Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear spotlights research specialist Kathy Cormier’s dedication to tending a flower planter at the Collier Memorial. “Here’s something that’s empty that I can fill, and make myself feel better and make other people — hopefully — feel better,” says Cormier. MIT Chief of Police John DiFava says, “what she is doing is just so amazing. I just think it’s wonderful and it’s so illustrative of the way we have been treated here.”
Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with AP reporter Angela Charlton about nuclear power and climate change. “People are beginning to understand the consequences of not going nuclear,” says Emanuel. Amid a “growing awareness of the rise of climate risks around the world, people are beginning to say, ‘that’s a bit more frightening than nuclear power plants.’”
Times Higher Ed reporter Rosa Ellis writes that MIT took second place in the World University Rankings 2022 for arts and humanities. Agustín Rayo, interim dean of SHASS, and Hashim Sarkis, dean of SA+P, write that the humanities, “have an essential research role in problem-solving major civilisational issues” and they also “reliably contribute to well-being and a well-lived life.”
Mashable video producer Jules Suzdaltsev shares that MIT scientists and a team of researchers have successfully created full-scale, self-navigating robotic boats ready to wade through the Amsterdam canals. “The boats use GPS, lidar, cameras and control algorithms to reach their full self-navigating capabilities,” writes Suzdaltsev.
Writing for Times Higher Ed, Agustín Rayo, interim dean of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, underscore the importance of the arts, humanities, and design fields as “an essential part of an MIT education, critical to the Institute’s capacity for innovation and vital to its mission to make a better world." They add that "the MIT mission is to serve humankind, and the arts and humanities are essential resources for knowledge and understanding of the human condition.”
Nene Anagbogu ’18 and Colin Webb ’18 cofounded Sauce, a startup that provides analytics and dynamic pricing for restaurants, reports Frederick Daso for Forbes. “We’re the perfect combination of restaurant, data and product,” Anagbogu and Webb tell Daso. “Our families started small businesses, and we worked in restaurants, so we know what our customers are going through.”
WCVB reporter Jessica Brown shares the story of Heather Walker, vice president of public relations for the Boston Celtics, who is currently enrolled in a MIT glioblastoma research study. The team of MIT researchers are examining “the tumor’s DNA, looking for gene mutations and abnormal proteins that make it unique,” says Brown. “With that information, the group designs a custom vaccine that trains the body’s immune system to recognize the cancerous cells and attack them.”
Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money spotlights a new study co-authored by Prof. David Autor that examines the impact of the China Shock on Americans working in the manufacturing industry. Rosalsky notes that the research by Autor and his colleagues on the China Shock demonstrates what happens “when a bomb explodes on a community's main industry. The community doesn't just bounce back. Workers don't just shift to new sectors or move to new places. The social fabric of the community gets ripped apart. Destitution, squalor and depression set in.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and former executive chairman of Google and Alphabet, explore how AI provides an opportunity for humans to redefine our roles in the world and the need to consider AI’s impact on culture, humanity and history. They underscore the importance of, “shaping AI with human values, including the dignity and moral agency of humans. In the U.S., a commission, administered by the government but staffed by many thinkers in many domains, should be established. The advancement of AI is inevitable, but its ultimate destination is not.”
Sloan graduate student Haiyi Zhang and Wellesley College Prof. Courtney Coile are conducting an ongoing research effort to understand how the pandemic changed retirement, writes Washington Post reporter Andrew Van Dam. “They found that workers were less likely to retire if they could work from home. However, they didn’t see evidence that local coronavirus outbreaks nor the local job market had an effect on early retirements,” writes Van Dam.
TechCrunch writer Devin Coldewey reports on the ReSkin project, an AI project focused on developing a new electronic skin and fingertip meant to expand the sense of touch in robots. The ReSkin project is rooted in GelSight, a technology developed by MIT researchers that allows robots to gauge an object’s hardness.
WCVB reporter Maria Stephanos shares the experience of Heather Walker, vice president of public relations for the Boston Celtics, who is enrolled in an MIT glioblastoma research study. Walker’s family and friends have created the Heather Walker Fund for Glioblastoma Research at Dana Farber, where “all the money raised will go to supporting a glioblastoma research study at MIT [that is] using immunotherapy and personalized vaccines,” says Stephanos.
Forbes contributor Bruce Y. Lee writes that MIT researchers have found that lack of sleep can affect a person’s gait and that catching up on sleep can improve gait control for those who are chronically sleep deprived. Lee writes that the findings demonstrate how, “lack of sleep may affect your ability to move your body and navigate in subtle ways.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Sherry Turkle explores how in order to fix social media platforms, we also need to alter our views on empathy and disagreement. “We lose out when we don’t take the time to listen to each other, especially to those who are not like us,” writes Turkle. “We need to learn again to tolerate difference and disagreement.”
Reuters reporter Nancy Lapid writes that researchers from MIT and other institutions have found that Covid-19 can infect cells in the inner ear, which “may help explain the balance problems, hearing loss and tinnitus, or ringing in the ears experienced by some COVID-19 patients.”