Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have identified some of the benefits and disadvantages of generative AI when used for specific tasks, reports Paige McGlauflin and Joseph Abrams for Fortune. “The findings show a 40% performance boost for consultants using the chatbot for the creative product project, compared to the control group that did not use ChatGPT, but a 23% decline in performance when used for business problem-solving,” explain McGlauflin and Abrams.
MIT researchers have developed a new desalination system that uses solar energy to convert seawater into drinkable water, reports Tony Ho Tran for the Daily Beast. The device could make it possible to, “make freshwater that’s even more affordable than the water coming from Americans’ kitchen faucets.”
Peter Mui ’82 founded FixIt Clinic, a nonprofit which hosts “community events where volunteer fixers are matched with those in need of a repair,” reports Veronique Greenwood for The Boston Globe. “To Mui, now a hardware and software engineer in Berkeley, Calif., throwaway culture encourages a devaluing of our own lives,” writes Greenwood. “It took hours to earn the money to buy something. If someone fails to even look for a repair, how little must that time mean, in the end?”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have “genetically engineered bacteria to efficiently turn plastic waste into useful chemicals,” reports Aristos Georgiou for Newsweek. MIT Prof. James Collins and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Prof. Ting Lu explain that they see two potential applications for their work. "In the former case, plastic waste collected from oceans and landfills would be transported to a facility where it would be bioprocessed with engineered microbes,” they note. “In our latter scenario, these microbes could be deployed directly in lands or oceans to bio-transform plastic debris in situ.”
In an article for Forbes, Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota SB '08, SM '16, MBA '16 explores the “strategies to enhance supply chain visibility in biopharma.” “As the biopharmaceutical industry continues to grow and evolve, the supply chain's role becomes ever more critical,” writes Hayes-Mota. “Investing in these detailed strategies ensures resilience and positions companies for growth and innovation in a rapidly changing landscape.”
WBZ News Radio’s Emma Friedman spotlights the #IfThenSheCan Exhibit at this year’s Cambridge Science Festival, which features 30, 3-D printed orange statues of women innovators in science, technology, engineering and math, six of whom are MIT affiliates.
Researchers from Atlantic Quantum, an MIT startup building quantum computers, have published new research showing “the architecture of the circuits underlying its quantum computer produces far fewer errors than the industry standard,” reports Rashi Shrivastava for Forbes.
William Pounds, the former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management who was “famous for being willing to approach and talk to anybody,” has died at age 95. “As an administrator, he wanted to guide business school graduates to become able leaders of corporations like the ones where he had worked," writes Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe.
A study by researchers from MIT and Harvard examined the potential impact of the use of AI technologies on the field of radiology, reports Laura Landro for The Wall Street Journal. “Both AI models and radiologists have their own unique strengths and areas for improvement,” says Prof. Nikhil Agarwal.
Prof. Eric Klopfer, co-director of the RAISE initiative (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment in Education), speaks with GBH reporter Diane Adame about the importance of providing students guidance on navigating artificial intelligence systems. “I think it's really important for kids to be aware that these things exist now, because whether it's in school or out of school, they are part of systems where AI is present,” says Klopfer. “Many humans are biased. And so the [AI] systems express those same biases that they've seen online and the data that they've collected from humans.”
A new study by Prof. Jonathan Gruber finds that helping undocumented immigrants in the U.S. connect with primary care doctors could help reduce ER visits, reports Cara Murez for HealthDay. “The data showed a 21% drop in emergency department use, as well as a 42% drop for folks with high-risk medical profiles,” writes Murez.
MIT Innovation Fellow Brian Deese speaks with Financial Times reporter Gideon Rachman to explain Bidenomics and how it is impacting the economy. “I think the term [Bidenomics] has taken on a lot of different elements,” says Deese. “To me, it’s a description of what are the three core economic policy priorities of the Biden administration that have played out over the course the last two years.”
Prof. James Fujimoto, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM ’84 and David Huang PhD ’93 have been honored with the Lasker Award for their work for their work inventing “imaging technology that revolutionized how ophthalmologists diagnose diseases of the eye," reports Jonathan Saltzman for The Boston Globe. The scientists were recognized for developing “optical coherence tomography, or OCT, the first technology that enabled doctors to see a two- and three-dimensional cross-sectional image of the retina,” Saltzman explains. “This painless scan takes less than 10 minutes, and is now the standard of care for diagnosing retina diseases.”
Prof. James Fujimoto, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM ’84 and David Huang PhD ’93 have won a Lasker Award for their work inventing optical coherence tomography, which can “detect conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy earlier than previous methods, preventing blindness,” reports Noah Weiland and Cade Metz for The New York Times. “O.C.T. now is commonly used in ophthalmology offices, where the patient simply rests a chin and forehead against an instrument for a brief scan,” write Weiland and Metz. “The method, invented in 1991, offers a staggering amount of detail about the retina.”
STAT reporter Annalisa Merelli writes that the 2023 Lasker Award has been given to Prof. James Fujimoto, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM ’84 and David Huang PhD ’93 for their work advancing the diagnosis of eye disease. Fujimoto, Swanson and Huang developed “optical coherence tomography (OCT) — the first noninvasive technology allowing doctors to see high-resolution images of the retina.”