Researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed “a new type of electrically conductive hydrogel ‘scaffold’ that could eventually be used to create a soft brain-computer interface (or BCI) that translates neural signals from the brain into machine-readable instructions,” reports Adam Bluestein for Fast Company.
Graduate student Soumya Sudhakar speaks with BBC Digital Planet host Gareth Mitchell about her new study showing that hardware efficiency for self-driving cars will need to advance rapidly to avoid generating as many greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world.
Researchers from MIT and Mass General Hospital have developed “a deep learning model named ‘Sybil’ that can be used to predict lung cancer risk, using data from just a single CT scan,” writes Sai Balasubramanian for Forbes. “Sybil is able to predict a patient’s future lung cancer risk to a certain extent of accuracy, using the data from just one LDCT [low-dose computed tomography scan],” writes Balasubramanian.
Using statistical modeling, MIT researchers have found that the energy needed to power a fleet of fully autonomous EVs could generate as much carbon emissions as all the world’s data centers combined, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science.
Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds the “future energy required to run just the computers on a global fleet of autonomous vehicles could generate as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world today.”
Kevin Hu SB ’13, SM ’15, PhD ’19 co-founded Metaplane, a startup aimed at providing users with data analytics-focused tools, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “Metaplane monitors data using anomaly detection models trained primarily on historical metadata. The monitors try to account for seasonality, trends and feedback from customers, Hu says, to minimize alert fatigue, “writes Wiggers.
A review led Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi has found that a major issue in health-related machine learning models “is the relative scarcity of publicly available data sets in medicine,” reports Emily Sohn for Nature.
Research scientist Ryan Hamerly and his team are working to harness “the low power consumption of hybrid optical devices for smart speakers, lightweight drones and even self-driving cars,” reports The Economist.
Gizmodo reporter Isaac Schultz writes that researchers from MIT, Caltech and elsewhere have found that “quantum systems can imitate wormholes, theorized shortcuts in spacetime, in that the systems allow the instantaneous transit of information between remote locations.” Grad student Alexander Zlokapa explains that: “We performed a kind of quantum teleportation equivalent to a traversable wormhole in the gravity picture. To do this, we had to simplify the quantum system to the smallest example that preserves gravitational characteristics so we could implement it.”
Research affiliate Ramin Hasani speaks with Kimberly Adams of Marketplace about how he and his CSAIL colleagues solved a differential equation dating back to the early 1900s, enabling researchers to create an AI algorithm that can learn on the spot and adapt to evolving patterns. The new algorithm “will enable larger-scale brain simulations,” Hasani explains.
Physicists from MIT and elsewhere have created a small “wormhole” effect between two quantum systems on the same processor and were able to send a signal through it, reports Charlotte Hu for Popular Science. This new model is a “way to study the fundamental problems of the universe in a laboratory setting,” writes Hu.
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have created a holographic wormhole using Google’s Sycamore quantum computer, reports Sarah Wells for Vice. “The researchers created an entangled state (a quantum mechanical phenomena where distant particles can still communicate with each other) between two halves of a quantum computer and sent a message in between,” writes Wells. “This message was scrambled as it entered the system and, through entanglement, unscrambled on the other side.”
A team of researchers, including scientists from MIT, “simulated a pair of black holes in a quantum computer and sent a message between them through a shortcut in space-time called a wormhole,” reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. The development is another “step in the effort to understand the relation between gravity, which shapes the universe, and quantum mechanics, which governs the subatomic realm of particles,” writes Overbye.
Fortune reporter Gabby Shacknai spotlights Joy Buolamwini PhD ’22 and her research in racial bias in AI. “After finishing grad school, Biolamwini decided to continue her research on A.I.’s racial bias and quickly realized that much of this was a result of the non-diverse datasets and imagery used by a disproportionately white, male tech workforce to train A.I. and inform its algorithms,” writes Shacknai.
Graduate student Kevin Frans co-founded OpenAI, a for-profit research lab that aims to provide free public access to artificial intelligence systems, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Our mission is to put AI is the hands of everyone,” says Frans.