Prof. Richard Young and his colleagues have discovered that many transcription factors can bind RNA, reports Christie Wilcox for Science. "The team decided to investigate after scattered reports suggested that at least some transcription factors are capable of binding RNA even though they lack traditional RNA binding domains,” writes Wilcox.
A new study by MIT scientists uncovers how male sandgrouse are able to soak up large amounts of water in their feathers and carry it over long distances to their chicks, reports Forbes. The researchers found that “when wetted, the coiled portions of the sandgrouse feather barbules unwind and rotate so they end up perpendicular to the vane. This creates a dense forest of fibers that can hold water through capillary action.”
Callie Gade and Nate Bonham of CNN’s Discovery Daily Podcast spotlight how researchers from MIT developed a 3D printed replica of the human heart that can help doctors customize treatments for patients before conducting open heart surgery or other intrusive procedures. “These more patient-specific heart replicas can help future researchers develop and identify treatments for people with unique health problems,” says Gade.
MIT has ranked first in 11 different academic fields in the latest QS World University Rankings, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes.
Dr. Akshay Syal, a medical fellow for NBC News, discusses how MIT researchers have developed a new technique to 3D print custom replicas of the human heart.
Prof. Emerita Nancy Hopkins speaks with ABC News about her work advocating for gender equality in academia and "The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science,” a new book by Kate Zernike, a journalist who originally covered Hopkins’ efforts for The Boston Globe. Hopkins notes that when Zernike’s article was published, “this deluge happened. I mean, it was just overwhelming. And women were writing from all over the country and the world and saying, thank you. Thank you for telling the story. It's my story.”
Boston Globe reporter Ryan Cross spotlights Chroma Medicine, a biotech startup co-founded by MIT researchers that is “developing a new class of gene editing technologies that could control how our genetic code is read without changing the code itself.” Cross explains that Chroma Medicine’s technology could “have broad applications for treating both rare and common diseases.”
Bloomberg reporter Tanaz Meghjani writes that MIT researchers created a new system to 3D print a customized replica of the human heart, which could help improve replacement valve procedures. The new system “mimics blood flow and pressure in individual diseased hearts, suggesting a way to predict the effects of various replacements and select the best fit, avoiding potential leakage and failure,” Meghjani writes.
MIT engineers have developed a new technique for 3D printing a soft, flexible, custom-designed replica of a patient’s heart, report Gabrielle Emanuel and Amy Sokolow for WBUR. The goal of the research is to “provide realistic models so that doctors, researchers and medical device manufacturers can use them in testing therapies for different types of heart disease,” Emanuel and Sokolow explain.
Prof. Philip Sharp speaks with Biomarker blogger Dylan Neel about his journey through academia as a student, professor, Nobel laureate and biotech pioneer. “Science has become such an important part of our day-to-day lives: our immediate health, the food we eat, the cars we drive, the way we communicate,” says Sharp. “If you take a portion of the tools we use in our day-to-day lives and trace them all back: it's new technology, maybe not over 30 years old. It is very empowering. Life and progress are better than ever before.”
President Sally Kornbluth, Provost Cynthia Barnhart, and Chancellor Melissa Nobles speak with Radio Boston host Tiziana Dearing about the importance of representation for women and underrepresented groups in STEM. “One of the most important pieces of having women in leadership is not just bringing a diverse perspective, but honestly being role models so that girls see that there is a possibility for them to be doing the kind of high-tech, heavy research that MIT does,” says Kornbluth.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed “a new type of electrically conductive hydrogel ‘scaffold’ that could eventually be used to create a soft brain-computer interface (or BCI) that translates neural signals from the brain into machine-readable instructions,” reports Adam Bluestein for Fast Company.
Natalia Rodriguez ’09 speaks with Diverse Issues in Higher Education reporter Pearl Stewart about her work as a biomedical engineer focused on community healthcare. “I work to bring health technologies from the lab to the people, and I also work to bring the needs, the priorities and the strengths of communities back to engineers so they know who they’re designing for,” Rodriguez explains.
Sally Kornbluth, the 18th president of MIT, speaks with Boston Magazine reporter Jonathan Soroff about why she is excited to lead MIT, Smoots, Boston weather and sports, and how to encourage more girls and women to pursue STEM careers.
New York Times reporter Siobhan Roberts spotlights the work of Jessica Rosenkrantz ’05 and her husband Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, who create laser-cut, wooden jigsaw puzzles inspired by natural forms. “Inspired by how shapes and forms emerge in nature, they write custom software to ‘grow’ intertwining puzzle pieces,” writes Roberts. “Their signature puzzle cuts have names like dendrite, amoeba, maze and wave.”