Reporting in Portuguese, Correio Braziliense highlights researchers at MIT who have developed a new technique that uses light stimuli to benefit people with paralysis or amputations. “Our work could help bring the use of optogenetics closer to humans in the realm of neuroprosthetics that control paralyzed muscles and other functions of the peripheral nervous system,” says graduate student Guillermo Herrera-Arcos.
A new proposal aims to transform Massachusetts into “a new leader in climate and environment technology,” with the help with MIT and other Massachusetts-based universities, reports Julia Jacobo for ABC News. “The foundations for seeing environmental initiatives from their inception to public market have long existed in Massachusetts, home to some of the most prestigious research institutions and scientific discoveries in the world, as well as existing infrastructure that allows production to be achieved much faster, according to experts in the state.”
Prof. Albert Saiz speaks with USA Today reporter Bailey Schulz about the growing popularity of build-to-rent communities. With the U.S. estimated to be short anywhere between 1 million and 7 million single-family homes, depending on the source, “more housing is always better,” Saiz notes. He adds: “If you did not have this built-to-rent outlet for development, you wouldn't have these developments happen.”
A program aiming to give kids a new strategy to learn reading is the goal of a new program developed by researchers from the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Florida State University, reports Kate Snow for NBC News. Currently serving 45,000 North Carolina third graders in 102 schools, Reach Every Reader is “weaving reading across subjects, like science and social studies,” rather than having just one class dedicated to reading, she says.
An essay co-authored by Prof. Simon Johnson in Project Syndicate argues that for all the predictions about AI’s effect on the workforce, the most likely outcome is that many people will face pressure to change jobs as the labor market adjusts. Policymakers must focus on human capital, he writes, and “shared prosperity can flow from new technology, but only if its adoption is accompanied by upgraded human skills and more proactive worker redeployment.”
NBC Boston reporter Matt Fortin visits the lab of Prof. Julien de Wit to learn more about his work discovering two new planets, a puffy, Jupiter-sized planet located over 1,000 light years away that has the consistency of cotton candy and an Earth-sized planet that may lack an atmosphere. “Through studying other atmospheres we get to improve our understanding of our own climate,” de Wit explains. “It’s like a sensitive mirror that helps us reflect back on us, so it’s all these different vantage points that we are gaining. That’s what exoplanetary science gives us.”
Prof. Anna Frebel joins Arun Rath of WGBH’s All Things Considered to discuss her recent discovery of some of the universe’s oldest stars, an out-of-this-world identification made the help of MIT undergraduates Hillary Andales, Ananda Santos and Casey Fienberg. “When you meet someone new, you want to know what their name is, how old they are, maybe where they live and what they do, right?” says Frebel. “We do the same with all the astronomical objects in the sky.”
Postdoctoral researchers Marin and Lukas Vogelsang speak with Science reporter Christie Wilcox about their recent work finding “the poor color vision that newborns normally have actually helps them develop well-rounded vision overall.” “The question that really drove this study is why we are so good at recognizing faces and objects in black and white photos and movies,” explains Marin Vogelsang. “And we found an answer to this when studying children in India who were born blind and were treated for their blindness as a part of Project Prakash.”
Researchers at MIT have created a noise-blocking sheet of silkworm silk that could “greatly streamline the pursuit of silence,” reports Andrew Chapman for Scientific American. “The silk sheet, which is enhanced with a special fiber, expands on a technology also found in noise-canceling headphones,” explains Chapman. “These devices create silence by sampling the ambient noise and then emitting sound waves that are out of phase with those in the environment. When the ambient and emitted waves overlap, they cancel each other out.”
Boston Globe reporter James McCown highlights the architectural design of the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, noting that it is, “the most exciting work of academic architecture in Greater Boston in a generation.”Dean Daniel Huttenlocher adds: “The building was designed to be the physical embodiment of the college’s mission of fortifying studies in computer science and artificial intelligence. The building’s transparent and open design is already drawing a mix of people from throughout the campus and beyond.”
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray profiles Merlin, a startup aviation company working with researchers from MIT’s Lincoln Lab, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the US Air Force to test systems that could be used to help control a plane’s speed, altitude, and direction of flight. “Merlin has begun working with MIT’s Lincoln Lab to deploy technology that would let planes automatically avoid midair collisions,” Bray explains.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s new study projects just mild economic upside in the U.S. stemming from AI advancement, writes Business Insider’s Filip De Mott. According to Acemoglu, AI-led U.S. GDP growth in the next 10 years will rise just 0.93% to 1.16%, due to uncertainty on how much AI can really advance total factor productivity.
Prof. Regina Barzilay joins The Economist’s “Babbage” podcast to discuss how artificial intelligence could enable health care providers to understand and treat diseases in new ways. Host Alok Jha notes that Barzilay is determined to “overcome those challenges that are standing in the way of getting AI models to become useful in health care.” Barzilay explains: “I think we really need to change our mindset and think how we can solve the many problems for which human experts were unable to find a way forward.”
For the first time ever, researchers at MIT have observed electrons form “fractional quasiparticles without enabling the influence of a magnetic field,” reports Daniel Garisto for Quanta Magazine. This discovery “may carry the seeds of long-sought quasiparticles with stable memories that could underpin a new and powerful approach to quantum computing.”
The California Institute of Technology has announced the eight distinguished scientists who will be this year’s Brown Investigators, each receiving up to $2 million over five years to support research on fundamental challenges in the physical sciences, writes Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. Recipient Prof. Nuh Gedik will, “develop a new kind of microscopy that images electrons photo-emitted from a surface while also measuring their energy and momentum.”