In the Media

Writing for The New York Times, Dennis Overbye celebrates the 10-year anniversary of LIGO’s first direct detection of gravitational waves, underscoring how LIGO has advanced our understanding of the universe’s cosmic history. The first detection was a discovery that “changed astrophysics, opening a window onto previously inaccessible realms of nature in which space could rip, bend, puff up, crumple and even vanish,” writes Overbye. The late Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, who dreamed up the idea for LIGO, said of LIGO’s first detection in September 2015: “It was waving hello. It was amazing. The signal was so big, I didn’t believe it.”

Forbes reporter Martina Castellanos spotlights Edwin Chen '08, founder of Surge AI, as one of the 10 youngest billionaires on the 2025 Forbes 400 list. After working in machine learning, Chen saw “the lack of quality training data for AI,” and “launched Surge AI in 2020 to fix the problem,” writes Castellanos. 

Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Newsweek reporter Jasmine Laws about the anticipated price increase in employer health benefit plans for the coming year. Due to higher costs, “some may stop taking up employer coverage altogether while others may move to less expensive plans,” explains Gruber. 

Writing for Nature, Bruce Allen pays tribute to Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, a pioneering physicist who “spearheaded the construction of the LIGO observatory to detect Einstein’s predicted ripples in space-time [and] leaves a legacy of persistence and mentorship.” Allen recalls how, decades earlier, Weiss rejoiced in a moment of discovery with him. “This is why we do science,” Weiss said. “Not for prizes or awards — that’s all nonsense. It’s for the satisfaction when something you’ve struggled with finally works.” Weiss, Allen emphasizes, was “a scientist driven by curiosity, persistence and the joy of understanding how the Universe works.”

Researchers at MIT have developed the first full map of the quantum landscape that constrains how electrons move inside matter, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The map “offers a new way to understand and design materials, perhaps leading to, for instance, super-efficient wires that conduct electricity with no resistance,” Padavic-Callaghan explains. “A new view of what actually happens inside materials is bound to lead to new ways to improve them.” 

David Baltimore, a former Institute Professor at MIT and a Nobel laureate, has passed at the age of 87, reports Gina Kolata for The New York Times. Baltimore’s work rocked “the foundation of the fledging field of molecular biology,” writes Kolata. His “Nobel-winning discovery [upended] what was called the central dogma, which stated that information in cells flowed in only one direction — from DNA to RNA to the synthesis of proteins. Dr. Baltimore showed that information can also flow in the reverse direction, from RNA to DNA.” 

Boston Globe reporter Yogev Toby spotlights the Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow program (MEET), an MIT initiative that brings together Israeli and Palestinian high school students to provide education in “computer science and innovation while promoting intercultural dialogue.” The program was designed to serve as a way to “bridge the social, economic, and ideological divide through innovation and entrepreneurship,” Toby explains. “The idea is to create connection and understanding through shared professional interests, dialogue, and teamwork.”

Prof. Dylan Hadfield-Menell speaks with CNN reporter Hadas Gold about the need for AI safeguards and increased education on large language models. “The way these systems are trained is that they are trained in order to give responses that people judge to be good,” explains Hadfield-Menell. 

Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. Carlo Ratti explores the need for creativity in architecture. “More than ever, architecture needs experimentation,” explains Ratti. “In the face of a burning planet, we must draw on all forms of intelligence — natural, artificial and collective — to confront the challenges ahead. We need to try new materials, experiment with different ways to harness energy and test morphologies that will better sustain what the ancient Romans called civitas: the community of citizens. We need to explore new methods, engaging in a feedback loop of trial and error that mirrors the adaptive logic of nature itself.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Mooallem memorializes the life and work of Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, from his time hacking surplus military electronics into sophisticated hi-fi receivers as a teenager to dreaming up the concept for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mooallem notes that Weiss and his LIGO colleagues’ breakthrough in achieving the first-ever detection of gravitational waves “has provided a new way of looking at the universe, of observing, through the charting of gravity waves emitted by moving objects, what was previously unobservable or unknown—a milestone that is frequently compared with Galileo’s invention of the telescope.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a new self-assembling battery material that could help combat growing concerns about EV battery waste, reports Grace Snelling for Fast Company. The new method “makes it much easier to separate [battery] component parts, leaving them ready for recycling,” writes Snelling. 

To get a better sense of the physical and cognitive experience of aging, Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Dockser Marcus donned the MIT AgeLab’s age-simulation suit, called the “Age Gain Now Empathy System” or Agnes for short, and embarked on a number of activities, including shopping at the grocery store, riding the subway, crossing a busy street, and cooking a meal. Dockser Marcus notes that research at the MIT AgeLab is focused on “finding ways to improve life for the elderly,” and noted that the Agnes suit provided a “greater insight into what it is really like to age—and what I could do to prepare.”

Prof. Catherine Wolfram speaks with Financial Times reporter Simon Mundy about the EU’s decision to begin applying the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) next year. “I’m not sure the Europeans quite realize just how powerful the CBAM was as an incentive for other countries to adopt carbon pricing,” says Wolfram. “It’s really started a global conversation.” 

Gizmodo reporter Gayoung Lee writes that scientists from the sPHENIX Collaboration, including MIT physicists, announced that the sPHENIX detector passed a “standard candle” test with “flying colors, correctly catching and measuring the energy level of colliding gold ions traveling close to the speed of light.” Lee notes that: “Passing the test bodes well for the detector’s future,” explaining that the detector was designed to precisely measure products of high-speed particle collisions. “The sPHENIX detector is like a ‘giant 3D camera’ tracking the number, energy, and paths of particles generated by a single collision.” 

Wall Street Journal reporter Christoph Irmscher reviews “The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live,” a new book by Prof. Alan Lightman and Britain’s former Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees. In their new book, Lightman and Rees assert that: “The pursuit of scientific knowledge is beautiful,” Irmscher notes. “Science is important, they explain, it is fun, and, if you’re a scientist, it might just hand you the keys to the deepest mysteries of the universe.”