In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady argues that technology, not free trade, is the reason for the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. O’Grady highlights a paper by Prof. Autor examining why automation has impacted middle class jobs, which finds that “traditional middle-education jobs have been the easiest to replace with technology.”
In a Boston Globe article about increasing interest in bio-agriculture, Robert Weisman highlights a number of MIT spinoffs, including Grove Labs and Ginkgo Bioworks. Weisman highlights the aquaponics systems Grove Labs is developing “complete with LED lighting, for growing fruit, vegetables, and herbs at home,” and how Ginkgo Bioworks is producing a “roster of ‘bio-products’ that include organic pesticides.”
Graduate student Anna Wexler writes for The New York Times about people performing low-level electrical stimulation on their brains. “The growth of D.I.Y. brain stimulation stems in part from a larger frustration with the exclusionary institutions of modern medicine, such as the exorbitant price of pharmaceuticals and the glacial pace at which new therapies trickle down to patients.”
Writing for Scientific American, Peter Bruce examines the usefulness of statistics in politics, citing a paper by Media Lab Visiting Scientist Yaneer Bar-Yam that examines why Nate Silver’s predictions concerning the Republican primaries were off. The researchers found that “he fell into one of the classic traps of non-statistical thinking: failure to take into account the property of dependence.”
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Jason Zweig writes about how investors are buying high-risk bonds instead of high-quality bonds due to low interest rates. Zweig cites a new study co-authored by graduate student Chen Lian showing that “investors generally aren’t tantalized by risky alternatives to safe bonds until rates fall to 3%.”
Wired reporter Andy Greenberg writes that during an MIT Media Lab symposium Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower, and Media Lab affiliate Andrew “bunnie” Huang announced that they are developing a device that could warn journalists about whether they are the target of government surveillance.
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray writes that Media Lab research affiliate Andrew “bunnie” Huang and NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden are developing a device to protect journalists’ smartphones from government surveillance. Bray explains that the device will “detect whether a phone is sending or receiving unauthorized radio signals.”
New York Times reporter John Markoff writes that during a Media Lab symposium, whistleblower Edward Snowden announced that he is working with research affiliate Andrew Huang to develop a smartphone to protect journalists concerned about government surveillance. Markoff notes that in addition to computer hacking, the conference focused on “controversial scientific research in areas such as genetic engineering and geoengineering.”
EAPS postdoc Julien de Wit and his colleagues have analyzed the atmospheres of two potentially habitable exoplanets, reports Alan Yuhas for The Guardian. Based off their observations, de Wit explains that the atmospheres of the planets are probably similar to a “terrestrial planet like Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth.”
A double transit of two Earth-sized exoplanets allowed an international team of scientists, led by postdoc Julien de Wit, to conduct an atmospheric analysis, writes Vivian Wang for The Boston Globe. The researchers found that “the planets have rocky, rather than gaseous, terrain, and compact, rather than loose, atmospheres — all further indication that they are potentially habitable.”
New findings from EAPS postoc Julien de Wit shows that two previously discovered exoplanets 40 light years from Earth have rocky surfaces, which “represent a unique opportunity to go looking for conditions that would favor life,” writes Rachel Feltman for the The Washington Post.
Prof. Kevin Esvelt is taking his genetically modified mice proposal for fighting Lyme disease to Martha’s Vineyard, says Carey Goldberg of WBUR. “Everyone would agree we should decide this in New England town hall debate at the local level, rather than handing it over to scientists like me to make unilateral decisions. I’m not for that,” says Prof. Esvelt
CSAIL researchers recently presented an algorithm that teaches computers to predict sounds, writes Kevin Hartnett for The Boston Globe. The ability to predict sounds will help robots successfully navigate the world and “make sense of what’s in front of them and figure out how to proceed,” writes Hartnett.
Indira Lackshmanan of WBUR’s Radio Boston speaks to Profs. Joe Formaggio and David Kaiser about their recent quantum theory discovery involving neutrinos. “Do they move through matter without having a definite identity? Our finding is that really they do,” says Kaiser.
In an article for Popular Science, Ryan Mandelbaum writes that a new method to detect nuclear weapons, developed by Prof. R. Scott Kemp and colleagues, could one day help countries achieve disarmanent. "Countries are trying to disarm," explains Mandelbaum, "but the weapons inspectors' existing detection methods... aren't great."