Fast Company reporter Kristin Toussaint spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new map detailing how the shift to clean energy could impact jobs around the country. The researchers found that workers could be most impacted in areas that drill for oil and gas, as well as “regions with a high concentration of manufacturing, agriculture, and construction—all industries that rely heavily on coal, oil, and gas.”
In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Alfred Ironside, the MIT vice president for communications, addresses the necessary role staff play at MIT. “At MIT, the research and education enterprise requires far more to thrive than our outstanding faculty alone,” writes Ironside. He adds that the Institute’s staff are essential to “running a top-flight research organization where breakthrough discoveries and innovations provide continuous service to the nation.”
New York Times reporter Ana Swanson spotlights a working paper co-authored by Prof. David Autor which suggests “the sweeping tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on China and other American trading partners were simultaneously a political success and an economic failure.” Autor and his colleagues found that “the aggregate effect on U.S. jobs of the three measures — the original tariffs, retaliatory tariffs and subsidies granted to farmers — were ‘at best a wash, and it may have been mildly negative.’”
Researchers at MIT have discovered 18 supermassive black holes that “are tearing apart nearby stars in ‘oddball’ tidal disruption events,” reports Ava Berger for The Boston Globe. Graduate student Megan Masterson says, “the events are powerful tools to understand the most extreme parts of our universe. They happen about once every 50,000 years, and help scientists learn more about the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and black holes in general.”
A news team from The Tech sat down with Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87 to “discuss his background, philanthropic work, and journey to his current position at the intersection of basic research and venture capital.” Afeyan, who will address the graduating students at this year’s OneMIT Commencement Ceremony, said anybody who comes to the Institute departs with both the “burden and opportunity” to tackle challenging problems.
Graduate student Lauren “Ren” Ramlan programmed Doom, an iD software video game, to run on a display made from E.coli cells, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. For the project to work, “Ramlan first grew cells within a 32×48 1-bit well plate, then connected the makeshift screen to a controller capable of processing and translating binary code into the ‘addition or omission of a repressor controlling the fluorescence of the cells,’” writes Paul. “Basically, Ramlan swapped a traditional screen’s tiny light diodes for glowing bacterial cells."
Senior Lecturer John Parsons speaks with CNN reporters Angela Dewan, Ella Nilsen and Lou Robinson about the future of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) – nuclear technology that is smaller and less costly to build than traditional, large-scale reactors. “The target here is to produce electricity cheaper than coal and gas plants,” says Parsons. These fossil fuel plants “are terribly simple and cheap to run – they’re just dirty.”
Prof. Nicholas Makris speaks with USA Today reporter Phaedra Trethan about the oceanic challenges that may impact the search for Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s plane. The plane "is lost in the darkens of the ocean,” says Makris. “The sound (from sonar equipment) takes the darkness out, but it’s so far down that, from the surface, it can look like a speck.”
Prof. John Sterman speaks with Boston Globe reporter Alexa Coultoff about his experience retrofitting his home to achieve a fully net-zero house. “Sterman said he asked himself what actions would have the biggest payoff and went from there,” writes Coultoff. “For example, his home’s original windows from the 1920s were in rough shape, so he decided to tighten the building’s envelope, resulting in wider windowsills, where, added bonus, he can now display a robust plant collection.”
Jared Sadoian ’10 speaks with Boston Globe reporter Kara Baskin about his work as director of operations for Cambridge Street Hospitality. “My day consists of email and spreadsheets, and budgeting and planning and analysis,” says Sadoian. “At the same time, it’s very firmly rooted in guest-facing hospitality that most readers might be more familiar with: talking to guests and taking reservations and making sure that folks are happy in the restaurants, and solving problems. Maybe it’s making a drink. This job is all-encompassing, and I love it for that reason, because I ran away from the office life.”
A more than $40 million investment to add advanced nano-fabrication equipment and capabilities to MIT.nano will significantly expand the center’s nanofabrication capabilities, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. The new equipment, which will also be available to scientists outside MIT, will allow “startups and students access to wafer-making equipment used by larger companies. These tools will allow its researchers to make prototypes of an array of microelectronic devices.”
MIT researchers have discovered 18 new tidal disruption events (TDEs), “which are huge bursts of energy released as a star is shredded by a black hole,” reports Jess Thomson for Newsweek. “These new discoveries have also helped scientists learn more about what TDEs really are and where they occur,” explains Thomson. “The previous stock of TDEs had only been found in a rare form of galaxy known as a ‘post-starburst’ system, which once created a number of stars but has since stopped.”
The Engine Accelerator, a spinoff from The Engine, is a new unit designed to help early startups “get off the ground with a deeper level of support, including office and lab space,” reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “Real estate is actually a big need of a company that is doing tough tech, but they need different types of real estate,” says Emily Knight, president of the Engine Accelerator.
BostInno reporter Isabel Tehan spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a model to predict how different shoes will impact different individual runners. “The model takes into account runner height, weight and other body dimensions, and the properties of the shoes — including stiffness or springiness — and can predict how that individual would run in a particular pair of shoes,” writes Tehan. “Ideally, we could make a shoe that's right for you and the way you run,” explains postdoc Sarah Fay.
MIT researchers have discovered that “stars at the edge of our home galaxy appear to be moving more slowly than expected,” reports Jess Thomson. This discovery “implies that the galaxy itself may be structured differently from how scientists first thought, with the core of the Milky Way possibly containing less dark matter and, therefore, being lighter in mass than first assumed,” explains Thomson.