A study co-authored by Prof. Christopher Knittel finds that some Uber and Lyft drivers are discriminating against passengers with “African-American sounding” names and taking women on longer, more expensive rides, writes Sara Ashley O’Brien for CNN Money. "We went into this hoping that we wouldn't see anything, but we found pretty strong evidence of discrimination," says Knittel.
A study co-authored by MIT researchers suggests that touch can influence how people process social experiences, writes Marguerite Ward for CNBC. “Feeling a rough or uncomfortable texture, like that of a wool sweater, increases the chances that a person will view a social situation as difficult or awkward,” Ward explains.
A new study co-authored by Prof. Evan Apfelbaum examines the best way to address racism in the workplace and beyond, reports Ellen McGirt for Forbes. The researchers found that “the more that leaders understand what people see as the root of the problem — malice or ignorance — the more likely they are to come up with effective solutions.”
BBC News reporter Paul Rincon writes that by embedding carbon nanotubes into spinach leaves, MIT researchers have created plants that can detect explosives. “The plants could be used for defense applications, but also to monitor public spaces for terrorism related activities,” explains Prof. Michael Strano.
New York Times reporter Mark Scott writes that a study co-authored by Prof. Christopher Knittel finds that some Uber and Lyft drivers racially discriminate. The researchers suggested that the companies could avoid discrimination by “not including passengers’ names when bookings are made.”
A new study co-authored by Prof. Christopher Knittel shows some Uber and Lyft drivers are racially discriminating when selecting passengers, writes Bloomberg News reporter Eric Newcomer. One of the study’s findings was that “Uber drivers disproportionately canceled on riders with black-sounding names, even though the company penalizes drivers who cancel frequently.”
In an article for Wired, Issie Lapowsky interviews Prof. Charles Stewart about the fairness of the American voting system. Lapowsky explains that Stewart has been tracking voter experiences since 2008, and his research has “become the basis of other election administration research like the studies conducted by the Brennan Center.”
Scientists at MIT and Brown University have discovered the origin of the Orientale basin, the oldest crater on the Moon, according to EFE. The impact of an asteroid 3.8 billion years ago formed a crater that has since “collapsed under the rock fractures and its temperatures forming three concentric rings visible today.”
Prof. Tauhid Zaman writes for The Wall Street Journal about his research examining how biometric data could be used to help determine how people will perform under stress. Zaman and his colleagues found that “people who sweated when the stakes were low did the best when stakes were high.”
Prof. Antoinette Schoar writes for The Wall Street Journal about her research examining the quality of advice financial advisors provide to their clients. Schoar writes that her research has shown that “holding financial advisers to higher fiduciary standards is not only good consumer financial protection but is also good market economics.”
Barbara Fister writes for Inside Higher Ed about the task force report examining the future of MIT’s libraries. “The library it envisions is so much more than information rented annually for the use of a single community. It’s a place that values its local community and provides a physical space in which to learn and ask questions.”
New York Times reporter Randy Kennedy writes about “The Enemy,” a virtual reality project created by Prof. Fox Harrell and Visiting Scholar Ben Khelifa that is aimed at allowing visitors to learn from individuals on both sides of long-standing conflicts. The project “holds the promise of opening up new frontiers for the integration of journalism and art,” writes Kennedy.
Researchers at MIT have created an algorithm that transforms faces and popular landmarks into scarier versions with impressionistic, sketchy qualities, according to the BBC News. To help teach the algorithm about the concept of scariness, the researchers are asking people vote for the scariest images.
Just in time for Halloween, MIT researchers have launched a website that uses algorithms to generate scary images based off of pictures of popular landmarks and public figures, reports Rebecca Hersher for NPR. The deep-learning algorithm creates “artistic images of high perceptual quality based on examples of images created by humans,” Hersher reports.
Alyssa Newcomb writes for NBC News about the Nightmare Machine, a new system developed by MIT researchers that generates scary images based off of familiar faces and locations. “The Nightmare Machine gets scarier with help from humans, who are asked to vote on which images are the scariest,” Newcomb explains.