerber for The Boston Globe. “It’s fun and it’s funny, and it often chronicles the totally ridiculous corners of the world, but we also take it super seriously,” says MIT librarian Pheobe Ayers. “I hope people realize that Wikipedia is imperfect. It's always in progress. It’s not finished. But we’re trying really hard to make it good.”
Research Scientist Christian Catalini, founder of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab, speaks with CNBC reporter Trevor Laurence Jockims about state and national initiatives to implement cryptocurrencies on a public balance sheet. “Once you’ve made that bet on infrastructure and industry, adding some Bitcoin exposure at the treasury level is a natural next step,” says Catalini.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Bloomberg Businessweek Daily hosts Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec about American politics. “In my mind, worryingly, there is a little bit of a theory which is that all of these actions are aimed at centralizing power in the hands of an executive presidency with fewer and weaker checks which come either from institutions or norms.”
Boston Globe reporter James Sullivan spotlights the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, “a weekend-long gaming tournament” dating back to 1981. “Created as a humble pastime for like-minded problem solvers, the hunt has grown into a multi-layered, internationally renowned competition, spawning dozens of imitators around the globe,” writes Sullivan.
A new analysis conducted by postdoctoral associate Rohan Naidu and his colleagues has found evidence that suggests “little red dot” galaxies may contain baby black holes, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “In ordinary black holes, what you actually see with your eyes is the tip of the iceberg of the total energy that is coming out of the system, but the little red dots we now understand should really be thought of as these puffed-up black hole stars,” says Naidu. “It seems that most of their energy is coming out at these wavelengths that we see with our eyes, so what you see is what you get.”
Prof. Barry Posen speaks with Newsweek reporter Andrew Stanton about the stockpile of United States weapons.
MIT librarian Phoebe Ayers speaks with Boston Globe reporter Rebecca Spiess about the importance of Wikipedia editors in ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the online encyclopedia. “People really want to be right,” says Ayers. “They want their source to be good. Let’s be real: It attracts the pedantic.”
In an effort to help medical professionals ensure patients are taking medications as prescribed, researchers at MIT have developed a “drug capsule containing an RFID tag that uses radiofrequency (RF) signals to communicate that it has been swallowed, and then bioresorbs into the body,” reports Tami Freeman for Physics World. “Medication non-adherence remains a major cause of preventable morbidity and cost, but existing ingestible tracking systems rely on non-degradable electronics,” explains Prof. Giovanni Traverso. Our motivation was to create a passive, battery-free adherence sensor that confirms ingestion while fully biodegrading, avoiding long-term safety and environmental concerns associated with persistent electronic devices.”
Prof. Giovanni Traverso speaks with Claudia Hammond of BBC Health Check about a new pill he and his colleagues have developed that can send an alert when it’s been swallowed, which could help ensure patients are taking their medications as prescribed. “Researchers have estimated that in the US alone, people not taking their medication contributes to as many as 125,000 preventable deaths each year and costs more than $100 billion,” says Hammond.
Interesting Engineering reporter Atharva Gosavi features MIT researchers and their work developing a passive atmospheric water generator. The researchers developed a “passive device that harvests clean drinking water from desert air without electricity,” explains Gosavi. “The window-sized panel uses a hydrogel-desiccant combo absorbing vapor at night and releasing it via sunlight-driven condensation – no batteries, fans, or power needed.” Gosavi adds that the device is a “perfect climate-resilient solution for droughts.”
Prof. Jonathan Parker speaks with CNBC reporter Kate Dore about how larger tax refunds in 2026 could increase both consumer spending and inflation. “It could easily be inflationary,” says Parker.
WBUR reporter Maddie Browning spotlights a new exhibit of photographer Brittany Nelson’s work, which will be on display at the MIT List Visual Arts Center beginning mid-January. The exhibit “will debut new photographs and a moving-image work filmed at the Green Bank Observatory (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) in West Virginia,” writes Browning.
Prof. Jesse Thaler speaks with New Scientist reporter Jon Cartwright about his work focused on exploring quantum entanglement. Research by Thaler and his colleagues found “that minimized entanglement gave precisely the small level of mixing between quarks observed in particle collider experiments,” explains Cartwright.