In the Media

In an NPR piece about the implications of drivers using Google Glass, MIT Professor Earl Miller weighs in on the debate as to whether the new technology is a distraction on the road.

Nadia Drake writes in Wired about MIT researchers developing living materials. “By tricking E.coli into incorporating gold nanoparticles or quantum dots into their proteins, the team has crafted biofilms with a range of crazy capabilities,” Drake reports.

Los Angeles Times reporter Amina Khan reports on how MIT researchers are creating living materials by incorporating inorganic matter into bacterial cells. The living material could be used to make batteries, solar cells or even biomedical devices.

Writing for USA Today, Karen Weintraub reports on Professor Michael Strano’s work to give plants the ability to serve as sensors, antennae and power plants thanks to carbon nanotubes embedded inside the plant.

Researchers from the Broad Institute have found that specific gut bacteria are associated with the development of Crohn’s disease, reports Beth Skwarecki in Scientific American.

“Patrick J. McGovern, who became a billionaire as founder and majority owner of Boston-based technology publisher International Data Group, died March 19 at a hospital in Palo Alto, California,” writes Lawrence Arnold in The Washington Post.

“Mr. McGovern, who with his wife, Lore, gave $350 million to open the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, died Wednesday in Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif,” writes J. M. Lawrence in The Boston Globe.

The Economist profiles Luis Videgaray, an MIT graduate and Mexico’s finance minister. Videgaray explains how his education at MIT has helped shape his policy decisions.

NPR’s All Tech Considered looks at new research from MIT Professor Fiona Murray that indicates attractive males are more likely to receive funding for their startups than females.

Guardian reporter Holly Welham writes that MIT researchers “found that male entrepreneurs were 60% more likely than women to succeed and that physical attractiveness produced a 36% increase in pitch success.”

MIT Sloan Professor Andrei Kirilenko writes about the crisis in Ukraine. Kirilenko draws upon his experience as an academic in the U.S. and his childhood in Ukraine to make recommendations for the country’s future.

Wired looks at the energy company Altaeros Energies, an MIT startup, and their new high-altitude wind turbine technology. The company, “is to carry out the first commercial demonstration of a high altitude wind turbine, thanks to a partnership with the Alaska Energy Authority,” writes reporter Olivia Solon.

MIT Professor Simon Johnson answers questions on legislation before Congress regarding an aid package for Ukraine.

Technology writer Glenn Rifkin joins WBUR’s Bob Oakes to discuss the life and career of Patrick McGovern, an MIT alumnus who donated $350 million to create the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.  

MIT’s Max Tegmark discusses his passion for astronomy with Clive Cookson of The Financial Times. Tegemark’s new book, “Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality,” explores the possibility of the existence of multiverses.