Researchers at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Delta Air Lines are working together to find new ways to eliminate persistent contrails, the white clouds that trail behind airplanes, using an algorithm that predicts altitudes and locations where contrails are likely to form, reports Omose Ighodaro for Bloomberg. “The joint research group has already completed more than 40 testing flights and has plans for live experiment flights and simulations,” writes Ighodaro.
In this opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, Prof. Simon Johnson suggests that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) decision to reduce production quotas, which was seemingly done in an effort to support Russia, will drive up oil prices worldwide. “The likelihood of Russian defeat in Ukraine, increasing daily with Ukrainian advances, will change the global picture for oil considerably, and OPEC members need to decide whose side they are on for what comes next,” writes Johnson.
Researchers at MIT co-authored a study which found that two stars in a binary system 3,000 light years from Earth are orbiting each other so closely that one of the stars has burnt out, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. "Basically, they were bound together for 8 billion years in a binary orbit,” says postdoc Kevin Burdge, “And now, right before the second one could end its stellar life cycle and become a white dwarf in the way that stars normally do - by evolving into a type of star called a red giant - the leftover white dwarf remnant of the first star interrupted the end of the companion's lifecycle and started slowly consuming it."
A new study by researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School has helped identify the impact of exercise and high-fat diets on cells, reports Darren Botelho for NBC Boston 10. “Years from now, those researchers say the data could lead to a pill that would help not only with weight loss, but with the overall effect from exercise – a better wellbeing,” explains Botelho.
WBUR host Tiziana Dearing speaks to Namrata Sengupta, Associate Director of Scientific Public Engagement and the Broad Discovery Center at the Broad Institute, about the Innovation Trail, a walking tour that highlights the history of innovation in Boston and Cambridge. Sengupta shares what “a great honor [for the Broad Discovery Center] to be a part of the Innovation Trail of Greater Boston and this ecosystem.”
Prof. Laura Kiessling speaks with Ryan Cross and Emily Sweeney at The Boston Globe about the work of Stanford professor Carolyn R. Bertozzi, daughter of MIT professor emeritus William Bertozzi, who won this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Bertozzi’s work “changes the way people think about doing science. There have been further advances, but they all build on her work,” says Kiessling.
Writing for Times Higher Ed, Prof. Andres Sevtsuk explores how campus design can boost communication and exchange between researchers. “Low-rise, high-density buildings with interconnected walkways and shared public spaces are more likely to maximize encounters,” writes Sevtsuk. “In colder climates, having indoor walking paths between buildings can help ensure that encounters continue during colder parts of the year.”
MIT spinoff Gradiant, a water treatment facility developer, is working on new technology aimed at limiting the amount of water needed to produce lithium, reports Annie Lee and Janet Wu for Bloomberg. Gradiant’s process “can vastly improve lithium recovery and allow almost all wastewater to be recycled, has been developed in connection with Schlumberger’s NeoLith Energy venture,” writes Lee and Wu.
Prof. David Kaiser discussed the significance of Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger’s research conducting experiments concerning quantum entanglement, for which they were honored with the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. “Clauser got a lot of pushback from scientists who didn’t think this was even part of science,” said Kaiser. “He had to have a lot of stick-to-itiveness to publish his result.”
Prof. Manolis Kellis speaks with Boston 25 about his team’s work exploring the underlying mechanisms exploring how exercise influences weight loss, findings that could offer potential targets for drugs that could help to enhance or mimic the benefits of exercise. “Such an intervention would be a complete game changer and the reason for that is that the obesity epidemic has led to the U.S. having a decreased life span compared to all other developed countries,” says Kellis.
MIT researchers have created a robotic pill that can safely penetrate the mucus barrier in the digestive tract to deliver drugs more efficiently, reports Margaret Osborne for Smithsonian Magazine. “The device’s textured surface clears away the mucus, and the rotating motion erodes the compartment with the drug payload, which slowly releases into the digestive tract,” explains Osborne.
Researchers from Sloan have released a survey “detailing how 600 board directors worldwide view the cyber threats facing their companies,” reports Sam Sabin for Axios. “Competing perceptions of the threat landscape could make it difficult for CISOs to get board members to support their plans for securing their organizations,” writes Sabin.
In a review for The New York Times, University of Bonn Prof. Irina Dumitrescu spotlights Prof. Kieran Setiya’s new book “Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way” Dumitrescu writes: “Setiya’s main goal is not to describe how things should be; in his view, given that there is much in life that makes us miserable, and that we can neither change nor ignore, we might as well find ways of dealing with the reality.”
Prof. Nathan Wilmers and his colleague have used multiple measures of earnings to trace income inequality in the U.S., reports Tim Fernholz for Quartz. “After decades of increase since the 1980s, they found that income inequality peaked in 2012 and has held steady or perhaps even fallen since,” explains Fernholz.
Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, writes for Forbes about the three major risk factors to consider when planning where to live in retirement. “Retirement planning can’t control the weather,” writes Coughlin. “However, critically and realistically assessing our personal resilience and how to best prepare for the possible risks of where I live, is a critical element to thinking about how I will live in older age.”