MIT researchers have developed a new in-home device that can help monitor Parkinson’s patients by tracking their gait, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “We know very little about the brain and its diseases,” says Professor Dina Katabi. “My goal is to develop non-invasive tools that provide new insights about the functioning of the brain and its diseases.”
Popular Science reporter Philip Kiefer writes that MIT researchers have developed an in-home device that could be used to track the progression of symptoms in Parkinson’s patients. “We can’t really ask patients to come to the clinic every day or every week,” explains graduate student Yingcheng Liu. “This technology gives us the possibility to continuously monitor patients, and provide more objective assessments.”
Lindsay Androski ’98, a full-term member of the MIT Corporation, writes an opinion piece for The Los Angeles Times about the how the lack of diversity in healthcare negatively impacts women and people of color. “The people in charge of funding healthcare research and development ultimately shape which conditions will be treated and cured,” writes Androski. “Every day the status quo continues means more suffering, mainly for people who aren’t white men.”
Graduate student Evan Soltas and Gopi Shah Goda, deputy director of Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, explore the impact that Covid-19 has had on the workforce, reports Sarah Todd for Quartz. “People ages 65 and up are more likely to leave the workforce after contracting Covid compared to younger people,” say Soltas and Goda.
A study by graduate student Evan Soltas and Gopi Shah Goda, deputy director of Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, underlines the pandemic’s impact on labor supply in the United States, reports Richard Luscombe for The Guardian. “Our estimates suggest Covid-19 illnesses have reduced the US labor force by approximately 500,000 people,” say Soltas and Goda.
A study by graduate student Evan Soltas and Gopi Shah Goda, deputy director of Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, explores the economic toll of Covid-19, including acute illness and long Covid, reports Erin Prater for Fortune. The paper “also looks at the impact of other Covid-related medical consequences like organ damage, mental health issues, new kidney and heart problems, and the worsening of preexisting illness, in addition to the phenomenon of Covid forcing older workers into early retirement,” explains Prater.
Professor Eric Alm speaks with Claire Ainsworth at New Scientist about studying wastewater to better understand the health, wealth and environment of various communities. “It’s not about going in and taking a measurement,” said Alm. “It’s about developing a platform that can help you reach insights about what’s going on.”
CAMP4, a startup founded by Prof. Richard Young, is developing a new class of RNA-based therapies to treat genetic diseases, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe. The “startup’s experimental approach will allow it to dial up the output of genes to treat genetic diseases, with an initial focus on a severe form of epilepsy and life-threatening live diseases,” writes Cross.
Principal Research Scientist Leo Anthony Celi oversaw a study which found that people of color were given significantly less supplemental oxygen than white people because of inaccuracies in pulse oximeter readings, reports Nancy Lapid for Reuters. “Nurses and doctors make the wrong decisions and end up giving less oxygen to people of color because they are fooled [by incorrect readings from pulse oximeters],” says Celi.
A study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that algorithms based on clinical medical notes can predict the self-identified race of a patient, reports Katie Palmer for STAT. “We’re not ready for AI — no sector really is ready for AI — until they’ve figured out that the computers are learning things that they’re not supposed to learn,” says Principal Research Scientist Leo Anthony Celi.
Rob Morris PhD ’14 has dedicated his career to easing access to mental health services online, reports Shalene Gupta for Fast Company. “When you search for a flight on Google, you get directed to these options that make you instantly buy a flight,” he says. “The interface is beautiful. But when you look up mental health, it’s not great. I want to do for mental health what Google did for flights.”
Writing for The Conversation, John Reilly, co-director emeritus of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, outlines a roadmap for how the U.S. can meet the Biden administration’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions 50% by 2030 below 2005 levels. “By exploiting declining costs of zero- and low-carbon energy sources in a more aggressive and focused way, the U.S. can meet its target within eight years,” writes Reilly, “all while substantially reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, including high-priced gasoline, and cutting back the air pollution, climate and health impacts resulting from their combustion.”
Based on data from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers have found that mortality rates are improving faster in Democratic counties than Republican ones, reports Adrianna Rodriguez for USA Today. “Democratic counties also saw greater reductions in deaths from chronic lower respiratory tract diseases, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease,” writes Rodriguez.
Information from MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were used in a new study that found mortality rates in Democratic and Republican counties are growing further apart, reports WCVB. The study found “that mortality rates decreased more in Democratic counties than in Republican counties,” writes WCVB.
Prof. Lydia Bourouiba speaks with BBC CrowdSource presenter Marnie Chesterton about her work in understanding how bodily fluids such as snot and spittle spread after leaving the body using high speed cameras. “What is very clear is that we emit… droplets of a continuum of sizes but they are not coming out alone,” explains Bourouiba. “They are coming out with an air that is in our lungs, that is hot and moist and turbulent, which changes the physical dynamics of the emission and how the drops will evolve.”