Prof. Thomas Kochan writes for Fortune about wage stagnation in the U.S. “This Labor Day, let’s not only chant that America needs a raise but also rally around a simple norm that all workers should share fairly in the economic growth they help produce,” writes Kochan.
Principal Research Scientist Ethan Zuckerman writes for Fortune about whether the rise of ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft could portend a revival of hitchhiking. “Social serendipity is too important an activity to be left to the advertising slogans of sharing-economy startups in the hope that they will make it happen as a side benefit,” Zuckerman writes.
According to a new study co-authored by Prof. Kerry Emanual, “cities such as Tampa and Dubai will become increasingly vulnerable to rare, global-warming-fueled superstorms in the future,” writes Doyle Rice for USA Today. The study found that warmer seawaters will increase the probability of major storms.
A new study by Prof. Kerry Emanuel found an increased probability of major storms over the coming century, writes Andrea Thompson for Scientific American. “The increase in odds of extreme storms found in the study stems both from a shift toward more intense hurricanes as well as an overall increase in hurricane frequency,” Thompson explains.
Prof. Robert Horvitz speaks with Bloomberg TV’s Caroline Hyde about new developments in creating more effective treatments for cancer. Horvitz explains that “biologists have figured out what it is that keeps the immune system from, in general, attacking cancer cells and have learned to unleash that innate ability and attack a cancer in a patient.”
In an article for The Washington Post about foster care, Max Ehrenfreund highlights Prof. Joseph J. Doyle’s study examining the long-term impacts of foster care. Doyle found that “while many children must be removed for their safety, investigators often do better by kids when they give parents the benefit of the doubt.”
John Farrell writes for Forbes about Prof. Frank Wilczek’s new book, “A Beautiful Question.” In his book, Wilczek argues that, “the world was created to embody beautiful ideas, and if there is a Creator, he’s an artist above all.”
New research by Prof. Kerry Emanuel shows that climate change is increasing the risk of tropical cyclones forming in the Persian Gulf, reports Alister Doyle for Reuters. The study also predicts that the frequency of extreme storms will increase in hurricane-prone areas.
Chris Mooney writes for The Washington Post about how in a new study Prof. Kerry Emanuel used computer models to demonstrate the effects of catastrophic hurricanes on a number of coastal cities. The study is meant “to raise awareness of what a very low probability, very high impact hurricane event might look like,” says Emanuel.
Prof. Kerry Emanuel's new research indicates that the risk of catastrophic hurricane disasters could increase ten-fold this century due to climate change, writes Eric Holthaus for Slate. Holthaus explains that the researchers embedded a “high-quality hurricane model into a broader scale climate change model” to examine the impact of future extreme storms.
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about sexism in science. “Sadly and infuriatingly, the habits of mind that once almost entirely barred women from the lab remain, less potent, perhaps, but still at work,” writes Levenson.
David Unger of The Christian Science Monitor speaks with Prof. Donald Sadoway about the future of batteries. Sadoway says he views the battery enterprise "as very socially conscious. It would represent a major step in bringing electricity to those who don’t have reliable access to electricity.”
A group of MIT researchers has designed a computer file system that will not lose track of data when a computer crashes, reports Matt Chiappetta for Forbes. The system “is mathematically guaranteed not to lose track of data during crashes,” writes Chiappetta.
Huffington Post reporter Nitya Rajan writes about a new 3-D printer designed by researchers at MIT CSAIL that can print up to 10 different materials at once. Rajan writes that, “this machine has just bought us one step closer to printing just about anything we fancy, on demand.”
In this video, PBS explores a new technique MIT researchers developed to enlarge brain samples, making them easier to image at high resolutions. Prof. Ed Boyden explains that he hopes the technique could be used to “hunt down very rare things in a tissue.”