Bonnie Christian of Wired provides tips from experts for boosting productivity in the new year. A recent renovation by Prof. Carlo Ratti allows workers to adjust their lighting and temperature to “create a kind of thermal bubble, which follows each individual, allowing better comfort and a reduction of energy waste,” he explains.
A team of MIT students and postdocs has taken the top prize in the architecture category of the 2017 Mars City Design competition, reports Janussa Delzo for Newsweek. Delzo notes that the MIT team’s tree-inspired concept features “domes or tree habitats...large enough for 50 people to live inside of them."
Prof. Alan Berger shares his ideas for creating suburbs that attract tech savvy and environmentally conscious millennials in The New York Times. “Millennial suburbanites want a new kind of landscape. They want breathing room but disdain the energy wastefulness, visual monotony and social conformity of postwar manufactured neighborhoods.”
Metropolis selected Boston as one of the best design cities in the world, highlighting MIT's School of Architecture and Planning and the Fab Lab as key drivers of the city’s success. “Here in Boston our biotech and high-tech industries are offering designers incredible opportunities to express their creativity,” says Hashim Sarkis, dean of SA+P. “It’s a place where design is being pushed to new frontiers.”
Tangible Media Group researchers have created shape-shifting, edible pasta, writes Grace Williams for Fox News. The pasta, which transforms from a flat sheet into 3-D shapes, could cut packaging and shipping costs for “large supermarkets, mountain hikers and Mars travelers, or whoever has the need of saving shipping spaces,” says former MIT graduate student Lining Yao.
MIT was named the top university in the world for the sixth consecutive year in the QS World University Rankings, reports Kyle Scott Clauss for Boston Magazine.
Reporting for WGBH about new technologies that can help reduce carbon emissions, Heather Goldstone spotlights how Media Lab researchers have developed shape-changing noodles that transform from a flat sheet of gelatin into 3-D shapes when dropped in water. “Those flat sheets can be shipped more efficiently,” explains Goldstone.
Wen Wang, a former grad student and research scientist, speaks with Janelle Nanos of The Boston Globe about the shape-shifting noodles she and her colleagues engineered. The technique, which transforms a flat sheet of noodles into 3-D shapes, could reduce food shipping costs and could eventually be used to feed astronauts. “You can save space in space,” explains Wang.
In this video, CNN highlights how researchers from the MIT Media Lab have developed shape-changing noodles. The noodles transform from a flat sheet into 3-D shapes when submerged in water, and could cut down on shipping costs and environmental waste.
Popular Science reporter Rachel Feltman writes that MIT researchers have developed shape-changing noodles that transform from a flat sheet into 3-D shapes when submerged in water. Feltman explains that by packing pasta in flat sheets, “manufacturers could cut packaging sizes in half—cutting down on wasted cardboard and shipping container space.”
Newsweek’s Anthony Cuthbertson writes about new research from a team at the Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group, who have “created flat sheets of gelatin and starch that transform into 3D shapes, such as flowers and pasta forms, when submerged in water.”
Washington Post reporter Travis Andrews writes that MIT researchers have created a workout suit with ventilating flaps embedded with bacteria that automatically open and close in response to sweat. Andrews explains that “as the bacteria relaxes and shrinks into itself, the cells pull away from the wearer, opening the flaps and letting fresh air flood in.”
U.S. News & World Report’s Visi Tilak spotlights NuVu Studios, a school started by MIT graduates to create more hands-on learning experiences for middle and high school students. MIT alumna and NuVu co-founder Saba Ghole explains that students use “curiosity and creativity to explore new ideas, and make their concepts come to life.”
MIT researchers have developed a workout suit with vents that are triggered by bacteria to automatically open in response to sweat, reports Rob Verger for Popular Science. Verger explains that the researchers hope to apply the technology to create clothing that can, “produce a pleasant smell when you sweat.”
Daily Mail reporter Colin Fernandez writes that MIT researchers have developed a self-ventilating workout suit that can help keep athletes cool and dry while they exercise. Fernandez explains that the suit is embedded with harmless microbes that contract when they sense heat or cold, triggering flaps in the suit to open and close.