TechCrunch reporter Haje Jan Kamps writes that MIT researchers have developed an “electronically steerable terahertz antenna array, which operates like a controllable mirror.” The new device “may enable higher-speed communications and vision systems that can see through foggy or dusty environments.”
Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with WCBV-TV reporter David Bienick about concerns surrounding Russian cyberattacks. “Madnick suggests that in order to protect themselves from cyberattack, people should update their computer protection systems and be extra leery of suspicious emails and links,” says Bienick.
Researchers from MIT and journalists from STAT conducted a months long investigation and found that “subtle shifts in data fed into popular health care algorithms — used to warn caregivers of impending medical crises — can cause their accuracy to plummet over time, raising the prospect AI could do more harm than good in many hospitals,” reports Casey Ross for STAT.
WBUR host Peter O’Dowd speaks with MIT senior research associate Jim Walsh about the recent meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegates. “I think both parties feel like they have to go through the motions, and both are, or at least the Ukrainians are, rightly skeptical,” says Walsh. “The way negotiations work is they work over a long period of time.”
New York Times reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi highlights a paper written by Prof. Glenn Ellison, head of MIT’s Department of Economics, and Senior Lecturer Sarah Fisher Ellison explaining how technology has made it easier to find products, but retailers have retaliated by raising prices. “To the extent that there is more obfuscation going on, consumers pay more for everything,” said Ellison. Wakabayashi also spotlights a study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein that found “when people use cash less, prices go up.”
ABC News reporter Mary Kekatos speaks with Prof. Kate Brown about concerns surrounding Russian troops’ recent seizure of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. “Conventional war and nuclear power are not a good combination,” says Brown. “Nuclear power requires security, stability and peace. It’s a tall order.”
In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, MIT has decided not to continue the MIT Skoltech Program, reports Laura Crimaldi for The Boston Globe. “This step is a rejection of the actions of the Russian government in Ukraine,” wrote President L. Rafael Reif in a letter to the community. “We take it with deep regret because of our great respect for the Russian people and our profound appreciation for the contributions of the many extraordinary Russian colleagues we have worked with.”
Sasha Horokh and Vlada Petrusenko, undergraduate students from Ukraine, shared their fears with Jim Braude on Greater Boston, and asked Americans for support. “They’re staying in Ukraine, trying to stay calm and just do what they can to protect Ukraine,” Horokh said of their family and friends. “They definitely are scared for their futures, for their loved ones’ futures, for the future of their country and their home. However, being scared isn’t going to help much.”
Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with Ivan Pereira and Luke Barr of ABC News about the potential for Russia to launch cyberattacks on the U.S. and how Americans can prepare. "Cyberattacks and cyber security are not something we talk about a lot, but we need to," said Madnick. "This is not a brand new issue.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that China’s ban on cryptocurrencies sent the process of creating new coins to other locations in the world that use less renewable energy, reports Hiroko Tabuchi for The New York Times. The researchers found that “Bitcoin miners lost their access to hydropower from regions within China that had powered their computers with cheap, plentiful, renewable energy during the wet summer months.”
Smithsonian Magazine reporter Margaret Osborne spotlights MIT researchers who have discovered that specific neurons in the brain respond to singing, but not sounds such as road traffic, instrumental music and speaking. “This work suggests there’s a distinction in the brain between instrumental music and vocal music,” says former MIT postdoc Sam Norman-Haignere.
E&E News reporter Sara Schonhardt reporter speaks with Michael Mehling, deputy director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will impact the transition to cleaner energy in Europe. “I think it will lend further support to the not only environmental imperative of decarbonization, but also the strategic imperative of becoming energy independent with locally available renewables,” says Mehling.
New York Times reporter William J. Broad speaks with Prof. R. Scott Kemp about the safety risks associated with the nuclear power plants in northern Ukraine amid the Russian invasion. “There’s some risk of a direct hit,” said Kemp. “But I imagine they’ll do everything possible to avoid that because they don’t want to deal with the fallout.”
WBUR reporters Bruce Gellerman and David Greene spotlight Form Energy, a startup co-founded by MIT scientists with the mission to find a low-cost way to transform the global electric system. The startup “had a eureka moment when they thought about harnessing the rusting process to power batteries,” write Gellerman and Greene.
Undergraduate Vlada Petrusenko speaks with Peter Eliopoulos of WCVB-TV about her worries for her parents and friends during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "It’s not just war of Russia against Ukraine, it’s war of Russia against the whole other world," said Petrusenko.