In this PBS NewsHour article and video, Nsikan Akpan spotlights Prof. Paulo Lozano’s work developing tiny satellites equipped with ion thrusters that could eventually help researchers explore asteroids or Mars. Prof. Kristina Lemmer of Western Michigan University notes that Lozano’s system, “is probably the frontrunner for the possibility for deep space missions.”
Hamza Shaban of The Washington Post speaks with Prof. Christian Catalini about how bitcoin fared in 2017. Catalini explains that, “the space is maturing, and that also means more pressure on bitcoin core developers and open-source developers to really get this technology and scale it.”
Eduardo Porter writes for The New York Times that large numbers of women are leaving the workforce to care for elderly parents. In a recent book, Prof. Paul Osterman estimates that 21 million family members are “caring for an adult relative for no pay. By 2040, he predicts demand for such care will rise to 34 million.”
Wired reporter Lauren Smiley speaks with a number of MIT experts about the growing use of technology as a home health care aid for the elderly. “I would always prefer the human touch over a robot,” explains Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab. “But if there’s no human available, I would take high tech in lieu of high touch.”
Boston Globe reporter Bryan Marquard memorializes the life and work of former MIT Professor Martin Rein, who died at age 89. Marquard writes that throughout his career, Rein, “studied and compared welfare programs in the United States and European countries for much of his career, and in later years examined the income sources people draw from in retirement.”
Pamela Danziger of Forbes highlights research by Visiting Prof. Rogelio Oliva in an article about recent declines in retail staff and the resulting drop in retail sales. Retailers “could generate more sales if they staff at the correct level. Stores should staff to maximize sales and profits, not to minimize costs,” explains Oliva.
Despite new discoveries regarding Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas,” mystery remains, writes Prof. Emeritus Ellen Harris in The New York Times. Even with the lack of certainty surrounding details that provide understanding of a piece of music, “the history of ‘Dido and Aeneas’ has only grown richer as we have discovered how little we actually know,” concludes Harris.
Writing for Scientific American, Prof. Alex “Sandy” Pentland explains how new digital technologies are making it possible to build more efficient financial networks and decentralize the control of money. “That we can now create monetary systems that are truly understandable means we can potentially build the tools for minimizing risk, avoiding crashes, and maintaining individual freedom from intrusive governments and overly powerful corporations.”
Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss has been named to The Boston Globe’s list of the 2017 Bostonians of the Year for his work starting a new revolution in astronomy. Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz notes that Weiss, “shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for conceiving and shepherding a set of observatories that allowed scientists to prove Einstein’s assertion about gravitational waves.”
In an article for The Week, John Holden speaks with Prof. Kripa Varanasi about what inspired him to pursue a career science. Varanasi recalls how his mother, “was instrumental in driving my ambitions. She used to buy me amazing electronics kits when I was a kid.”
Prof. Barry Posen writes in The New York Times about the possible outcomes of different planned military strikes against North Korea. “A combination of diplomacy and deterrence, based on the already impressive strength of South Korean and United States conventional and nuclear forces, is a wise alternative,” concludes Posen.
Alexa Vazquez of WBUR writes about a new MIT Museum exhibit that uses virtual reality to place visitors face-to-face with fighters who have experienced lifelong conflict. “The aim was to go for more kind of intimate conversations that you wouldn’t normally have access to, with people from diverse sides of these diverse conflicts,” says Prof. Fox Harrell, who worked on the VR aspect of the exhibit.
In an article for the Financial Times about the best economics books of 2017, Martin Wolf highlights new works by Prof. Andrew Lo and Prof. Peter Temin. Wolf writes that in Temin’s “important and provocative book, [he] argues that the US is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with ever fewer households in the middle.”
Prof. David Autor has been named to the Bloomberg 50 list, which spotlights the thought leaders who defined global business in 2017. In describing why Autor was selected, Peter Coy highlights a pair of influential working papers this year in which Autor documents how the rise of superstar companies has impacted American workers.
Boston Magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme spotlights Prof. Li-Huei Tsai’s quest to vanquish Alzheimer’s disease. Ducharme writes that Tsai’s work, including two recent papers outlining potential treatments for Alzheimer’s, “established her as a bona fide rock star in the neuroscience world.”