In the Media

"The study, led by MIT's Dr. Sandy Petland who runs the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, tested whether early buzz could precipitate a product's ultimate success." - Story on "What Groupon and LivingSocial Cannot Offer"

"[Rodney] Brooks’s MIT colleague, social scientist Sherry Turkle, shares his fascination with how human beings relate to technology, and vice versa."

"But Steven Piantadosi and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge say that, to convey a given amount of information, it is more efficient to shorten the least informative — and therefore the most predictable — words, rather than the most frequent ones."

"So far, the H5N1 strain has mainly infected birds and poultry workers, but experts fear the virus could mutate to pass easily from human to human. However, Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that to enter human respiratory cells the virus must first pick a very specific type of lock."

A special report on global leaders: The global campus - MIT president Susan Hockfield is featured in a major article on the role of universities as global leaders.

"Scientists at MIT and Harvard explored the idea that endothelial cells might also influence cancer growth because tumors rely on a blood supply to grow. In mice, they used secretions from endothelial cells to slow the growth and aggressiveness of cancerous tumors, also identifying the particular molecules in these secretions that were involved in the process."

Book Review - Alone Together - The New York Times reviews MIT professor Sherry Turkle's new book on identity in the digital age.

"On this week’s Tech Talk show, J.D. Biersdorfer chats with Sherry Turkle, a professor at M.I.T. whose new book is 'Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.'"

"Cheap 3D printers can now quickly make plastic replicas of almost anything, from an insect's wings to copies of their own parts. But now Amit Zoran and his team from the MIT Media Lab have used one to recreate the intricate design of a flute."

"'It is one of the oldest and most pristine samples known,' said MIT graduate student Ian Garrick-Bethell, lead author of a study published Thursday in Science. 'If that wasn’t enough, it is also perhaps the most beautiful lunar rock, displaying a mixture of bright green and milky white crystals.'"

"Young women are a promising — but untapped — category of potential inventors, according to a new survey from the 2011 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index."

How Currency Choices 'Made in China' Have Big Impact on U.S. Economy - MIT professor Yasheng Huang is a guest on PBS NewsHour, speaking on the ongoing dispute between the U.S. and China over currency and trade.

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put forth a new model for research that applies the technical tools of engineering, along with its disciplined design approach, to life science research."

Aha! - The Boston Globe covers MIT's annual puzzle competition, the Mystery Hunt.

"A Massachusetts Institute of Technology report, issued yesterday, concludes that creating a nationwide infrastructure for electric vehicles appears to be a bigger challenge than producing affordable batteries to power the cars." - This article originally ran in Climatewire.