Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with WBUR's Doug Tribou about NASA’s New Horizons mission and what it was like to see the first images of Pluto captured by the spacecraft. “It just so exceeded any expectation of what Pluto might look like in terms of its complexity and diversity,” says Binzel.
Boston Magazine reporter Paul Albani-Burgio speaks with two of MIT’s newest Institute Professors, Sally “Penny” Chisholm and Marcus Thompson. Chisholm says that one of the most rewarding aspects of her job is working with MIT students. “They’re just a constant source of renewal and excitement,” she explains.
This Scientific American editorial revisits an op-ed by Professor César Hidalgo in which he argued against those who are critical of big data. Critics “ignore areas where big data has made substantial progress, such as data-rich Web sites, information visualization and machine learning,” wrote Hidalgo.
In a speech laying out her economics plans, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cited Prof. Zeynep Ton’s research on the benefits for businesses in improving wages and training for workers, reports Eduardo Porter for The New York Times.
Prof. Sara Seager led a committee of astronomers who compiled a report for NASA that calls for the construction of an advanced telescope to search for Earthlike planets, writes Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. “This High Definition Space Telescope would be five times as big and 100 times as sensitive as the Hubble.”
Prof. Richard Binzel, a member of NASA’s New Horizon’s science team, discusses the magnitude of capturing up-close images and new information about Pluto with Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear. “It’s a milestone event in the human exploration of the solar system,’’ says Binzel.
In an article for The New York Times, Jay Pasachoff writes about what the team of scientists and students from MIT, Williams College and Lowell Observatory learned from their observation of Pluto during a recent occultation. Pasachoff explains that the information gathered from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft could help clarify some of the deductions made about Pluto.
Los Angeles Times reporter Deborah Netburn speaks with Prof. Richard Binzel about the information being gathered about Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. "We are trying to take these interpretations very slowly and carefully, especially as new and closer data are arriving,” Binzel explains.
Comedian Aziz Ansari consulted Professor Natasha Dow Schull for his new book, “Modern Romance: An Investigation,” writes Mackenzie Cummings-Grady for The Boston Globe. Ansari’s book looks at relationships in the digital age and draws on work Schull’s work on addiction.
Fortune reporter Jonathan Vanian writes that researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a new method to restore old, malfunctioning code. The system, called Helium, “discovers the most crucial lines of code that the original programmers developed to make it function, and then builds a revised version of the program.”
Rick Wartzman writes for Fortune about Prof. Zeynep Ton’s argument for paying employee’s higher wages. “What’s so evident is that it’s hard for these people to take care of their customers and do their jobs effectively when they’re thinking about whether they’re going to be able to put food on the table that night,” says Ton.
Christian Science Monitor reporter Joe Uchill writes about a new system developed by MIT researchers that can automatically detect and fix software bugs by borrowing functionality from other applications. Uchill explains that the researchers hope “automating the detection and patching processes will reduce the chance that an attacker can take advantage of the bug within a system.”
Larry Greenemeier writes for Scientific American about why government agencies want access to encrypted data, highlighting a report co-authored by MIT researchers that warns against providing special access. The researchers argue that providing access would “make software and devices much more complex, difficult to secure and expensive for tech companies to maintain."
MIT biologists have developed a genetically modified version of a common gut bacteria that could be used to treat disease, reports Catherine Woods for the PBS NewsHour. “You could engineer a Bacteroides to live in the gut and detect when inflammation is just starting…so that you can seek treatment right away,” explains Prof. Timothy Lu.
Researchers at MIT have developed tools that could one day allow intestinal bacteria to monitor, diagnose and treat diseases, writes Eryn Brown for The Los Angeles Times. "Just as you'd program computers, we're starting to learn how to program cells by modifying their DNA," says Prof. Timothy Lu.