Prof. John Leonard prepared a free video lesson explaining the science behind the Deflategate controversy, writes Adam Vaccaro for The Boston Globe. Vaccaro writes that Leonard explained he hopes the lesson will help students “understand the physics of air pressure and temperature by connecting them to a major event in popular culture.”
Prof. Emanuel Sachs, who is credited as one of the inventors of 3-D printing, discusses the manufacturing method’s origins and its increasing popularity with Meghna Chakrabarti of Radio Boston. Sachs explains that 3-D printing is an increasingly popular academic tool because “it takes so long to make prototypes any other way and…3-D printing really enables people to make.”
In an article for Salon, Prof. Christopher Knittel notes there is a long history of discrimination against African-Americans in the transportation industry. While Prof. Knittel’s research shows ride-sharing services have decreased wait times in lower income areas, it also found “more frequent cancellations when a passenger used stereotypically African-American-sounding names,” among other discriminatory practices.
In an article about how to rebuild failed states, The Economist highlights Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s book “Why Nations Fail.” Acemoglu and his co-author Prof. James Robinson of the University of Chicago argue that political institutions largely determine a nation’s success, and that failed states provide “a general explanation for why poor countries are poor.”
Prof. Ann Graybiel speaks with Forbes contributor Pat Brans about age and habit formation. Graybiel explains that she does not think “it’s ever too late to change habits or to make new ones,” adding that “‘habit’ patterns in the brain have to get renewed reinforcement from time to time.”
Guardian reporter Nicola Davis spotlights Prof. Hugh Herr’s development of an autonomous exoskeleton device that could reduce the amount of energy humans use to walk. “We are taking a first principle approach, and joint by joint understanding deeply what has to be done scientifically and technologically to augment a human,” Herr explains.
In this piece for The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about Prof. Kevin Esvelt’s idea to use gene-editing technology to eradicate Lyme disease. “This is an ecological problem,” Esvelt explains. “And we want to enact an ecological solution so that we break the transmission cycle that keeps ticks in the environment infected with these pathogens.”
Writing for The Los Angeles Times, Prof. Arnold Barnett proposes that electoral votes be awarded based off of a candidate’s share of each states’ popular vote. Barnett writes that this reform would be a “compromise between the electoral college and the national popular vote, each of which has a clear tendency to favor one of the two major political parties.”
Kat Chow of NPR’s Code Switch, speaks with Prof. Ruth Perry about the origins and evolution of the term “politically correct.” "The attack on the 'politically correct,'” Perry explains, " is an attack on the theory and practice of affirmative action.”
Prof. Amy Finkelstein writes for the Health Affairs Blog about the need for relying on evidence to set health care policy, citing her own randomized, controlled study of Oregon’s health care system. “We need to rely on evidence from rigorous research—rather than compelling anecdotes—to get an accurate assessment of a policy’s effects,” Finkelstein explains.
Forbes correspondent Hilary Brueck writes about Prof. Eric von Hippel’s research exploring the burgeoning maker movement in industrialized countries around the world. Von Hippel and his colleagues found that “5.2% of adult consumers are developing products for their own use – that’s 16 million people making new or modified products the rest of the country has never seen.”
In an in-depth piece for The New York Times Magazine, Chris Jones spotlights Prof. Sara Seager, exploring her quest for an Earthlike exoplanet. Jones writes there has been an explosion of knowledge about exoplanets in part because of “Seager’s pioneering theoretical work in using light to study the composition of alien atmospheres.”
Prof. Charles Stewart explains in The Washington Post that ballot recounts help to determine the accuracy of the initial vote count method in an election. Prof. Steward predicts that the Wisconsin recount will uncover “only small discrepancies between the election night totals” and will show that scanners are more accurate than humans at counting votes.
Writing for Nature, James Shorter and Aaron Gitler memorialize Prof. Susan Lindquist’s research on protein folding and its role in human disease. They write that Lindquist was “a visionary who connected concepts across disparate disciplines,” adding that her insights, “paved the way for innovative strategies to treat diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer.”
Spencer Buell writes for Boston Magazine that hundreds of MIT faculty members have signed an open letter committing to unconditionally rejecting “every form of bigotry, discrimination, hateful rhetoric, and hateful action,” and upholding the “principles of the scientific method, of fact- and reason-based objective inquiry.”