Dennis Overbye of The New York Times writes about Illustris, a calculation by Professor Mark Vogelsberger’s team that mathematically models how dark matter evolved from its initial, uniform cloud. They found “the closest match yet between dark matter models and the distribution and types of galaxies in the visible universe,” writes Overbye.
“The robot, which is a stack of three components allowing the display to swivel freely in any direction, is intended to be a family companion performing a variety of interactive tasks,” writes John Markoff for The New York Times about Jibo, a robot created by MIT Media Lab Professor, Cynthia Breazeal.
“Labor economist Paul Osterman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a recent study he conducted that manufacturers' spending on training has essentially been flat for the last five years,” writes Lauren Weber for The Wall Street Journal.
Paul Marks writes for The New Scientist about Protoprint, a company founded by MIT alumnus Sidhant Pai that strives to get decent prices for pickers collecting plastic by repurposing plastic waste for 3D printing. "Our waste-pickers will earn 15 to 20 times more for the same amount of plastic," says Pai.
“Students and faculty alike were able to enjoy Tetris-themed hash browns in the university student center Wednesday,” writes Chris Caesar for Boston.com about Tetris-shaped hash browns served by MIT students. The puzzle game turns 30 this year.
"Astronomers think it is very likely that every single star in our Milky Way galaxy has at least one planet," said Professor Sara Seager at a NASA panel on the possibility of life on other planets, writes Sara Gates for The Huffington Post.
Martin LaMonica writes for The Guardian about Grove Labs, a company founded by MIT graduates looking to develop a new way to help people grow fresh food at home. Grove Labs aims to, “help people grow food productively at home using sensor-controlled gardens and smart phone apps.”
Klint Finley reports for Wired on Inbox, a software creation designed by MIT alumni Christine Spang and Michael Grinich to make it easier for developers to create email-centric applications. The technology aims to overcome the challenge of working with email technology that is old and limited.
"We believe we're very, very close in terms of technology and science to actually finding the other Earth and our chance to find signs of life on another world," said Professor Sara Seager during a NASA panel on the search for extraterrestrial life, reports Suzanne Presto of CNN.
Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner writes about David Rose’s new book “Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and the Internet of Things” and his vision for the future. Rose believes that as the cost of building smart devices drops, there will be an increase in their production and application to all sorts of objects.
NBC News reports on the new phase-changing material developed by MIT researchers. The material could be used to develop shape-shifting robots to be used in surgery and search and rescue operations.
MIT Career Development Specialist Lily Zhang writes about the value of making mistakes. Citing a speech by Dr. Marilyn Tam, Zhang argues that taking risks and making big mistakes is key to learning and development.
In a piece for Forbes, Federico Guerrini writes about the FingerReader, a device designed to help visually impaired people read. Guerrini writes that the device, which allows users to scan a line of text and receive an audio feedback, has the potential to be a, “real game changer.”
"We wanted produce something that would produce significant volume change, but something that could still be useful, support payloads and enforce payloads on the environment," says Nadia Cheng of the phase-changing material developed by MIT researchers in an interview with Mashable’s Lance Ulanoff.
Wired reporter Katie Collins writes that MIT researchers have developed a phase-changing material that could allow robots to shift from solid to squishy. Transformable robots, “would allow surgeons to carry out operations less invasively,” Collins writes.