In the Media

Motherboard reporter Victoria Turk writes that MIT researchers have developed a 3-D printer that can print up to 10 different materials at once. Turk describes how the printer can create “a lens on top of an LED bulb" and other objects. 

Researchers from MIT CSAIL have created a 3-D printer that can print 10 different materials simultaneously, reports Kelsey Atherton for Popular Science. The new printer can also “incorporate other, finished parts directly into the design— all at a fraction of the cost of complex industrial 3D printers.”

Prof. Yasheng Huang writes for The Boston Globe about the Chinese government’s active role in the country’s economy and how this is negatively impacting growth. “Chinese growth in the future will be limited until the government makes fairly substantive structural reforms,” writes Huang. 

Prof. Kerry Emanuel writes for The Conversation about what scientists have learned since Hurricane Katrina about how hurricanes are influenced by climate. Emanuel writes that, “the incidence of the strongest hurricanes – those that come closest to achieving their potential intensity – will increase as the climate warms, and there is some indication that this is happening.”

Prof. Alan Lightman writes for The New York Times about the disillusionment he felt when he went to visit his childhood home and found that it had been taken down. “I try to put back the house where it was, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the closets, my father practicing his guitar, my mother dressing in front of her long mirror,” Lightman writes. 

Wired reporter James Temperton writes that researchers at MIT have developed a new method for 3-D printing glass. Temperton writes that the process is “better understood as additive manufacturing, with layers of molten glass being slowly drizzled into shape through a nozzle.”

Lloyd Mallinson reports for Boston.com that researchers from MIT and Harvard have discovered the link between obesity and genetics. “The uncovered cellular circuits may allow us to dial a metabolic master switch for both risk and non-risk individuals, as a means to counter environmental, lifestyle, or genetic contributors to obesity,” explains Prof. Manolis Kellis.

Prof. Manolis Kellis speaks with BBC reporter Andrew Peach about the discovery of a genetic “master switch” inside fat cells. This switch “decides whether every time we have a meal the excess calories will be stored as fat or whether they will actually be burned away as heat,” explains Kellis.

Kate Darling of the MIT Media Lab speaks with Wired reporter Katie Collins about what the destruction of a hitchhiking robot says about how people relate to robots. "Can we change people's empathy with robots,” says Darling. This is "at the core of what I view as ethics. I don't think robot ethics is about robots, it is about humans."

Prof. Manolis Kellis and his colleagues have discovered a metabolic switch linked to obesity, reports Chukwuma Muanya for The Guardian. “Obesity has traditionally been seen as the result of an imbalance between the amount of food we eat and how much we exercise, but this view ignores the contribution of genetics to each individual’s metabolism,” explains Kellis.

According to The Economist, MIT researchers are using 3-D printing to modernize the coiling method of glass production. The researchers have “already used their device to print a range of objects, including optical prisms and decorative vessels.”

“Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have analysed the genetics behind obesity,” writes Natasha Hinde for The Huffington Post. “They discovered a new pathway that controls human metabolism by prompting fat cells to store fat or burn it away.”

Money reporter Penelope Wang writes about a new study by Prof. James Poterba that examined why Americans often did not have enough money saved for retirement. The researchers found that, “how much subjects had the first year their assets were measured showed the strongest determinant of the amount of the wealth they had at the end of life.”

“MIT's Mediated Matter Group has figured out a way to put molten glass through a 3D printer, creating beautiful sculptures,” writes Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. The printer lays down individual layers of melted glass, bringing it up to a finished sculpture.

Andy Coghlan reports for New Scientist that MIT researchers have found a gene that determines whether fat cells store or burn energy. “You could say we’ve found fat cells’ radiator, and how to turn it up or down,” says Prof. Manolis Kellis.