MIT researchers have developed a supercapacitor comprised of concrete and charcoal, that can store electricity and discharge as needed, reports Aleks Phillips for Newsweek. Researchers hope the device can provide “a cheap and architectural way of saving renewable energy from going to waste,” writes Phillips.
Prof. Russ Tedrake and Max Bajracharya '21 MEng '21 speak with TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater about the impact of generative AI on the future of robotics. “Generative AI has the potential to bring revolutionary new capabilities to robotics,” says Tedrake. “Not only are we able to communicate with robots in natural language, but connecting to internet-scale language and image data is giving robots a much more robust understanding and reasoning about the world.”
Prof. Emeritus Olivier Blanchard speaks with Robert Armstrong of the Financial Times about inflation, the rise in long yields and the fiscal endgame in the U.S. Blanchard urges regulators to, “have plans for a steady reduction of primary deficits to close to zero. Slow, steady, convincing, credible.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a swallowable electronic capsule that can be used to help diagnose sleep apnea and other sleep disorders, reports Ian Randall for Newsweek. “Conventional laboratory and home sleep studies require the patient to be attached to many different sensors,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso. “As you can imagine, trying to sleep with all of this machinery can be challenging. [The] ingestible capsule just requires that the patient swallow the vitamin-sized pill. It's easy and unobtrusive and can accurately measure both respiratory rate and heart rate while the patient sleeps."
New Scientist reporter Alice Klein writes that MIT researchers have developed an ingestible electronic device that “can measure your breathing and heart rate from inside your gut [and] could potentially diagnose sleep apnea and even detect opioid overdoses.” The device could one day allow “people to be assessed for sleep apnea wirelessly and cheaply while at home.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new type of cancer treatment – a gel that can be used to deliver cancer drugs for solid tumors, reports WHDH. “It’s really transformative to try and help patients whose tumors are very resistant to therapy,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso.
Prof. Gio Traverso speaks with Lizzy Lawler at STAT about a new ingestible sensor that monitors a person’s heart and breathing rates to detect sleep disorders. “The vision for sleep evaluation is the ability to detect these events wherever you are in the nation, and not having to go to a sleep lab and an inpatient setting,” says Traverso.
A team including researchers from MIT have developed a new ingestible ‘smart capsule’ that uses a patient’s vital signs to detect sleep disorders or opioid overdoses. “The findings suggest that the ingestible was able to measure health metrics on par with medical-grade diagnostic equipment at the sleep center,” writes Malak Saleh for Engadget.
Johanna Mayer and Katie Hafner from Scientific American’s “The Lost Women of Science podcast spotlight the late former Prof. Mária Telkes and her work focused on the development of solar energy. “Dr. Mária Telkes died in 1995, at age 94,” says Mayer. “But her legacy lives on. Today, the number of people installing solar panels in their homes is consistently rising – and in a recent Pew study, 39% of homeowners surveyed said they were seriously considering going solar.”
Prof. Tavneet Suri discusses GiveDirectly, the world’s largest universal basic income (UBI) program, which has been providing almost 5,000 people in Kenya with “a payment of about 75 cents (62p) a day since 2017,” reports Philippa Kelley for The Guardian. “We do see people leaving low wage jobs,” says Suri. “They are going and starting businesses, and the businesses are doing great because there’s money around.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new 3D printing process that “allows users to create more elastic materials along with rigid ones using slow-curing polymers,” reports Tony Ho Tran for the Daily Beast. The researchers used the system to create a, “3D printed hand complete with bones, ligaments, and tendons. The new process also utilizes a laser sensor array developed by researchers at MIT that allows the printer to actually ‘see’ what it’s creating as it creates it.”
Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee speaks with CNBC about the contributing factors to a successful start-up company. “Incumbent industries and companies are so fond of really elaborate planning cycles and the geeks just build things, get feedback and do again on a fast cadence,” says McAfee.
Writing for CNBC, Senior Lecturer Tara Swart explains how an unexpected financial windfall can impact the brain. Swart says there, “are three remarkable things that happen to your brain when you unexpectedly receive a large sum of money overnight,” a dopamine deluge, the five stages of grief and a shift in perspective and social dynamics.
Prof. Jonathan Parker speaks with Marketplace host Samantha Fields about the definition of discretionary spending and how it differs depending on the person and their financial situation. “People who don’t have to worry about money often buy things they think of as necessities, but really aren’t,” says Parker. “Cutting back on discretionary spending looks different for different people, too.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that “Black women who work in predominately white teams may have worse job outcomes,” reports Ruth Umoh for Fortune. The researchers, “studied 9,037 inexperienced new hires in a large, elite professional service firm from 2014 to 2020, focusing on retention and promotion rates,” explains Umoh. “Black women were the only demographic whose turnover and promotion rates were significantly affected by the racial identify of their coworkers.”