Graduate student Carmelo Ignaccolo speaks with Forbes contributor Rebecca Ann Hughes about his decision to move back to his hometown in Sicily during the Covid-19 pandemic and his work helping a local organization map networks of remote working hubs, as part of an effort to help support the local economy. “It was a nice idea of combining work but also local support for communities which have been left behind, especially in southern Italy,” says Ignaccolo.
Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham spotlights a study co-authored by research affiliate Christos Makridis that finds communities with higher levels of interconnectedness and communal trust experienced less severe Covid-19 outbreaks in 2020. Makridis and his co-authors found “when individuals have a greater concern for others, they are more willing to follow hygienic practices and social distancing.”
Second-year student Darren Lim speaks with KUOW about his work developing a website aimed at making it easier for Washington state residents to book appointment for Covid-19 vaccines. The website “shows which providers in Washington state have vaccines available, and then allows you to click through to their websites to make an appointment.”
Writing for STAT, Prof. Emeritus Jeffrey Harris explores how community health centers “can play a crucial role in reducing the burden of the Covid-19 epidemic in the difficult winter months to come. They can serve as critical safety valves at a time when acute care hospitals and emergency rooms are saturated with patients.”
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Amy Finkelstein examines the difficulties posed by trying to reduce waste in health care spending. “If something becomes more expensive, people will buy less of it,” writes Finkelstein. “And the empirical evidence is overwhelming: When patients have to pay more, they use less medical care. The problem is they use less of all types of care.”
Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the development of new technologies that enable older adults to connect with their communities. “The pandemic has served as a propellant accelerating the adoption of devices and related services perhaps a decade faster than might have otherwise occurred.
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers examines the carbon emissions associated with video conferencing, reports Rachel Moss for HuffPost. The researchers found “just one hour of video conferencing or streaming emits 150-1,000 grams of carbon dioxide.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers quantifies the carbon costs of working from home, reports Devin Coldewey for TechCrunch. “In order to build a sustainable digital world, it is imperative to carefully assess the environmental footprints of the Internet and identify the individual and collective actions that most affect its growth,” the researchers explain.
Writing for The New Yorker, Sheelah Kolhatkar spotlights Biobot Analytics, an MIT startup that is studying sewage for the purpose of tracking diseases and the spread of Covid-19. “It’s about our health and well-being in general,” says Biobot co-founder and president Newsha Ghaeli. “It’s about understanding nutrition disparities in communities, understanding stress levels, pervasive infectious diseases like influenza or Zika virus.”
CBS News spotlights how two MIT researchers have been named to key roles on the Biden administration’s science team. Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, will co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Zuber said she hopes to "restore trust in science, and pursue breakthroughs that benefit all people."
Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, and Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, have been nominated to leading roles on the Biden administration's science team, report Nidhi Subbaraman and Alexandra Witze for Nature. “These are excellent appointments, highly qualified and experienced, and well grounded in science,” says Rita Colwell, a professor at University of Maryland at College Park and former director of the National Science Foundation
AP reporter Seth Borenstein writes about how President-elect Joe Biden is nominating Prof. Eric Lander of the Broad Institute to serve as his chief science officer and lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and has selected Maria Zuber, vice president for research at MIT, to co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Francis Collins, director of the NIH, called Lander, “brilliant, visionary, exceptionally creative and highly effective in aspiring others. I predict he will have a profound transformational effect on American science.”
New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer writes that Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated to serve as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and to serve as a presidential science advisor. MIT Vice President for Research Maria Zuber will co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which Biden will make a Cabinet-level position, reports Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, will co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Writing for Fast Company, Prof. Ramesh Raskar explores how to help improve distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine. Raskar and his co-author write that, “We must apply modern techniques like data analytics, user research, and usability testing to learn about the vaccine and immunization process from the perspective of different Americans, all while preserving privacy and people’s right to remain anonymous.”