Bob Mumgaard PhD ‘15, co-founder and CEO of MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems, speaks to Fast Company’s Adele Peters about building his company’s first power plant, set to come online in the 2030s in Virginia. “To make fusion into more than just the first plants, it has to be an industry and there’s multiple parts of that,” says Mumgaard.
Smithsonian Magazine’s Kristen A. Schmitt spotlights LymeAlert, an at-home screening kit to detect Lyme disease in ticks created by alumna Erin Dawicki MBA ‘24. Once we figured out how to do this, it almost felt like a moral obligation,” says Dawicki. “We have the ability to get this out into the world, and it can become a pretty affordable way to try and prevent as many of these cases of long-term Lyme as we can.”
Mel Robbins visits the MIT AgeLab and tries out the lab’s Age Gain Now Empathy System (AGNES) suit, which is designed to help wearers experience the challenges associated with aging. “When we think about aging, most people don’t really have a definition of it. They think about it as a number of birthdays—that's older,” says Joseph Coughlin, AgeLab director. “Actually, aging is about diminishing capacity over time. So weightlifting is increasing your capacity—you're pushing out the clock. Learning something new keeps you cognitively well.”
Prof. Richard Binzel discusses Apophis, an asteroid roughly 340-meters in diameter, set to pass within 32,000 kilometers of Earth on April 13, 2029 with Scientific American’s Andrew Jones. Apophis’s close approach in 2029 will offer “a once-per-millennium natural experiment,” says Binzel.
MIT researchers have designed a recyclable elastic yarn, made from polyethylene, that mimics the stretchiness of spandex-polyester and spandex-nylon blends, the Anthropocene team writes. “[T]he researchers spun a spool of yarn, melted it, and re-spun it into new yarn several times. Even after 10 cycles, the yarn was as strong and flexible as conventional blended fibers,” explains Anthropocene.
President Sally Kornbluth joins Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, hosts of GBH’s Boston Public Radio, for a live conversation about the unique value of university research, the impacts of immigration policy on international students and the nation’s talent pipeline, and MIT’s commitment to ensuring the nation remains a leader in science and innovation. “You're not going to see an effect immediately. What's going to happen is five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line, you're going to see a pipeline that's not full anymore—a pipeline of talent, a pipeline of basic discoveries,” says Kornbluth.
Prof. Jackson Lu speaks to Fast Company’s Sarah Bregel about metacognitive techniques, tuning into one’s thinking and learning process, to use AI more creatively. “Even the most powerful AI won’t boost creativity if employees don’t know how to use it effectively,” says Lu. “Organizations should pair AI deployment with metacognition training to maximize the creative benefits.”
Graduate students Alfonso Parra Rubio and Erik Strand from the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms worked with the Boston Public Library and the Boston Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture to create a chain-like aluminum sculpture, which will be on display at the library until November, writes Axios’ Steph Solis. “It's a feat of science-driven design and art,” notes Solis.
Principal Research Scientist John Liu speaks to Manufacturing Dive’s Nathan Owens about MIT’s Technologist Advanced Manufacturing Program (TechAMP), a 12-month-long certificate program designed to "bring experienced technicians into leadership roles with a focus on advanced manufacturing needs.” Says Liu: "We’re looking at developing this elite workforce who bridges the gap. What we’re trying to do is upskill the technician.”
MIT researchers have developed a new, breathable hydrogel material that is “packed with microscopic air tunnels inspired by the way human lungs move oxygen” and allows heat and sweat to escape, reports Luis Prada for VICE. “The material proved to be about 10 times more breathable than conventional hydrogels and retained about 95 percent of its airflow even after being stretched 10,000 times,” explains Prada.
Bloomberg’s Gautam Mukunda highlights Prof. Scott Stern’s finding that 0.07% of business registrations in the 2010s reached meaningful acquisition within six years, and Prof. Danielle Li and Prof. Lindsey Raymond’s finding that AI technologies increased customer support agent productivity by 15%, to predict AI’s role in the influx of business applications filed in June.
MIT researchers have developed a low temperature process to extract battery-grade lithium from spodumene, the most common type of mineral containing lithium, using a reusable liquid reagent, writes Electronic Design’s Lee Goldberg. “The new process uses a liquid reagent to dissolve the rock into the useful forms of its constituent parts — not just battery-ready lithium salts, but also smelter-grade alumina and cement-ready silica,” writes Goldberg. “After the minerals are extracted, the solvent and reagent can be recovered and used again so that waste levels approach zero.”
Cambridge Day’s Chloe Taft spotlights the 25th anniversary of The Fab Lab, digital fabrication network started at MIT, and its annual conference, FAB26, held this week throughout Cambridge. “We’re going to show things like rapid prototyping, making vehicles [at FAB26],” says Prof. Neil Gershenfeld. “[T]here’s examples of using the tools in the lab to make aquaponic and hydroponic systems for food, to make antennas and radios for data networks, to make shelter. You really can make almost anything today.”
In an article for The Hill, contributor Juan Williams celebrates the homecoming of his nephew, MIT alumnus and NASA astronaut Christopher Williams PhD ‘12, who travelled 102 miles over the course of eight months on the International Space Station. “Inside the space station he [Christopher] and fellow astronauts measured how eyes change in zero gravity,” writes Juan. “They checked on how the human brain orients its sense of direction in space. They also tracked bone density and DNA changes to gauge the impact a long space journey has on the human body.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III speaks to NPR’s Bobby Allyn about concerns that election betting encourages those connected to campaigns or election administrators to manipulate votes. “If you are looking for a reason to be skeptical about election results, election officials trying to manipulate them for financial gain becomes another straw to grasp at,” says Stewart. "However, these people don't need prediction markets to concoct some conspiracy theory to explain away why their candidate lost.”