In the Media

MIT has been named the third highest-ranked private college in the Northeast, according to the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings, reports Gerard Yates for The Wall Street Journal.

Forbes reporter Nili Peretz spotlights MIT Sloan School of Management researchers who suggest that moments of silence in negotiations can lead to a better outcome for both parties. “We often perceive negotiation as a daunting task or fierce competition between two sides that always leaves one a winner and the other a loser,” says Peretz. “However, a brief pauses and silence can be incredibly effective in empowering negotiators to shift from a fixed pie mentality to a more reflective state of mind.”

MIT researchers have developed a transparent, degradable medical dressing that could be used to help gut wounds heal more quickly and efficiently without leaking bacteria, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. The researchers “designed their dressing to work like duct tape, which is only sticky on one side,” writes Wilkins. “Once it covers the wound, it quickly forms a hydrogel, an adhesive layer that can help the wound to heal.”

Physics World reporter Tim Wogan writes that MIT researchers used machine learning techniques to identify a mysterious “X” particle in the quark–gluon plasma produced by the Large Hadron Collider. “Further studies of the particle could help explain how familiar hadrons such as protons and neutrons formed from the quark–gluon plasma believed to have been present in the early universe,” writes Wogan.

Fortune reporter Tristan Bove spotlights a study led by economists from MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Mexico’s ITAM on how workers are spending their time while working from home. “Pandemic habits give Americans around 70 minutes of extra free time a day,” writes Bove. “The lion’s share of this, around 60 minutes, comes from getting rid of commuting, but workers have also spent around nine minutes less on average doing daily activities such as grooming or picking out fresh clothes.”

Assaf Biderman ‘05, associate director of the MIT SENSEable City Lab, discusses his startup Superpedestrian, a transportation robotics company that has developed electric scooters available in over 60 cities across the world.  “I think we hit the holy grail of micromobility, which is detecting when you’re on the sidewalk every time and stopping or slowing the vehicle,” said Biderman.

Fast Company reporter Daria Burke spotlights a course by senior lecturer Tara Swart that explores how to create sustainable change in the brain. “New experiences promote neuroplasticity,” says Swart. “Exposing yourself to different kinds of people, new languages, new kinds of food will promote plasticity in your brain because your brain is having to adapt to change.”

A new study by Prof. David Autor examining the effectiveness of the Paycheck Protection Program found that the program ended up subsidizing business owners and shareholders more than workers, reports Stacy Cowley for The New York Times.  “Jobs and businesses are two separate things,” says Autor. “We tried to figure out, ‘Where did the money go?’ — and it turns out it didn’t primarily go to workers who would have lost jobs. It went to business owners and their shareholders and their creditors.”

The Economist spotlights a study by MIT researchers that found that less than a third of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding went to workers who would otherwise have been laid off. “Almost $366bn – 72% of funding in 2020 – went to households making more than 144,000 per year,” writes The Economist.

Economists from MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and Mexico’s ITAM polled U.S. workers to see how the pandemic impacted American’s work from home setup, reports Nate DiCamillo for Quartz. “Overall, remote workers report that they’ve become more efficient at working from home than in office,” writes DiCamillo.

Prof. Jesús del Alamo speaks with Bloomberg Radio’s Janet Wu about a new report by MIT researchers that explores how the U.S. can regain leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and production. “Leadership in microelectronics is really critical for economic progress and also security concerns,” says del Alamo.

Politico reporter Alex Daugherty spotlights a study from MIT and the International Council on Clean Transportation which found “that the use of alternative jet fuels like e-kerosene in supersonic transport aircraft would still lead to an increased worsening of climate change because these faster gets burn more fuel per passenger.”

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Yossi Sheffi notes that “just-in-time” (JIT) supply chains can help improve product quality and manufacturing processes, leading to reduced inefficiency. JIT “reinforces resilience because it strengthens the relationships along the supply chain between companies, their suppliers and customers,” writes Sheffi. “Close relationships allow companies to react collaboratively to supply-chain disruptions.”

Robert C. Hayden, a former MIT postdoc and staff member and a prolific author who “wanted people to learn about everyone who contributed to Black history, not just the celebrated figures,” died on Jan. 23, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “Mr. Hayden wrote more than 20 publications about Black history and culture, often highlighting previously overlooked achievements in scientific research, technology, and medicine,” writes Marquard.

A team of scientists from MIT and Facebook have created a new object tagging system called InfraredTags, reports Charlotte Hu for Popular Science. “InfraredTags uses infrared light-based barcodes and QR codes that embedded permanently into the bodies of 3D printed objects,” reports Hu.