Writing for Fortune, Prof. Zeynep Ton highlights a new trend among American companies to open on Thanksgiving in an effort to get an early jump on Black Friday. “This is a rotten break for employees forced to work while the rest of the family gathers together,” writes Ton.
Research scientist Caleb Harper speaks with Steph Yin of Popular Science about his work developing personal food computers, and the vegetables he grew for Thanksgiving using this technology with students in Boston-area schools. Harper says that food computers can help “kids understand the production of food.”
In an article for New Scientist, Anna Nowogrodzki writes that MIT researchers have developed a device that allows users to answer the phone with a kick of their foot. “The system’s algorithm analyses the foot’s motion and transmits the information via Bluetooth to your phone,” writes Nowogrodzki.
Postdoctoral fellow Steve Ramirez speaks with Bob Seay, host of WGBH’s Morning Edition, about his work with memory manipulation, which could be helpful for patients with PTSD or Alzheimer’s. Ramirex explains that his research shows the proof of principle “that we can go in and isolate one memory in the brain.”
Erica Klarreich writes for Quanta Magazine about how researchers have solved a 50-year-old math problem posed by MIT Prof. Emeritus Isadore Singer and his colleague Prof. Richard Kadison. The Kadison-Singer problem asked “how much it is possible to learn about a 'state' of a quantum system if you have complete information about that state in a special subsystem.”
MIT researchers have examined how droplets are formed in high-propulsion sneeze clouds, according to CBS Boston. “Droplets are not all already formed and neatly distributed in size at the exit of the mouth, as previously assumed in the literature,” explains Prof. Lydia Bourouiba.
Prof. Lydia Bourouiba has modeled how droplets are formed after a person sneezes, reports Jonathan Webb for BBC News. “The process is important to understand because it determines the various sizes of the final droplets - a critical factor in how a sneeze spreads germs,” writes Webb.
Washington Post reporter Jim Tankersley writes about a new MIT study that found trade may not help countries cope with climate-induced agricultural problems. The researchers found countries needed the “ability to substitute new crops for the ones that don’t grow as well under climate change.”
Jeff Guo of The Washington Post reports on Prof. David Autor’s research examining the academic achievement gap between boys and girls. “It’s well known that young women have surpassed young men in schooling but what struck us was that these gaps vary so much across race and socioeconomic status,” says Autor.
MIT researchers have found that the high-velocity cloud created by the average human sneeze can contaminate a room in minutes, writes Robert Preidt for U.S. News & World Report. Sneeze droplets "undergo a complex cascading breakup that continues after they leave the lungs, pass over the lips and churn through the air," explains Prof. Lydia Bourouiba.
Lincoln Lab researcher Albert Swiston speaks on NPR’s All Things Considered about the new sensor developed by MIT researchers that monitors vital signs through the gastrointestinal tract. “There are some bits of information from the body—namely the temperature of the body—that can only be monitored from inside the body,” explains Swiston.
MIT researchers have determined that the Earth’s geomagnetic field will not flip in the near future, reports Felicia Gans for The Boston Globe. While the intensity of the Earth’s geomagnetic field is decreasing, the current level is “double the planet’s average intensity over the past 5 million years.”
Researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an ingestible device that monitors vital signs, reports Dialynn Dwyer of Boston.com. Dwyer explains that the device is a “pill-sized stethoscope with a microphone that, once swallowed, transmits data from inside the body.”
Writing for Popular Science, Lindsey Kratochwill reports that MIT researchers have discovered that the hundreds of eyes on a chiton's shell can see. Kratochwill explains that the researchers hope that by “understanding how these eyes work and the materials that make them up could lead to manmade materials that are both protective and perceptive of their environments.”
Atlantic reporter Ed Yong writes that MIT researchers have found that chitons, a type of mollusk, have a suit of armor dotted with hundreds of eyes that can perceive objects. The researchers found that chitons could “detect the shape of a 20-centimeter fish from a few meters away.”