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.”
CBC News’ Anna Maria Tremonti explores a new study by MIT researchers that examines how children interact with AI toys. The study shows, “how children can develop emotional ties with the robots, which was cause for concern for the MIT researcher,” Tremonti explains.
PRI The World’s Lydia Emmanouilidou spotlights a virtual reality exhibit at the MIT Museum by photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa that allows visitors to explore both sides of international conflicts. “What is the point of images of war if they don’t change people’s attitudes towards armed conflicts, violence and the suffering they produce?” says Khelifa of the inspiration for his work.
Science reporter Philip Shapira highlights Prof. Neil Gershenfeld’s new book, co-written with his brothers, about digital fabrication. Shapira writes that the, “Gershenfelds engagingly alert us not only to the opportunities that digital fabrication presents but also to the societal and governance challenges that the widespread diffusion of this technology will generate.”
Prof. Timothy Lu speaks with STAT reporter Eric Boodman about his work trying to harness bacteria to treat disease. Lu notes that his lab is also currently working on, “building these genetic circuits for therapeutic applications, but instead of targeting bacteria, we’ve been focused on using human cells.”
The late Institute Prof. Emerita Mildred Dresselhaus is featured on MSNBC Live with Velshi & Ruhle’s “Monumental Americans” series, which highlights Americans they believe should be honored with a statue. “Known as ‘the Queen of Carbon Science,’ the electrical engineer worked at MIT for 57 years and was a pioneer for women in science leadership positions.”
The Economist reviews Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, a new book by Prof. Kieran Setiya, which attempts to demonstrate how philosophy can help people going through a midlife crisis. The book “may change preconceptions about the dryness of philosophy” as well as “make readers think and smile, which is not a bad therapy in itself,” the review concludes.