In the Media

Researchers at MIT have developed an automated search tool that can help astronomers identify the echoes emitted by a specific type of black hole, reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “The team’s algorithm, which they dubbed the ‘Reverberation Machine,’ pored through data collected by the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, an x-ray telescope mounted to the International Space Station,” writes Juandre. “They identified previously undetected echoes from black hole binary systems in our galaxy.”

In an article for The Hill, Prof. Emeritus Henry Jacoby writes that “government agencies, even as they act to protect U.S. interests, need to try to maintain conditions favorable for international climate research efforts.”

MIT astronomers have used light echoes from X-ray bursts to try to map the environment around black holes, reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. Prof. Erin Kara then worked with education and music experts to transform the X-ray reflections into audible sound. “I just love that we can ‘hear’ the general relativity in these simulations,” said Kara.

Susy Jones, a sustainability project manager for MIT’s Office of Sustainability advises WBUR reporter Andrea Shea through her decision to eat 100% local foods for one week. “Making decision when you’re stressed is really difficult and that’s why I think it’s hard for anyone to eat healthy or local,” says Jones. “That’s why people at the end of the day end up getting fast food. So, we have to reduce the barriers for purchasing healthy local food.” 

CNN reporter Ashley Strickland writes that MIT astronomers developed an automated search tool and were able to “pin down the locations of eight rare pairings of black holes and the stars orbiting them, thanks to the X-ray echoes they release.”

MIT researchers developed a suitcase-sized, portable desalination device that can turn salt water into drinking water with the push of a button, reports Elissaveta M. Brandon for Fast Company. Brandon writes that the device could be a “vital tool for remote island communities, seafaring cargo ships, and even refugee camps located near water.”

A team of MIT scholars and journalists are underscoring that artificial intelligence could advance colonialism in a three-part series supported by the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program and the Pulitzer Center, reports Ellen McGirt for Fortune. “While it would diminish the depth of past traumas to say the A.I. industry is repeating this violence [plunder and slavery] today, it is now using other, more insidious means to enrich the wealth and powerful at the great expense of the poor,” says the team.

MIT scientists have created a new tool that can improve robotic wearables, reports Danica D’Souza for Mashable. “The tool provides a pipeline for digital creating pneumatic actuators – devices that power motion with compressed air in many wearables and robotics,” writes D’Souza.

Prof. Parag Pathak, U.C. Berkeley Prof. Christopher Waters and University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar Guthrie Gray-Lobe “tracked more than 4,000 students from preschool through high school, comparing the outcomes of those who won pre-K seat to those whose lottery number wasn’t high enough,” writes U.C. Berkeley Prof. and New York Times guest writer David L. Kirp. “Those who attended preschool were less likely to be suspended or become entangled with the juvenile justice system,” writes Kirp.

Motherboard reporter Audrey Carleton writes that MIT researchers have developed a “filter-less portable desalination device that uses an electrical field generated by solar energy to repel charged particles like salt, bacteria, and viruses.” Research Scientist Junghyo Yoon explains that: “All indicators tell us that water scarcity is a growing problem for everyone due to rising sea levels. We don’t hope for a grim future, but we want to help people be prepared for it.” 

Robots constructed by 32 students competed in the annual 2.007 Robot Competition, which was held in person for the first time in three years, reports Lisa Gresci for 7 News. “The atmosphere is absolutely electric,” explains third year student Joshua Rohrbaugh. “It’s really amazing we can celebrate this kind of academic competition in this kind of way. It’s almost like a sporting event and that gets me hyped up.”

Inverse reporter Charles Q. Choi writes that MIT astronomers have observed what appears to be the most tightly coupled black widow binary yet. "The one thing I know for sure is we really have never seen anything quite like this object,” says postdoctoral fellow Kevin Burdge, “and that there is probably a lot more to learn from it and other similar objects that I am finding right now, and that's what has me so excited about these."

MIT astronomers have detected what appears to be a black widow binary with the shortest orbital period ever recorded, reports Becky Ferreira for Vice. “It behaves exactly like a black widow in many, many ways,” says postdoctoral fellow Kevin Burdge, “but it also does a few new things that we've never seen before in any known black widow.” 

Prof. Silvio Micali speaks with Los Angeles Times reporter Laurence Darmiento about his predictions for the future of crypto. “The moment the blockchain starts to be used for transactions, the few blockchains that are really capable of transacting at a very low cost, they’re going to emerge, in my opinion,” says Micali. “When traditional finance starts getting on the blockchain, you’re going to see the blockchains that are really used in a massive and transactional way are going to accelerate.”

Financial Times reporter William D. Cohan profiles Robert Joseph Scaringe SM ’07, PhD ’09 and his personal and professional career in developing Rivian, an electric vehicle technology company dedicated to building vehicles that change the way we consume fossil fuels. “Scaringe has been pining to run his own car company since he was a 17-year-old growing up on the Atlantic coast of Florida, just south of Cape Canaveral. ‘If you were to go in my bedroom as a kid, you’d find [car] hoods under the bed and windshields in the closet,’ he says.”