HuffPost reporter Mary Papenfuss writes that a team of archeologists and scientists, including Research Scientist Jahandar Ramezani, have uncovered evidence of social behaviors in dinosaurs. “The bones were segregated by age, with eggs in a common nesting ground,” writes Papenfuss. “Juveniles likely were left in ‘schools’ while adults foraged.”
Scientific American reporter Dana G. Smith spotlights how Prof. Rebecca Saxe and her colleagues have found evidence that regions of the visual infant cortex show preferences for faces, bodies and scenes. “The big surprise of these results is that specialized area for seeing faces that some people speculated took years to develop: we see it in these babies who are, on average, five or six months old,” Saxe tells Smith.
Los Angeles Times reporter Rob Nikolewski spotlights a report by researchers from MIT and Stanford University that finds keeping the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California running would reduce electricity costs and help the state achieve its climate goals. “Nuclear plants – and Diablo Canyon is no exception – are one such clean and firm [source of] power capacity that we think should be preserved,” says Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno.
Forbes reporter Derek Newton spotlights Nwanacho Nwana '20, co-founder of education startup Valfee, a communications program aimed at engaging students with public speaking skills. “We truly believe that feedback-based learning is optimal for long term growth, and that the future of student learning is gamified,” Nwana tells Newton.
Prof. Azra Aksamija speaks with NPR’s Scott Simon about her book "Design to Live: Everyday Inventions from a Refugee Camp," which spotlights the inventions and designs created by Syrian refugees at the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan. “For me, you know, what's so powerful about them is they visualize, on the one hand, this ingenuity of human spirit, yes, and resilience but, on the other hand, really, what is missing because people invent what is not provided,” says Aksamija, “and what is not provided are basic ideas of what constitutes human - essential human needs.”
Prof. M Amah Edoh is offering a new course on OpenCourseWare examining reparations for slavery and colonization and “will invite the participation of activists and members of the global public,” reports Sharon Dell for University World News. Edoh explains that the course is aimed at “bringing the world into the classroom but also opening the classroom into the world.”
Writing for the NIH Director’s Blog, Dr. Francis Collins highlights how Prof. Tyler Jacks and research scientist Megan Burger’s work exploring T cell exhaustion led to the creation of a “strategy for developing cancer vaccines that can ‘awaken’ T cells and reinvigorate the body’s natural cancer-fighting abilities.” Collins writes that “the researchers hope to learn if this approach to cancer vaccines might work even better when used in combination with immunotherapy drugs, which unleash the immune system against cancer in other ways.”
Research scientist Jahandar Ramezani speaks with Scientific American reporter Christopher Intagliata about his new study that provides evidence early dinosaurs exhibited herding behavior. “This is a critical time in the evolution of dinosaurs. This is pretty early on,” says Ramezani. “So the idea is: this type of behavior, this social behavior, may have actually contributed to the evolutionary success of dinosaurs.”
New York Times Style Magazine reporter Zoë Lescaze explores the work of artist Agnieszka Kurant and her new installation at MIT. “Looping black lines composed of high-tech lights were designed to simulate the flow of ink scrawl across the facades of two new buildings, as though an invisible hand were repeatedly signing the walls,” writes Lescaze. “Kurant worked with computer scientists to create two collective signatures — one for the scientific and academic community at MIT and another for Cambridge residents.”
Graduate student Rida Qadri writes for Wired about the National Database and Registration Authority, a kinship-based digital ID system used in Pakistan. “Pakistan’s experience with creating databases that encode kinship reveals important lessons about the complexities of building digital ID systems,” writes Qadri “Database design is not just computational. At every step, social, political, and technical decisions coalesce."
MIT researchers have been working to turn polyethylene plastics into woven fabrics, reports Smithsonian Magazine reporter Frederick Reimers. “We strongly believe that adoption of PE textiles will be very beneficial for the world from the sustainability standpoint,” says Principal Research Scientist Svetlana Boriskina tells Reimers.
Fast Company reporter Stephanie Vozza writes that Prof. Erin Kelly has found greater flexibility in work schedules and location resulted in higher levels of employee well-being and job satisfaction. “Our study found that increasing employees’ say in when, where, and how they do their work, and conveying support for their personal and family life, both improved well-being and reduced turnover, reducing costs for the company, too,” says Kelly.
Optics & Photonics News reporter Patricia Daukantas spotlights how a team of researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) has uncovered a way to generate long wavelength light using intrinsic defects in semi-conducting materials. “The new method raises the possibility of future CMOS-compatible LEDs that give off the full spectrum of visible light, writes Daukantas, “without the need for phosphors that generate excess heat and shorten the diodes’ lifespan.”
MIT researchers have developed a new fiber, dubbed OmniFibers, that could potentially be used to help regulate breath, reports Ray White for Mashable. “When sewn into clothing, the fiber can sense how much it’s stretched. It then gives tactile feedback to the wearer via pressure, stretch or vibration.”
Forbes reporter Ken Silverstein highlights a joint study by MIT and Stanford researchers that finds that extending the California Diablo Canyon Power Plant will save customers billions while reducing carbon emissions. The researchers found that “if the plant stayed operational from 2025 to 2035,” writes Silverstein, “CO2 levels would drop by 10% a year and displace natural gas use, saving customers $2.6 billion.”