Spencer Kelly of BBC Click tests Dormio, a wearable device that allows researchers to track a user’s consciousness in the state between asleep and awake. “[R]esearch shows that you have a ten times increase in the likelihood of solving a problem if you have a dream about that problem in a nap,” says MIT graduate student Adam Haar Horowitz.
Physics Today reporter David Kramer highlights how Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT startup, is on a mission to prove that fusion power is a viable energy source. “CFS benefits from decades of experience by MIT researchers working on high-field, high-plasma-density tokamaks,” notes Kramer.
An MIT study finds that rising temperatures due to climate change will make the North China Plain uninhabitable by the end of the century, reports Newsweek’s Brendan Cole. The area could experience heat and humidity that is “so strong that it is impossible for the human body to cool itself,” Cole explains.
Prof. Aviv Regev speaks with WBUR’s Karen Weintraub about her work exploring human cells. Regev says she was inspired to study the human cell as, “it’s this phenomenal entity that knows how to take many different pieces of information, make very quick and sophisticated decisions, act on them and continue on its way.”
Axios reporter Andrew Freedman examines a new study by researchers at MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology showing that China’s breadbasket, the North China Plain, could face severe heat waves. Big picture, writes Freedman, “such heat waves could both threaten lives and dampen economic output in the region, where 400 million people live.”
In an interview for Forbes, Pierson and Pete Krass speak with the ‘Edison of Medicine,’ Institute Prof. Robert Langer, about his career as a biomedical inventor and entrepreneur. Discussing why he started his first company Prof. Langer says, “I realized it was an effective path for transforming science into life-saving and life-improving inventions.”
Prof. Sara Seager and other top scientists recently urged members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to fund NASA’s hunt for extraterrestrial life, reports Ryan Mandelbaum of Gizmodo. In testimony, Seager noted that moon landings inspired current engineers, and for the next generation “the equivalent of that is the search for life.”
New research by Prof. Elfatih Eltahir finds that the North China Plain could face deadly heat waves by the end of the century unless measures are taken to curb carbon emissions, reports Damian Carrington for The Guardian. Eltahir found that there already has been a, “substantial increase in extreme heatwaves on the plain in the past 50 years.”
NBC Mach reporter Tom Metcalfe writes that MIT researchers have developed a technique to 3-D print soft objects that change shape in response to magnetic fields. “You can imagine this technology being used in minimally invasive surgeries,” explains Prof. Xuanhe Zhao. “A self-steering catheter inside a blood vessel, for example — now you can use external magnetic fields to accurately steer the catheter.”
A new study by MIT researchers uncovers evidence that more than a quadrillion tons of diamonds are located in the Earth’s upper mantle, reports Katie Camero for The Boston Globe. Camero explains that, “researchers came to this conclusion after they found in global records over the past few decades a ‘glitch’ in seismic wave activity.”
In an article for Forbes about how AI could improve healthcare, Bernard Marr highlights an algorithm developed by MIT researchers that can analyze 3-D scans up to 1,000 times faster than is currently possible. “When saving minutes can mean saving lives, AI and machine learning can be transformative,” writes Marr.
NASA’s TESS satellite, which is searching for planets outside our solar system, is expected to send back its first series of data in August, reports the Xinhua News Agency. The mission is being led by MIT researchers and will, “monitor the brightness of more than 200,000 stars over a period of two years, eyeing temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits,” according to Xinhua.
CNN reporter Bronte Lord spotlights Prof. Kevin Esvelt’s proposal to introduce genetically engineered mice to the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in an effort to stop the spread of Lyme disease. "We want to heritably immunize the local white-footed mice," Esvelt explains. "The idea is fewer infected ticks means fewer infected kids."
In an article for the Financial Times, Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson writes about his new research showing that advances in machine learning could help fuel a surge in productivity and economic growth around the world. Brynjolfsson writes that as machine learning systems develop, “we can have not only higher productivity growth, but also more widely shared prosperity.”
Lisa Spear of Newsweek reports that MIT researchers have found marketing algorithms do not show STEM job ads to women because reaching them through advertising is more expensive. “This means that fewer women are seeing the advertising for science related jobs, even though it’s illegal to target jobs to one gender,” explains Spear.