Podcasts
Curiosity Unbounded, Ep 2 — Bureaucracies, dictatorships, and the power of Africa’s people
In this episode MIT President Sally Kornbluth sits down with associate professor of political science and faculty co-director of MIT-Africa, Mai Hassan. Her work looks at bureaucracy, public administration, and the state in Africa, and more recently, how people mobilize against repressive dictatorships.
Curiosity Unbounded, Ep 1: How a free-range kid from Maine is helping green-up industrial practices
In this episode, MIT President Sally Kornbluth sits down with newly tenured associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Desirée Plata. Her work focuses on making industrial processes more environmentally friendly, and removing methane (a key factor in global warming) from the air.
Audio Article: Low-cost device can measure air pollution anywhere
MIT researchers have made an open-source version of the “City Scanner” mobile pollution detector that lets people check air quality anywhere, cheaply. Pictured are some examples of the latest version of the device, called Flatburn, as well as a researcher attaching a prototype to a car.
Audio Article: Minimizing electric vehicles' impact on the grid
In a new study, MIT researchers have developed strategies for beneficial electric vehicle charging to reduce peak electricity demand and store solar energy.
Audio Article: How to push, wiggle, or drill an object through granular material
Engineers at MIT and Georgia Tech have found a faster and simpler way to model intrusion through any soft, flowable material.
Audio Article: A new method boosts wind farms’ energy output, without new equipment
By modeling the conditions of an entire wind farm rather than individual turbines, engineers can squeeze more power out of existing installations.
Audio Article: Startup lets doctors classify skin conditions with the snap of a picture
Piction Health, a startup founded by Susan Conover SM '15, lets doctors classify skin conditions with the snap of a picture. Their app uses machine learning to help physicians identify and manage skin diseases.
Audio Article: Keeping web-browsing data safe from hackers
Studying a powerful type of cyberattack, researchers identified a flaw in how it’s been analyzed before, then developed new techniques that stop it in its tracks.
Audio Article: The sound of a sunset
With the Sonification Toolkit, almost anything can be transformed into sound that is aesthetically satisfying and analytically illuminating. The newly released prototype, a work in progress with cutting-edge capabilities, is a robust exploratory foray into possibilities for sonification.
What does a sunset and a sunrise sound like?
Using a new sonification toolkit, designed but MIT's Digital Humanities Lab, senior Moises Trejo was able to turn a sunrise and a sunset into sound. What the toolkit does is convert the annual times of sunrises and sunsets in a particular location and turns them into a simple soundwork.