Professor Kerry Emanuel weighs in on President Obama’s statements on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events, writes Chris Mooney for The Washington Post. “In his remarks at the National Hurricane center, President Obama presented a balanced view of how climate change is expected to affect hurricanes,” explains Emanuel.
MIT researchers have created a tiny, self-assembling, origami robot that they hope could one day be small enough to enter the human body and perform medical tasks, reports Lauren Walker for Newsweek. “Driven by magnetic fields, the robot can travel on both land and water at the speed of three or four centimeters per second," Walker explains.
Jim Braude of WGBH’s Greater Boston shares an excerpt of a documentary on the building of the new memorial honoring MIT Officer Sean Collier.
In an article for The Boston Globe, Prof. Thomas Levenson writes about the dispute over the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii. “The dispute has been framed as the latest skirmish in the long-running campaign pitting science against religion. That’s a mistake,” Levenson writes.
MIT researchers have developed a robotic cheetah that can jump over obstacles while running, reports Sandrine Ceurstemont for New Scientist. “The robot spots obstacles in its path with its built-in lidar system, which can build up a picture of the object in its way from reflected laser light,” explains Ceurstemont.
MIT researchers have trained a cheetah robot they developed to make “flying leaps” over obstacles, reports Devin Coldewey for NBC News. The researchers behind the robotic cheetah aim to “build a ‘high-speed locomotion platform’ with the fastest land animal as its inspiration.”
The robotic cheetah developed by MIT researchers can now autonomously jump over obstacles, reports Nitya Rajan for The Huffington Post. “This is the first time a four-legged robot has used laser sensors to gauges the distance and height of obstacles in its way to plan its jump,” writes Rajan.
According to Fox News, MIT’s cheetah robot can now jump over obstacles up to 18 inches tall, which is more than half the robot’s height. “Our goal is to use this kind of robot to save lives in a disaster situation,” explains Professor Sangbae Kim.
Lauren O’Neil of CBC News reports on a new self-folding origami robot created by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). The robot “could eventually become small enough to fold into the human body, perform medical tasks, and then dissolve itself when finished — all by itself,” O’Neil reports.
Allison Pohle reports for Boston.com on new algorithms that allow MIT’s robotic cheetah to jump over obstacles autonomously. “The cheetah first practiced its skills on a treadmill in a lab,” writes Pohle. “It then moved on to an indoor track, and is now being trained to jump while running on the grass.”
James Temperton writes for Wired about new developments in robotics, highlighting the MIT cheetah robot that can now autonomously jump over hurdles and the miniature origami robots developed by MIT researchers that can fold self-assemble, walk, swim and dissolve.
According to AFP, MIT researchers were able to use a technology called optogenetics to retrieve lost memories. Professor Susumu Tonegawa explains that the research showed, “past memories may not be erased, but could simply be lost and inaccessible for recall."
Bill Griffith writes for Boston.com writes about a recent conference hosted by MIT and the New England Motor Press Association on the future of electric vehicles. Griffith explains that the event brought together the “worlds of automotive manufacturing, government, utilities, clean-air proponents, global-warming experts, and academia.”
A team of students from MIT and Harvard are biking across the country in an effort to spread enthusiasm for STEM fields, writes Eden Shulman for BetaBoston. During their journey, the students will “host workshops in a variety of STEM fields, providing hands-on science experience to kids that might not otherwise get it.”
Neel Patel writes for Wired about how MIT researchers have trained their robotic cheetah to detect and leap over obstacles. The robot “estimates the height, size, and distance of objects in its path, and adjusts its approach to prepare a jump and safe landing—all without slowing down.”