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After the financial-sector crisis in 2007 and 2008, a large portion of investments people had considered safe were suddenly understood to be risky. And yet, the ensuing flight to safe assets, such as U.S. debt, has come with its own cost.

The safety trap

Lack of secure investments is hindering growth globally, research finds.

August 5, 2016

“It really matters how adults think and talk about what it means to be a child,” says literature professor Marah Gubar, noting that childhood “is not just biological; it’s also a social and cultural matter, so it changes over time, across cultures, and in different [social] classes.”

Your child, the literary talent

Literature professor Marah Gubar studies the creative powers of kids.

July 26, 2016

“The Cultures of Markets: The Political Economy of Climate Governance,” by Janelle Knox-Hayes (pictured), published by Oxford University Press.

Market makers

Good emissions trading programs are unique, not one-size-fits-all, new book argues.

July 26, 2016

Randomly assigned to tables of 10, participants at an open forum engaged in extended conversations about values, sources of intolerance, and ways to help MIT sustain an inclusive community during a time of social tension.

At open forum, MIT community discusses recent U.S. tragedies

More than 600 attend event emphasizing commitment to “stand together against injustice, intolerance, and hatred.”

July 14, 2016

“The City of Tomorrow: Sensors, Networks, Hackers, and the Future of Urban Life” (Yale University Press), co-written by Carlo Ratti (pictured), director of the Senseable City Lab and a professor of the practice in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Cities of tomorrow

New book by Senseable City Lab researchers presents vision of data-driven urban design.

July 5, 2016

“Groovy Science,” from the University of Chicago Press, was co-edited by David Kaiser (pictured), head of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society.

Groovy science, man!

Q&A: David Kaiser on our debt to science’s countercultural turn.

June 29, 2016

President L. Rafael Reif (left) with Khalid Al-Falih

MIT hosts visit from leading Saudi Arabian minister

Discussion focuses on the country’s long-term future and policy plans.

June 24, 2016

“Most people want to live in in a world where cars will minimize casualties,” says Iyad Rahwan, an associate professor in the MIT Media Lab and co-author of a new paper outlining the study. “But everybody wants their own car to protect them at all costs.”

Driverless cars: Who gets protected?

Study shows inconsistent public opinion on safety of driverless cars.

June 23, 2016

Winds of change?

Study: China could go big on wind power — if it adjusts its grid operations.

June 20, 2016

Researchers examined twice-monthly diary entries from more than 40 undergraduate engineering students across four institutions in Massachusetts: MIT, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. That generated more than 3,000 individual diary entries that the scholars systematically analyzed.

Why do women leave engineering?

Study: Group dynamics of teamwork and internships deter many women in the profession.

June 15, 2016

“A big strand in my work has been to think about the important ways in which social identity, especially racial and ethnic identities, become really important in thinking about policies and justice in distributive issues,” MIT political scientist Evan Lieberman says.

Democracy now

Political scientist Evan Lieberman studies ethnic identity and African politics.

June 14, 2016

Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon spoke with MIT News in MIT’s Building 3 before the 2016 Commencement ceremony.

Q&A: Matt Damon on making a difference in the world

It’s no act: MIT 2016 Commencement speaker reflects on the “fun” of his activism and philanthropy.

June 3, 2016

Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 was the guest speaker at MIT’s 2016 Investiture of Doctoral Hoods.

At hooding ceremony, doctoral graduates urged to solve the world’s “toughest challenges”

Development leader Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 encourages graduates to tackle pressing issues.

June 2, 2016

A new study finds generally higher prices with occasional sales mixed in will yield more revenue than consistently low prices, at least for fashionable goods. “The high-value customers will still buy the product,” Karen Zheng says. “They want to [avoid] this feeling of regret, which would occur if they wait now and then cannot get it in the future.”

The price of regret

Why stores should take shoppers’ emotions into account when setting prices.

May 23, 2016

“Children seem to interpret disjunction like conjunction,” observes MIT Linguistics Professor Danny Fox. However, Fox adds, although “it has been claimed children are very different from adults in the interpretation of logical words,” the study’s larger implication is almost the opposite — namely that “the child is [otherwise] identical to the adult, but there is a very small paramet...

Why children confuse simple words

Study: Kids have “and/or” problem despite sophisticated reasoning.