In a piece for Scientific American, Amanda Baker writes about the MIT Science Olympiad Invitational Tournament, which brought together more than 60 teams of high school students from 14 states. The event was organized by a group of MIT undergraduates dedicated to improving the experience of science competitions for high school students.
Joseph Flaherty of Wired writes about “Flowers,” a print created by postdoctoral fellow Tal Danino and MIT visiting artist Vik Muniz to educate people about the importance of vaccinations. Danino hopes to be able to apply the technique developed for creating the print, which contains real cancer and virus cells, to control the behaviors of specific cells and bacteria.
A paper co-authored by Professor Daron Acemoglu has raised questions about a new theory that inequality increases when the return on capital exceeds the rate of growth, reports Angela Chen for The Wall Street Journal. Acemoglu contends that the new model fails to account for political institutions and technology.
Slate reporter Alison Griswold writes about a new MIT study examining what makes certain startups successful. “We’re trying to measure things that companies do naturally when they have the ambition and potential to grow,” says Prof. Scott Stern.
USA Today reporter Melissa Pandika spotlights Prof. Kay Tye, highlighting her journey to MIT, her award-winning breakdancing skills and her neuroscience research. Tye’s current work examines how optogenetics can be used to control certain behaviors, such as overeating and anxiety.
Prof. Richard Nielsen writes for The Washington Post about his view that the Islamic State does not believe in state sovereignty, and the difficulties this view poses for working with the group. Nielsen writes that the group’s existence, “poses a fundamental challenge to international order, not only to the people under its rule.”
Dennis Keohane writes for BetaBoston about Start6, an IAP offering from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) aimed at teaching students about entrepreneurship. “The course exposed the students not just to one way of thinking but a multitude of different ways to think about starting a business,” says EECS Dept. Head Anantha Chandrakasan.
Francie Diep writes for Popular Science about how a new mathematical theory developed by MIT researchers may help to explain how surfaces wrinkle. “The equation could help chemists working on high-tech materials,” explains Diep.
MIT researchers have developed a method to identify entrepreneurial “hotspots,” reports Lisa Krieger for San Jose Mercury News. Researchers found that areas like Silicon Valley can help companies “realize their promise on a more guaranteed basis," explains Prof. Scott Stern.
Kevin Hartnett of The Boston Globe looks at Professor Christine Ortiz’s work to develop better body armor technology by mimicking the tough qualities of fish scales. “Armored fish have multi-hit capability,” explains Ortiz. “Basically, when it gets hit, it just cracks locally in a circle.”
Students in course 2.009 not only learn about the process of creating new products, but also how to pitch their invention, writes Boston Globe reporter Stefanie Friedhoff. According to Prof. David Wallace, the course covers “how you make a product in the real world, with engineers and designers and business people all working together.”
Heather Kelly of CNN writes about how MIT researchers have developed a swarm of drones that can fly and work collaboratively. "Some drones look at the big picture, others perform in-depth sampling, and the swarming system becomes much more efficient than if it were composed of one or more individual drones," says Prof. Carlo Ratti.
Professor Robert Langer has won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his pioneering work with medical technologies, reports David Shukman for BBC News. Shukman notes that “as many as two billion people have in some way been touched by technologies devised and developed by him and his teams.”
A new study by MIT scientists has found that metadata provides enough information to identify consumers in anonymous data sets. Aviva Rutkin writes for New Scientist that “for 90 per cent of people, just four pieces of information about where they had gone on what day was enough to pick out which card record was theirs.”
Professor Paul O’Gorman speaks with Boston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson about his recent research showing that despite climate change, massive snowstorms could still occur. “In some regions, fairly cold regions, you could have a decrease in the average snowfall in a year, but actually an intensification of the snowfall extremes,” explains O’Gorman.