Mechanical engineering

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has nominated Dalila Argaez Wendlandt SM ’93 to the Supreme Judicial Court, reports Katie Lannan for WBUR. "Engineering requires you to look at the data and follow it where it goes, and to roll up your sleeves when there's a problem that looks like it's unsolvable," says Wendlandt. "For me the law is very similar especially when you do high-end legal work. Often, the answer is not clear, but if you're confident in your skills, you roll up your sleeves, you bring out the big guns and you just do your job."

A new algorithm developed by MIT researchers could be used to help detect people with Covid-19 by listening to the sound of their coughs, reports Zoe Kleinman for BBC News. “In tests, it achieved a 98.5% success rate among people who had received an official positive coronavirus test result, rising to 100% in those who had no other symptoms,” writes Kleinman.

Mashable reporter Rachel Kraus writes that a new system developed by MIT researchers could be used to help identify patients with Covid-19. Kraus writes that the algorithm can “differentiate the forced coughs of asymptomatic people who have Covid from those of healthy people.”

A new took developed by MIT researchers uses neural networks to help identify Covid-19, reports Alyse Stanley for Gizmodo. The model “can detect the subtle changes in a person’s cough that indicate whether they’re infected, even if they don’t have any other symptoms,” Stanley explains.

TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes that MIT researchers have built a new AI model that can help detect Covid-19 by listening to the sound of a person’s cough. “The tool is detecting features that allow it to discriminate the subjects that have COVID from the ones that don’t,” explains Brian Subirana, a research scientist in MIT’s Auto-ID Laboratory.

MIT researchers have developed a new AI model that could help identify people with asymptomatic Covid-19 based on the sound of their cough, reports CBS Boston. The researchers hope that in the future the model could be used to help create an app that serves as a “noninvasive prescreening tool to figure out who is likely to have the coronavirus.”

Danielle Geathers, president of the MIT Undergraduate Association, joins Kelly Clarkson to discuss her goals for her presidency. Geathers highlights the Talented Ten Mentorship program, which aims to help increase matriculation of Black women by pairing “Black women in high school with Black women at MIT.” Clarkson applauded her work, noting “that’s amazing mentorship…You can dream big when you see that someone has made it there.”

Axios reporter Bryan Walsh highlights how MIT researchers have developed a new solar-powered device that can extract drinkable water from the air and “could help alleviate water scarcity in some of the world's driest regions.” Walsh notes that the new design “makes use of a more common material called zeolite, doubling its capacity to generate water.”
 

MIT researchers have developed a solar-powered system that is able to extract drinkable water from dry air, reports Layal Liverpool for New Scientist. “In areas where water scarcity is a problem, it’s important to consider different technologies which provide water, particularly as climate change will exacerbate many water scarcity issues,” says graduate student Alina LaPotin.

Prof. Tonio Buonassisi writes for Indvstrvs about how businesses can use machine learning systems to help address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. “What has emerged through our research,” writes Buonassisi, “is a combination of automation, data science, and computation — building blocks that promise to accelerate the rate of new materials development tenfold, and eventually millions of times, faster.”

Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized Medicine (CAMP) research group have been awarded new research grants aimed at supporting work exploring personalized medicine and cell therapy, reports Health Europa. “In addition to our existing research on our three flagship projects, we hope to develop breakthroughs in manufacturing other cell therapy platforms that will enable better medical treatments and outcomes for society,” says Associate Provost Krystyn Van Vliet.

Third-year student Emily Rabinovitsj speaks with Boston Globe correspondent Mike Kotsopoulos about her quest to complete the virtual Boston Marathon and raise funds for 15-40 Connection, a non-profit dedicated to educating people on how to detect early-stage cancer. “I got this gift of being able to have a full life after a diagnosis and I feel like I have a responsibility to take advantage of that opportunity and help others have this same opportunity,” Rabinovitsj said.

Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights how, as part of an effort to reduce Covid-19 risk for health care workers, researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital developed a new system that enables remote vital sign monitoring. "We started to think about how we could protect healthcare providers and minimize contact with folks that might be infectious,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso.

CNN reporter Allen Kim spotlights how researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have modified a robotic dog so that it can be used to help measure a patient’s vital signs. “The researchers expect to focus on triage applications in the short term, with the goal of ultimately deploying robots like this to patients' hospital rooms to continuously monitor them and let doctors to check in on them without ever having to step into the room,” writes Kim.

CBS Boston features how researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital equipped a robot from Boston Dynamics with technology to enable remote vital sign monitoring.