Researchers from MIT and Toyota Research Institute developed SceneSmith, a system that allows robots to practice everyday tasks and action plans in over 1,300 AI generated environments before entering a real home or workplace, writes Fox News’ Kurt Knutsson. “SceneSmith's ability to combine realistic design with usable physics gives the project its strongest advantage,” notes Knutsson.
Prof. Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai, speaks to Fast Company reporter Victor Dey about his vision for a faster and cheaper AI grid that could serve as an alternative to large data centers, and more effectively route inference workloads. “Many inference tasks do not need the largest model or the largest cluster or the most expensive compute,” says Leighton. “What they need is the ability to marry the right model, in the right place, data and moment, at the most effective cost.”
By studying ‘smears’ in fast radio bursts, fleeting flashes of radiation, MIT researchers discovered diffuse clouds of baryonic gas may contain the missing ordinary matter in the universe, writes Gizmodo’s Gayoung Lee. “These diffuse clouds may be flung outside galaxies through black hole jets,” Lee explains.
Boston Art Review’s Kim Córdova spotlights coverage of the MIT Museum’s “No Recombination Without Representation,” an immersive theatrical reenactment honoring the fiftieth anniversary of a little-known Cambridge City Council meeting that has had major historical impact beyond the local community.
The life and work of the late Nobel laureate Prof. Susumu Tonegawa, founding director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, is spotlighted by The New York Times’ Dylan Loeb McClain. “Few scientists have reshaped our understanding of biology as profoundly,” says Prof. Myriam Heiman, director of the Picower Institute. “His intellectual fearlessness, extraordinary creativity and relentless pursuit of fundamental questions opened entirely new frontiers in both immunology and neuroscience.”
Prof. Sebastian Lourido speaks to Boston Globe reporter Lindsay Crudele about the safety of local produce amidst the current cyclospora outbreak. “There are many features of local agriculture that are less susceptible to the spread of these kinds of diseases,” says Lourido.
Roughly 100 high school students, two from each state, attended this past weekend’s “Youth AI Festival,” organized in part by MIT RAISE (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education) to discuss the need for clear AI policies for K-12 education, writes Boston Globe reporter Marcela García. “[T]he students discussed, wrote, and approved a model AI-use policy for classrooms, ending in a simulated Senate floor debate and vote at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute,” García explains.
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, joins Hakeem Oluseyi, host of GBH’s “Particles of Thought,” to discuss her group’s work developing liquid neural networks, AI that runs locally on a given device rather than a data center to increase privacy and improve energy efficiency. By using liquid AI, "you avoid privacy concerns and you avoid the security concerns associated with accessing the cloud,” says Rus. “Furthermore, the cost of running your models on a device is much, much lower than running a huge model in the cloud.”
Prof. Catherine Wolfram speaks to Marketplace’s Kristin Schwab about the rise in gas prices during the conflict with Iran.
Research Associate James Walsh joins Scott Tong, host of WBUR’s “Here & Now,” to discuss the escalation of the U.S.-Iran war. “Geographically it [the conflict] is spreading because it also includes U.S. attacks on cities in Iran it has not previously attacked,” says Walsh. “It [the war] has also expanded or escalated in the type of targets that are being hit.”
Fortune reporter Preston Fore highlights Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee's warning that companies should not replace entry level jobs with AI. “[I]f you’re pulling back on your entry-level hiring, you are probably sacrificing future opportunities to learn and the skilled people of the future,” says McAfee. “You’re also turning off the spigot of the most enthusiastic power users of AI in your organization.”
Prof. Richard Samuels joins Adrian Ma, host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” program, to discuss Japan's efforts to form a new centralized intelligence agency. “The real threats to Japan today are the shifting balance of power in northeast Asia,” says Samuels. “This strategic environment in 2026 is not the same as the strategic environment during the Cold War and not during the post-Cold War. It's something quite new.”
Prof. Scott Stern speaks to The New York Times’ Sydney Ember about the influx of new businesses created since 2020. “The sustained high rate of both main street and growth-oriented entrepreneurship over the past five years is a piece of super good news about the future of the economy,” says Stern.
A new study by MIT researchers finds high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets may increase the risk of certain intestinal cancers, writes Newsweek’s Daniella Gray. “The researchers say future studies will be needed to better understand how specific dietary fats influence cancer risk and whether modifying the composition of ketogenic diets could reduce potential harms while preserving any health benefits,” writes Gray.
Prof. Raphael Zufferey joins Ania Lichtarowicz, host of Somewhere on Earth: The Global Tech Podcast, to discuss his new winged robot, inspired by aquatic birds, that can fly and dive underwater. “The first thing we looked at is the flapping frequency [of aquatic birds] – the amount of strokes per second that wings use when in flight and when swimming,” says Zufferey. “This was a very good starting point to know how to design these systems in robotics.”