USA Today reporter Matt Krantz examines new research by MIT Visiting Professor Lily Fang showing that stock prices typically fall following long school vacations. “The after holiday effect is largely negative because it’s the bad news that gets largely missed during school breaks,” writes Krantz.
Writing for Popular Science, Kelsey Atherton reports on how scientists from MIT, Harvard and Texas A&M have developed an injectable gel that uses synthetic nanoplatelets to staunch bleeding. “The gel carries within it specially made platelets between 20 to 30 nanometers in diameter, but only about 1 nanometer thick,” writes Atherton.
Nidhi Subbaraman of BetaBoston writes about the affordable wheelchair made out of bike parts developed by Prof. Amos Winter. Winter and his team have now created a second wheelchair that allows riders to “navigate ski slopes and bike trails.”
Boston Globe reporter Michael Levenson writes about HUBweek, an “innovation-themed festival” that aims to showcase Boston. As part of HUBweek, MIT will host “‘Solve’ to brainstorm solutions to problems in education, energy, the environment, manufacturing, and infrastructure.”
“If the festival helps experts in Greater Boston make new connections across disciplines and across institutions — and find common interests and opportunities for collaboration with people around the world — the region as a whole can only benefit,” writes The Boston Globe Editorial Board of HUBweek, which will be co-hosted by MIT.
Cynthia Graber of Scientific American reports that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that turns a smartphone into a sensor that can detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants. "The method was tested with ammonia, cyclohexanone and hydrogen peroxide. And the tags could sense the substances at levels of a few parts per million,” reports Graber.
Through a comprehensive comparison of genetic activity, MIT researchers have found that humans and birds share many of the same singing genes. "There's potential for songbirds to be used to study neurodegeneration – especially conditions like Huntington's," says Dr. Andreas Pfenning of MIT.
Malcom Ritter of the Associated Press reports on how scientists have developed a new family tree for most of the bird species alive today, providing new insight into evolutionary history. Research conducted by Dr. Andreas Pfenning “found that birds with this "vocal learning" ability share some similarities with humans in the activity of certain genes in the brain.”
Researchers have uncovered evidence that volcanic activity could have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs, reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post. Prof. Sam Bowring says the eruption “began just prior to the extinction and continued throughout.”
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Boston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson about the New Horizons spacecraft, which will collect information about Pluto. “Everything we know about Pluto up to this point has been learned through telescopes," says Binzel. "That will change starting early next year."
Aviva Rutkin writes for New Scientist about algorithms developed by MIT graduate student Karthik Dinakar that can detect abusive speech in online comments. "We need better tools not just for monitoring, but also to tell people what good digital citizenry is all about,” says Dinakar.
Austin Hess of The Tech speaks with MIT alumna and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith following her selection as the 2015 commencement speaker. “The students graduating today are going to live … possibly past 100 years. So there’s so many different adventures that people should get up to,” says Smith.
MIT engineers are developing a paper test that can identify Ebola, writes BetaBoston reporter Nidhi Subbaraman. Prof. Lee Gehrke’s goal is to develop a “cheap, disposable front-line detector for this disease that many people can get their hands on — and fast,” Subbaraman reports.
A team of scientists, including MIT Professor Roger Summons, has uncovered new evidence that there was water on Mars during portions of the planet’s history, writes New York Times reporter Marc Kaufman. According to Prof. Summons, for the planet’s first billion years Mars had a stable environment that could support life.
Business Insider highlights the work of 14 MIT students. “MIT is known for its top notch engineering and computer science programs, and some of these students are certainly breaking ground in these areas, but others are dancers, firefighters, and Olympic archers.”