MIT scientists analyzed lunar soil samples and discovered that meteorite impacts likely created the moon’s thin atmosphere, reports Nicola Davis for The Guardian. “Our findings provide a clearer picture of how the moon’s surface and atmosphere interact over long timescales, [and] enhance our understanding of space weathering processes,” explains Prof. Nicole Nie.
By analyzing lunar soil samples, MIT scientists have found that the moon’s thin atmosphere was created by meteorite impacts over billions of years, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. “Many important questions about the lunar atmosphere remain unanswered,” explains Prof. Nicole Nie. “We are now able to address some of these questions due to advancements in technology.”
Newsweek reporter Jess Thomson spotlights, Prof. Nicole Nie’s research uncovering the origins of the moon’s thin atmosphere. “The researchers described how lunar samples from the Apollo missions revealed that meteorites of varying sizes have constantly hit the moon's surface, vaporizing atoms in the soil and kicking them up into the atmosphere,” writes Thomson. “The constant hitting of the moon replenishes any gases lost to space.”
New York Times reporter David Gelles spotlights David Keith PhD '91 who “believes that by “intentionally releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it would be possible to lower temperatures worldwide, blunting global warming.” “There’s plenty of uncertainty about climate responses,” says Keith. “But it’s pretty hard to imagine if you do a limited amount of hemispherically balanced solar geo that you don’t reduce temperatures everywhere.”
PBS Space Time host Matt O’Dowd highlights research by Prof. David Kaiser and graduate student Elba Alonso-Monsalve delving into the composition of primordial black holes and potentially confirming the existence of color-charged black holes. “It may stand to reason, that colorful black holes were once the most natural thing in the world,” O’Dowd muses.
The final round of the Zero Robotics competition at the MIT Media Lab featured high school students from around the country facing off in a programming challenge using the SPHERES satellites aboard the International Space Station, reports Glenn Jones for NBC Boston. The event “welcomed about 70 middle schoolers from diverse backgrounds to participant in the finals of a robotics competition that featured live dialogue with astronauts on the International Space Station.”
MIT graduate student Jerry Lu and University of Virginia Prof. Ken Ono are developing new techniques to help swimmers competing at the Paris Olympics glide through the water even faster, reports Davide Castelvecchi for Nature. Lu and Ono created 3D models of the athletes and then suggested “tiny changes that can shave off precious fractions of a second at every stroke."
Research Scientist Christopher Mejia-Argueta is interviewed by Marina Mayer of Food Logistics about the food industry’s efforts to achieve a circular supply chain, which could help companies improve their sustainability. “Despite a growing trend to improve the food supply chains from farm to fork and back to farm, scalability is the biggest challenge,” he says.
Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, explores how many envision retirement as a long vacation, but notes setting realistic expectations is important to avoid surprises. “Instead, longevity planning is about preparing for what, how, where, and with whom to live in older age," Coughlin writes. "We're talking about crafting a plan to produce your best possible life in older age, not just planning and financing a really long summer vacation."
Prof. Kripa Varanasi and Vishnu Jayaprakash SM '19, PhD '22 founded AgZen, a company aimed at reducing pesticide use by employing a feedback-optimized spraying system, reports Steven Savage for Forbes. Savage notes that for the researchers behind AgZen, “MIT turned out to be a good place to work on the specific imaging technology and on the AI needed to translate that into a practical solution for farmers.”
Intelmatix, an AI startup founded by by Almaha Almalki MS '18, Anas Alfaris MS '09, PhD '09 and Ahmad Alabdulkareem PhD '18, aims to provide businesses in the Middle East and North Africa with access to AI for decision-making, reports Annie Njanja for TechCrunch. . “The idea of democratizing access to AI has always been something that we’ve been very passionate about,” says Alfaris.
Research Scientist Mathieu Huot speaks with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about his work with GenSQL, a generative AI system for databases that “could help users make predictions, detect anomalies, guess missing values, fix errors, or generate synthetic data with just a few keystrokes.”
Research Scientist Eva Ponce, director of online education for the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Page about how global supply chain disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic inspired a new generation of students to pursue careers in supply chain management. “Having been exposed to these big disruptions, the new generation has an appetite for risk management,” Ponce says. “This has become a key topic and that is one of the consequences of the pandemic—this focus on ways to reduce risk and vulnerability.”
MIT researchers have developed “a robotic system that can rotate different types of fruit and vegetable using its fingers on one hand, while the other arm is made to peel,” reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “These additional steps of doing rotation are something which is very straightforward to humans, we don’t even think about it,” Prof. Pulkit Agrawal. “But for a robot, this becomes challenging.”
MIT researchers have developed a bionic prosthetic system that allows users to control their prosthetic legs using their own nervous systems, “a groundbreaking advancement that is changing the game for individuals with lower-limb amputations,” reports Kurt Knutsson for Fox News. “This innovative approach could bring us closer to a future of fully integrated, naturally controlled artificial limbs.”