In the Media

Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert ’77 has been selected as one of The Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players 50 for his work in artificial intelligence and robotics, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. Raibert recalls how his fascination with developing robot legs was cultivated at MIT. “I went to a presentation where someone showed a very slow-moving legged robot,” said Raibert. “I thought, wow, people and animals aren’t anything like that. ... People and animals have such fantastic locomotion. That was a thing to try to emulate and achieve.”

WBUR reporter Bruce Gellerman spotlights a new report by MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) researchers that emphasizes the importance of developing and deploying new ways to store renewable energy in order to transition to clean energy. “There are a variety of technologies and if we can develop [them] and drive those costs down, it could make getting to net-zero or zero in the electricity sector more affordable,” says Prof. Robert Armstrong, MITEI director.

Daily Beast reporter Tony Ho Tran writes that MIT researchers have developed a tiny fuel cell that can transform glucose into electricity. “The team behind the new fuel believes it could potentially be used as a coating on medical implants like artificial hearts or pacemakers,” writes Tran. “Those implants could be powered passively while in use without the need for expensive and cumbersome batteries that take up valuable real estate in the body.”

A new report by researchers from MIT’s Energy Initiative (MITEI) underscores the feasibility of using energy storage systems to almost completely eliminate the need for fossil fuels to operate regional power grids, reports David Abel for The Boston Globe. “Our study finds that energy storage can help [renewable energy]-dominated electricity systems balance electricity supply and demand while maintaining reliability in a cost-effective manner,” says Prof. Robert Armstrong, director of MITEI.

Overjet, co-founded by Wardah Inam SM ’12 PhD ’16, has been awarded landmark clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to use their software aimed at detecting and outlining cavities in patients’ X-rays, reports Alexandra S. Levine for Forbes. “Everybody has had a dental disease,” says Inam. “People have had good and bad experiences. And moving the industry towards making [a] more clinically precise, efficient patient focus is something that will impact every person in the world.”

MIT researchers have developed a new fuel cell that takes glucose absorbed from food in the human body and turns it into electricity, reports Gwen Egan for Boston.com. “That electricity could power small implants while also being able to withstand up to 600 degrees Celsius — or 1112 degrees Fahrenheit — and measuring just 400 nanometers thick,” writes Egan.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from MIT and Harvard, have found that an artificial intelligence program trained to read X-rays and CT scans can successfully predict a person’s race with 90 percent accuracy, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. "The research effort was born when the scientists noticed that an AI program for examining chest X-rays was more likely to miss signs of illness in Black patients," writes Bray.

Boston Metal, an MIT spinout, has created a new manufacturing method that could help engineers reshape the way in which alloy is made, reports Marcello Rossi for The Atlantic. The process is “called ‘molten oxide electrolysis,’ in which a current moves through a cell containing iron ore,” explains Rossi.

Wall Street Journal reporter Ryan Dezember visited Prof. Desiree Plata’s lab to learn more about her group’s work developing a new tool to help address climate change. Plata and her colleagues “soaked an odor-eating clay used in cat boxes in a copper solution to create a compound that they say snatches methane from passing air and turns it into carbon dioxide, a much less harmful greenhouse gas.” The new technique has the “potential to greatly reduce the amount of methane in the atmosphere and slow warming temperatures on the planet.”

Researchers at MIT have built a highly efficient thermophotovoltaic cell that converts incoming photons to electricity, reports Kevin Hurler for Gizmodo. “We developed this technology—thermal batteries—because storing energy as heat rather than storing it electrochemically is 10 to 100 times cheaper," explains Prof. Asegun Henry. 

Astronomers and researchers from MIT and 80 other institutions have captured the first image of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post.  “The pandemic slowed us down but it couldn’t stop us,” said research scientist Vincent Fish of the pandemic’s impact on the Event Horizon Telescope team’s work.

Researchers from MIT and 80 other institutions have captured the first image of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, reports Denise Chow for NBC News. The image provides “the first direct visual evidence of ‘the gentle giant’ that lies at the center of our galaxy,” writes Chow.

Researchers from MIT contributed to the first image of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, reports CBS Boston. “Black holes don’t emit light, but the image shows the shadow of the black hole surrounded by a bright ring of light, which is bent by the gravity of the black hole,” reports CBS.  

An international team of scientists, including MIT researchers, unveiled the first picture of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. “Our collaboration’s remarkable images of Sgr A* and our scientific conclusions were a combined effort that involved not just the handful of us on stages around the world today, but more than 300 people all working together united by our fascination with black holes,” explains research scientist Vincent Fish.

Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein writes that the international consortium behind the Event Horizon Telescope has imaged the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. To get the picture, eight synchronized radio telescopes around the world had to coordinate so closely “in a process similar to everyone shaking hands with everyone else in the room,” explained research scientist Vincent Fish.