Haystack’s Michael Hecht, the principal investigator for the Mars MOXIE experiment, speaks with Max G. Levy of Smithsonian about the challenges involved in developing MOXIE’s oxygen-producing technology. “We want to show we can run [MOXIE] in the daytime, and the nighttime, in the winter, and in the summer, and when it’s dusty out," says Hecht, "in all of the different environments."
In an article for Bloomberg Businessweek about the best online activities to help kids engaged during the shutdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Arianne Cohen spotlights Scratch. Cohen writes that Scratch, “is a simple coding language designed by MIT that lets kids create animations, write stories, and play games while learning how to solve problems.”
TechCrunch reporter Zach Whittaker writes about Butlr, an MIT startup that has developed passive infrared sensors that use a “mix of wireless, battery-powered hardware and artificial intelligence to track people’s movements indoors without violating their privacy.”
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed a new biosensitive ink “that indicates one’s health condition by changing its color,” writes Seung Jae Park for The Los Angeles Times. “With the subtle embellishment of the ink with tattoo artistry, the team aims to overcome the shortcomings of the current biomedical monitoring devices.”
NPR’s Scott Simon remembers former MIT Professor Michael Hawley. Simon notes that Hawley’s “Things That Think and Toys of Tomorrow projects prophesied so much of the ways in which our world would become digitally connected.”
MIT researchers have developed an AI system that can predict Alzheimer’s risk by forecasting how patients will perform on a test measuring cognitive decline up to two years in advance, reports Casey Ross for STAT.
ELLE reporter Molly Langmuir spotlights the work of Prof. Neri Oxman, who is known for “producing radically interdisciplinary work.” Oxman has produced everything from “a silk pavilion—a suspended dome of silk fibers spun by a robotic arm, completed by 6,500 live silkworms—to a design concept for a wearable digestive system incorporating photosynthetic bacteria that convert solar energy into sugar.”
Optimus Ride, a startup founded by MIT alumni, will start a self-driving car shuttle service at an industrial park in New York City, reports the Associated Press. “The free service is expected to transport some 500 passengers daily on the yard’s internal roads,” the AP explains.
MIT startup Optimus Ride is launching a self-driving shuttle service at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, reports Andrew J. Hawkins for The Verge.
Smithsonian reporter Emily Matchar spotlights AlterEgo, a device developed by MIT researchers to help people with speech pathologies communicate. “A lot of people with all sorts of speech pathologies are deprived of the ability to communicate with other people,” says graduate student Arnav Kapur. “This could restore the ability to speak for people who can’t.”
WGBH reporter Cristina Quinn visits MIT to learn about a new ethics of AI workshop offered to middle school-aged children this summer. “I don't want the ethics piece to go to an elite few,” says graduate research assistant Blakeley H. Payne of the importance of offering an education in AI ethics. “And then you're just perpetuating these systems of inequality over and over again.”
Prof. Ed Boyden speaks with New Scientist reporter Clare Wilson about his work studying the inner workings of the human brain. “I have a deep desire to understand what it means to be human – the meaning of our thoughts and feelings,” says Boyden. “That is really what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning.”
Writing for The New York Times, research scientists Chelsea Barabas and Karthik Dinakar argue that risk assessment algorithms designed to help predict people’s future criminal behavior are “fundamentally flawed. They give judges recommendations that make future violence seem more predictable and more certain than it actually is. In the process, risk assessments may perpetuate the misconceptions and fears that drive mass incarceration.”
Wired reporter Elizabeth notes how the ScratchJr programming language, which was developed to help teach children how to code, is being used as part of an effort to teach young children the basics of computer programming.
Reporting for NBC Mach, Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky writes that MIT researchers are developing augmented plants that can serve as sensors. Jeffrey-Wilensky explains that the researchers believe the plants could one day be used to “guard our homes, connect us to distant friends and send us gentle push notifications without the sensory overload of a computer screen.”