In the Media

The New York Times examines the work of MIT startup OpenBiome, which is aimed at providing doctors with, “safe, inexpensive fecal material from screened donors to treat patients with Clostridium difficile.”

Reporter Lisa Grossman interviews MIT Professor Anna Frebel about her work searching for the oldest, living stars in the universe, and her recent discovery of a star almost as old as the universe.

Boston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson writes about how MIT researchers have created a toolset to predict how hair curls. Findings could be used to create realistic animated characters, as well as in the telecommunications, medical, or oil and gas industries.

The Financial Times explores new MIT research into the mechanics behind underwater or “internal waves.” Through their work, which could prove useful in climate modeling, researchers found that ocean ridges and channels cause the gigantic waves to form.

In this Wall Street Journal blog post written by Babson College Professor Thomas Davenport, the author reflects on the contributions made by MIT Professor Jack Rockhart to the information analytics field, in the wake of Rockhart’s passing last week.

Paul Solman of the PBS NewsHour interviews MIT Professors Andrew McAfee and Eric Brynjolfsson on their new book The Second Machine Age. McAfee and Brynjolfsson argue that advances in automation are causing a radical industrial revolution.

Alex Beam of The Boston Globe interviews Kate Darling of the MIT Media Lab for this op-ed that examines the possible need for legal rights for robots in the future.

Forbes interviews Stephen Carson, Director of Communications and External Relations at MIT OpenCourseWare, about the program’s mission to advance knowledge by getting universities around the world to share content through the Internet.

Emily Waltz reports on new MIT research in IEEE Spectrum. Waltz writes that, “this week, a team of scientists will present a new, alternative design that eliminates all the external hardware of the traditional cochlear implant and allows it to be charged wirelessly with a smartphone.”

Becky Oskin writes in Scientific American about new research from MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science that pinpoints the duration of Earth’s worst mass-extinction. The work could help researchers identify what triggered the die-off.

 “Four years ago, Anna Frebel, a young astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found an ancient star in a neighboring galaxy whose chemical composition proved nearly identical to some unusual stars on the outskirts of our own galaxy,” wrote New York Times reporter Curtis Brainard in a feature on Prof. Frebel’s work.

The PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown speaks with Tod Machover of the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab and takes a look at his latest interactive performance: “Death and the Powers,” an interactive opera including both humans and robots.

Carolyn Johnson of The Boston Globe interviews Yongquan Lu, president of the MIT Origami Club, about the club’s Valentine’s Day creations.

Sandy Pentland of the MIT Human Dynamics Lab tells Steve Rosenbush of The Wall Street Journal that face-to-face social connections remain the most effective way to communicate information and get results.

"A new processing computer chip for these implants has been developed at MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratory and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary," says NPR's Ben Johnson, reporting on new cochlear implant research underway at MIT.