In the Media

Writing for the Boston Globe, graduate student Sophie Hartley spotlights researchers and arborists battling beech leaf disease  a highly infectious disease caused by microscopic roundworms that “can disrupt a tree’s ability to photosynthesize and therefore survive." “Over the past decade, federal, state, and private agencies have shown up en masse to learn all they can about beech leaf disease, resulting in an extensive body of knowledge to inform policy,” explains Hartley. “By matching the worms’ seemingly unstoppable push with equally relentless research, experimentation, and community support, the hope is that all is not lost. Not yet.” 

The MIT Haystack Observatory held its first open house since the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the general public was invited into the facility and offered a hands-on look at the work observatory scientists are conducting to investigate complex questions about our universe," writes Ava Berger for The Boston Globe. “It’s fascinating what is going on not that far away from where you were living your daily life,” said Sarah Erwin, an open house attendee. “People are actually grappling with what is happening in the universe.” 

MIT startup, 24M, has designed an EV battery with a range of 1,000 miles on a single charge, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “The extra-long range also can help the car’s battery last much longer,” explains Peters. “If you use a rapid charger to fully charge a battery, it can damage the battery, meaning it won’t last as long. Because it has such a long range, the new battery should rarely need a full rapid charge.”

NBC News reporter Alex Koller spotlights Noubar Afeyan PhD '87 and the messages he shared as commencement speaker for the 2024 MIT graduating class. "I'm utterly unreasonable and an eternal optimist," said Afeyan, adding that to tackle improbable challenges having "a special kind of optimism" can help. 

Prof. Bob Langer and Prof. Giovanni Traverso have co-founded Syntis Bio, a biotech company that will use technology to “coat the stomach and potentially other organ surfaces, [change] the way that drugs are absorbed or, in the case of obesity, which hormones are triggered,” reports Allison DeAngelis for STAT. 

Prof. Hal Abelson speaks with Inside Higher Ed reporter Lauren Coffey about AI policies in academia. “We put tremendous emphasis on creating with AI but that’s the sort of place that MIT is,” says Abelson. “It’s about making things. Other places have a very different view of this.”

Prof. Devavrat Shah is interviewed by Forbes’ Gary Drenik on balancing AI innovation with ethical considerations, noting governance helps ensure the benefits of AI are fairly distributed across society. “Our responsibility is to harness [AI’s] potential while safeguarding against its risks,” Shah explains. “This approach to promoting responsible AI development hinges on governance rooted in collaboration, transparency and actionable guidance."

Prof. Netta Engelhardt talks to New Scientist’s Thomas Lawton about the possibility of singularities existing outside black holes. Theorists can now probe singularities from a deeper perspective, using insights into the possible quantum foundations of gravity. This new approach “flips the script” on how we think about singularities, says Engelhardt.

Writing for Climatewire, Scott Waldman interviews experts about New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to pause congestion pricing. David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative, says “I think other cities will keep looking at it no matter what happens in New York.” He adds: “But I would say that, if congestion pricing goes forward in New York, that can basically turbocharge efforts in other cities to adopt it.”

Writing for The New York Times, Kenji López-Alt '02 slices into his research with Rui Viana '05 on the best method for cutting an onion. Using “computer models of the cross section of an onion,” López-Alt and Viana simulated “various cutting geometries and to calculate basic information, such as the number of pieces cut with each method, their average size and the standard deviation from the norm within that group" to see which method is a cut above the rest. 

A new paper by Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson uses the impact of automation in the textile industry to predict potential similar effects from AI, writes Bloomberg’s Andy Mukherjee. Noting the parallels between the Indian textile industry and disruption currently underway in tech outsourcing, the economists write “the impact of automation on workers today is more complex than an automatic linkage from higher productivity to better wages.”

Prof. Susan Solomon speaks with Guardian reporter Killian Fox about her new book “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again,” and her research addressing climate change. “For goodness sake, let’s not give up now, we’re right on the cusp of success,” says Solomon. “That’s the fundamental message of the book.” 

Brandon Hanks, a software developer with MIT’s Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Sarah Needleman about how Gen Z is putting their own spin on the heart sign. Hanks notes that “it looks more difficult” to master than the Millennial version—“and it is!”   

Tomás Vega SM '19 is CEO and co-founder of Augmental, a startup helping people with movement impairments interact with their computer devices, reports Popular Science’s Andrew Paul. Seeking to overcome the limitations of most brain-computer interfaces, the company’s first product is the MouthPad, leveraging the tongue muscles.“Our hope is to create an interface that is multimodal, so you can choose what works for you,” said Vega. “We want to be accommodating to every condition.”

MIT is the world’s No.1 university for the 13^th year in a row, according to the latest global university rankings from publisher QS Top Universities.