In the Media

Science News reporter James Riordon writes that by employing a new technology called frequency-dependent squeezing, LIGO detectors should now be able to identify about 60 more mergers between massive objects like black holes and neutron stars than before the upgrade. Senior research scientist Lisa Barsotti, who oversaw the development of this new technology, notes that even next-generation gravitational wave detectors will be able to benefit from quantum squeezing. “The beauty is you can do both. You can push the limit of what is possible from the technology of laser power and mirror [design],” Barsotti explains, “and then do squeezing on top of that.”

President Biden has awarded Prof. Emeritus Subra Suresh ScD '81, the former dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the National Medal of Science for his “pioneering research across engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences,” reports Alexa Gagosz for The Boston Globe. Prof. James Fujimoto '79, SM '81, PhD '84, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM '84, and David Huang '85, SM '89, PhD '93 were awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, “the nation’s highest award for technical achievement.”

Graduate student Shayne Longpre speaks with Washington Post reporter Nitasha Tiku about the ethical and legal implications surrounding language model datasets. Longpre says “the lack of proper documentation is a community-wide problem that stems from modern machine-learning practices.”

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Mitchel Resnick explores how a new coding app developed by researchers from the Lifelong Kindergarten group is aimed at allowing young people to use mobile phones to create interactive stories, games and animations. Resnick makes the case that with “appropriate apps and support, mobile phones can provide opportunities for young people to imagine, create, and share projects.”

Roofscapes Studio, an MIT startup co-founded by Olivier Faber MArch ’23, Tim Cousin MArch ’23 and Eytan Levi MArch/MSRED ’21, transforms rooftops into greenspaces as part of an effort to combat climate change and provide green spaces in cities, reports Kim Willsher for The Guardian. The team is looking to add, “wooden platforms fixed across the sloping panes to create roof gardens, terraces and even walkways,” in Paris to help prevent the city from overheating. 

Joseph J. Kohn ’53, “who played a key role in extending the mathematics of calculus,” has died at 91, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. “Dr. Kohn studied how mathematical functions behave in the realm of complex numbers,” writes Chang. “This field is esoteric, even to many mathematicians. But the techniques that Dr. Kohn developed have found use in tackling a wide range of problems in mathematics as well as fundamental equations in physics, including Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”

As MIT’s fall semester was starting, President Sally Kornbluth spoke with Ben Wildavsky, host of the Higher Ed Spotlight podcast, about the importance of incorporating the humanities in STEM education and the necessity of breaking down silos between disciplines to tackle pressing issues like AI and climate change. “Part of the importance of us educating our students is they’re going to be out there in the world deploying these technologies. They’ve got to understand the implications of what they’re doing,” says Kornbluth. “Our students will find themselves in positions where they’re going to have to make decisions as to whether these technologies that were conceived for good are deployed in ways that are not beneficial to society. And we want to give them a context in which to make those decisions.” 

DUSP Lecturer Bruno Verdini PhD ’15 speaks with Jenn Williams of Foreign Policy’s “The Negotiators” podcast to discuss the 2012 Colorado River agreement between the United States and Mexico, and his book, “Winning Together: The Natural Resource Negotiation Playbook.” “If you are recognizing that the feedback loops in natural resource negotiations are going to be complex and unexpected as time goes by, you only have an ability to monitor, be flexible, and address new challenges if you’ve created a mechanism of trust, and in that mechanism implementation follows, even across different political perspectives,” says Verdini. “Because it is in your interest to keep complying.”

A number of MIT spinouts and research projects – including the MOXIE instrument that successfully generated oxygen on Mars, a new solar-powered desalination system and MIT spinout SurgiBox – were featured on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list.

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a transparency index used to assess 10 key AI foundation models, reports Ryan Heath for Axios. Heath writes that the researchers emphasized that “unless AI companies are more forthcoming about the inner workings, training data and impacts of their most advanced tools, users will never be able to fully understand the risks associated with AI, and experts will never be able to mitigate them.”

TechCrunch reporter Kylie Wiggers spotlights the SmartEM project by researchers from MIT and Harvard, which is aimed at enhancing lab work using, “a computer vision system and ML control system inside a scanning electron microscope” to examine a specimen intelligently. “It can avoid areas of low importance, focus on interesting or clear ones, and do smart labeling of the resulting image as well,” writes Wiggers.

“Brief Tender Light,” a documentary by Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05, spotlights four African-born MIT students and their experiences with adapting to the culture and challenges in and out of the classroom, reports Celina Colby for The Bay State Banner. “The story of international students, or specifically African students, in the U.S. hadn’t really been told,” says Musah. “Stats that I’ve learned more recently say there are about a million international students in any given year studying in the U.S., of which about 40,000 are African. That seems like a substantial portion of the fabric of American society.”

Prof. John Fernández, director of the Environmental Solutions Initiative, speaks with Aynsley O’Neill and Jenni Doering of NPR’s Living on Earth about steps homeowners and renters can take to reduce the risk of wildfires impacting their homes. “The most important thing is to reduce the fuel that’s available between your house and the beginning of the forest, reducing the amount of objects that could ignite,” says Fernández. “That includes outdoor furniture [or] any plastic material.” 

Research scientist Nataliya Kosmyna speaks with The World host Chris Harland-Dunaway about the science behind using non-invasive brain scans and artificial intelligence to understand people’s different thoughts and mental images.  

In an article for Bloomberg, Prof. Carlo Ratti and Michael Baick, a staff writer at CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, highlight the importance of communication within cities. “The world has an incredible stockpile of effective urban policies, but the best ideas are not being adopted quickly or widely enough,” write Ratti and Baick. “Covid-19 taught us all how to slow the spread of viruses: wear masks, avoid large gatherings and take vaccines. To speed the spread of good ideas, we need to take the opposite tack by making urban solutions go viral.”