Xinhua news wire reports that MIT researchers have developed a tiny new robot, the size of a human egg cell, that could be used to detect medical problems or to identify oil or gas leaks. “The self-powered cell-size robots don't need any external power source or even internal batteries,” explains Xinhua.
Axios reporter Sam Baker highlights a new working paper co-authored by Prof. Jonathan Gruber that provides evidence that doctors do practice “defensive medicine” in an effort to avoid lawsuits. Gruber and his colleague found that, “the threat of malpractice suits raises health care costs by about 5%.”
New York Times reporter Margot Sanger-Katz writes about a new working paper by Prof. Jonathan Gruber on the extent to which a fear of lawsuits increases the number of medical tests and treatments a patient receives. “There is defensive medicine,” says Gruber. But that “is not explaining a large share of what’s driving U.S. health care costs.”
MIT researchers have designed new robots the size of a human egg cell that can sense their surroundings, writes Brooks Hays for UPI. These nanoscale robots could one day be used to develop less invasive colonoscopies or aid in the search for structural vulnerabilities inside oil and gas pipelines, explains Hays.
Writing for Space.com, Chelsea Gohd reports that a team of researchers led by Hans Moritz Guenther at MIT’s Kavli Institute has observed a young star devouring a planet. “The researchers hope to get a better idea of what really goes on in the life of a young star and how infant planets manage to survive,” explains Gohd.
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that MIT researchers have developed self-powered robots the size of human cells that can float indefinitely in liquid or the air. Heater explains that the robots could be used to monitor hard to reach environments, such as pipelines or the human body.
In this video, VOA reporter Steve Baragona looks at different methods of harvesting water from fog. Baragona highlights a new system developed by MIT researchers, explaining that in some areas where the water supply is dwindling, “the technology is far cheaper than other options like desalination.”
Using data from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, CNBC "Make It" has mapped out the earnings needed for a single person to live comfortably in every state, reports Emmie Martin. The calculator, explains Martin, “takes into account factors such as child care and health insurance, in addition to food and other regular costs.”
At the International Conference on Machine Learning, MIT researchers demonstrated an adversarial attack, fooling an AI system into thinking a 3-D printed turtle was a rifle, reports Matthew Hutson for Science. Prof. Aleksander Madry explains that the ability to fool AI systems shows, “we need to rethink all of our machine learning pipeline to make it more robust.”
Newsweek reporter Aristos Georgiou writes that physicists from MIT and other institutions have observed a star, called RW Aur A, consuming a young planet. Observations made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory over a five-year period enabled the finding, explains Georgiou.
Using “recorded sound waves from seismic activity like earthquakes and tsunamis,” MIT researchers have found that there may be a quadrillion tons of diamonds under the Earth’s surface, reports Sarah Gray for Fortune. The seismic data provided this information, “because the speed of sound waves changes depending on the temperature, density and composition of the earth they travel through,” explains Gray.
New Scientist reporter Chelsea Whyte spotlights Prof. Regina Barzilay’s quest to revolutionize cancer treatment by applying AI techniques in ways that could help doctors detect cancer earlier. Barzilay explains that she is committed to, "applying the best technologies available to what we care about the most – our health.”
MIT researchers found that the effectiveness of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate increases when supplemented with a common dietary amino acid, writes Victoria Forster of Forbes. Prof. David Sabatini, a co-author on the study, “is hopeful about the prospects for supplementation improving the therapy in the future,” says Forster.
Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Benjamin Olken speak with NPR’s Jason Beaubien about their efforts to improve Indonesia’s Raskin, or Rice for the Poor, program. "There's a certain tendency among both social scientists and policymakers to assume that the solution to a complex problem has to be complex,” says Banerjee, “and I don't think that's always true."
Tasker Smith, a technical instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, writes for Make Magazine about his work developing 3-D printed tools to create a custom leather press. “By marrying the versatility of digital design and fabrication with luxurious materials like leather,” writes Smith, “we can supercharge our process and generate customized artifacts worthy of handing down from generation to generation.”