Ariel Ekblaw, director of the Space Exploration Initiative and founder of the Aurelia Institute, speaks with Fast Company reporter Rachael Zisk about accessibility needs for human spaceflight and the next generation of space stations. “The goal of democratizing access to space is to allow more people around the world to see themselves in that future,” says Ekblaw.
TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes that a new report by MIT researchers finds that in order to successfully transition to a renewable energy grid, the federal government must intervene to help build green energy storage at a scale that will meet the nation’s needs. “The federal government has the means both to subsidize the utilization of existing storage options and to fund intensive research into new and promising ones,” writes Coldewey of the report’s findings.
The MIT Media Lab hosted the “Imagination in Action Web3 Summit,” which brought togethers entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders who believe we are on the verge of a tech revolution, reports Anissa Gardizy for The Boston Globe.
Research affiliate Jason Prapas founded Fyto, a company dedicated to developing hardware and software to automate and scale the production of aquatic plants, reports Christine Hall for TechCrunch. Prapas says that “Fyto’s technology taps into a farm’s waste streams as inputs to enable farmers to increase productivity and improve nutrient management while reducing production costs, water usage and greenhouse gas emissions, in some operations by over 50%.”
Ambri, an MIT startup that has developed a liquid-metal battery that can be used for grid-level storage of renewable energy, has announced that it is months away from delivering its first battery to a customer, reports Jacob Wycoff for CBS Boston. "We want to have a battery that can draw from the sun even when the sun doesn't shine," said Prof. Donald Sadoway of the inspiration for Ambri’s battery.
MIT’s Leap Lab will be hosting a free event for children on Saturday, July 9th. The event will provide kids “a chance to explore the floating wetland on the Charles River through a microscope, learn to paint with algae, and compete in friendly engineering challenges with peers,” reports The Boston Globe.
MIT researchers have created Thesan, the most detailed model of the early universe to date, reports New Scientist. “Thesan shows how radiation shaped the universe from 400,000 to 1 billion years after the Big Bang,” writes New Scientist.
MIT scientists have suggested that a raft of thin-film silicon bubbles could potentially block the sun’s radiation from further warming the Earth and help prevent some of the impacts of climate change, reports Tim Newcomb for Popular Mechanics. “The MIT group believes that if the raft of bubbles can deflect 1.8 percent of incident solar radiation before it hits Earth, they can fully reverse today’s global warming,” writes Newcomb.
Alumnus Andrew Lau co-founded Jellyfish, an engineering management software platform designed to assess contextual business data and engineering signals to promote transparency into how engineering organizations work and operate, reports Bruce Rogers for Forbes. “We know leading a large engineering team is hard, not because necessarily of the coding, it's actually the intersection of technology and the business” says Lau.
Francis Plaza ’13 co-founded PayMongo, a fintech firm designed to digitalize the Philippine’s cash-based economy, reports Catherine Wang for Forbes. “PayMongo now not only plans to expand beyond the Philippines to other Southeast Asian countries, but also to broaden its remit by becoming a platform for scaling small business in the region,” writes Wang.
Researchers from MIT, University College London, the University of Cambridge, and the NOAA have found that space projects by Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos are contributing to global warming and depleting the earth’s protective ozone layer, reports David Vetter for Forbes. “The London-Cambridge-MIT team looked at all the rocket launches and reentries that took place in 2019 and found that the global warming efficiency of black carbon soot released from rockets is 500 times greater than the same substance released at the Earth’s surface and by aircraft,” writes Vetter.
Prof. Emily Richmond Pollock weighs in on how interpretations of the 1812 Overture, a common Fourth of July prelude, has changed over time, reports Javier C. Hernández for The New York Times. “It has been used for different purposes throughout history,” says Pollock. “In 2022, with ambivalence about Russian power, it has come to mean something different. And it could mean something different again in the future.”
VulcanForms, an MIT startup, has developed a 3-D printer that can “generate 100 times the laser energy of most 3-D printers, and can produce parts many times faster,” reports Steve Lohr for The New York Times. “Additive manufacturing lets us rethink how we build things,” explains Martin Feldmann MEng ’14, co-founder, president and CEO of VulcanForms. “That’s where we are now, and that’s a big change.”
Prof. David Hsu weighs in on how the current competitive utility prices may not survive the anticipated shocks to the energy market, reports Dharna Noor for The Boston Globe. Hsu explains that “aggregation is a useful tool to clean the grid and boost local control of energy – and customers can always opt out to take advantage of lower rates,” writes Noor.
Knight Science Journalism Director Deborah Blum speaks with Science Friday host Ira Flatow about the best science books to read this summer.