NBC 1st Look host Chelsea Cabarcas visits MIT to learn more about how faculty, researchers and students are “pioneering the world of tomorrow.” Cabarcas meets the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle team and gets a peek at Nimbus, the single-occupant vehicle that team members raced in the American Solar Challenge from Kansas City to New Mexico. Cabarcas also sees the back-flipping MIT mini cheetah that could one day be used in disaster-relief operations.
On a recent episode of “Shark Tank,” Amrita Saigal '10 scored a $250,000 investment in her company Kudos, which is focused on making disposable diapers from sustainable and natural materials, reports Megan Sauer for CNBC. Saigal, who also founded a company called Saathi that makes sanitary napkins from banana peel fibers, notes she was inspired by seeing “just how much plastic we were putting into sanitary napkins and diapers.”
Vecna Technologies and Vecna Robotics co-founder Daniel Theobald ’95, MS ’97 speaks with Forbes reporter Heather Wishart-Smith about the future of robotics. “I believe that robotics can be one of the great tools for solving the world’s problems,” says Theobald. “The environment, equality, food scarcity, even happiness in allowing us to focus on being more human than today’s humans working like machines and doing jobs that really should not be done by humans.”
Sampriti Bhattacharyya PhD ’17, co-founder and CEO of electric hydrofoil startup Navier, speaks with AP reporter Matt O’Brien about the future of the company. “Our goal is to be the longest range-electric boat at cruising speed,” says Bhattacharyya.
Steve Hartman of CBS News visits Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi to explore the science behind whether a single act of kindness can spread around the world. “I think if people understand you don’t have to do a heavy lift, you have to do a little bit of a lift, but if everyone does it [an act of kindness], it’s a small lift for everyone,” explains Hosoi.
Prof. Kripa Varanasi and Vishnu Jayaprakash PhD ’21, MS ’19 have launched AgZen, a company that is trying to reduce pesticide use through the development of additives that allow more pesticide droplets to stick to plants, reports Ian Mount for Fortune. “Globally, farms are spending about $60 billion a year on these pesticides, and our goal is to try to get them to cut that down while still not compromising on pest control,” says Jayaprakash.
Forbes has named Commonwealth Fusion Systems one of the biggest tech innovations and breakthroughs of 2022, reports Bernard Marr. “Commonwealth Fusion Systems is now working with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center on plans to build a factory that can mass-produce components for the first commercial fusion reactors,” writes Marr.
Researchers at MIT have “created a stretchable color-changing material based on how nature often reflects color,” reports Nicole Estaphan for WCVB’s Chronicle. “As you stretch it, these embedded nanostructures change size,” explains graduate student Benjamin Miller, “which in turn changes the color of light that comes back. We are making an elastic, squishy version of the sort of thing you find in nature.”
A team of MIT researchers has discovered a new kind of liquid fractal, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The scientists “were studying how one liquid breaks up into droplets when it is mixed into another and unexpectedly” made the discovery, Padavic-Callaghan explains.
Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung spotlights Elise Strobach PhD ’20 - co-founder and CEO of AeroShield Materials, a company developing super-insulating windows. Strobach is a recipient of funding from the MassVentures fund for deep-tech startups with a focus on underserved founders or those based in underserved regions. “We want to do cool things that have big impact,” said Strobach. “The minute I first visited Massachusetts, I just really felt that, ‘Wow, this is a place where that can happen.' "
Physics World has named two research advances by MIT researchers to its list of the Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year. Prof. Gang Chen and his colleagues were selected for their work “showing that cubic boron arsenide is one of the best semiconductors known to science.” Prof. Asegun Henry, grad student Alina LaPotin and their colleagues were nominated for “constructing a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell with an efficiency of more than 40%.”
Rosina Samadani ’89, MS ’92 co-developed EyeBox, an algorithm-based non-invasive diagnostic test for concussions, reports Geri Stengel for Forbes. “Patients watch a video, and the device watches their eyes for 220 seconds with a very high-quality, high-frequency infrared camera that measures eye movements and provides a score based on those eye movements,” explains Stengel. “The score is correlated with the absence or presence of a concussion.”
Forbes reporter Ed Garsten spotlights Sampriti Bhattacharyya PhD ’17, founder of Navier, and her work in developing the N30, the first commercially available electric hydrofoiling boat in the United States. Bhattacharyya, a former aerospace engineer, “turned to waterborne transportation during her doctorate work at MIT where she worked on underwater drones and had a key realization,” writes Garsten.
Katin Miller ’99, general manager for the Amazon fulfillment center in Fall River, speaks with Boston 25 reporter Robert Goulston about how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted holiday shopping. “What has changed a lot is people buy bigger things online than they used to,” says Miller. “Every year is bigger than the previous year so these are record breaking volumes absolutely.”
Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi speaks with Popular Mechanics reporter Ncumisa Lerato Kunana about a recent study that found soccer scores are becoming more predictable. “Ultimately, when you’re talking about predictability, you’re asking how much does this outcome rely on chance?” says Hosoi. “And how much does it rely on the difference in skills of the two opposing teams or the two opposing players? I think the approach they took was great [and] thoughtful.”