Media Lab

Researchers from MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative are teaming up with Boston’s Federal Reserve Bank to build and test a hypothetical central bank digital currency, reports Vipin Bharathan for Forbes.

Writing for New Scientist, Vijaysree Venkatraman spotlights “Coded Bias,” a new documentary that chronicles graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s “journey to uncover racial and sexist bias in face-recognition software and other artificial intelligence systems.”

MIT researchers have developed a new wearable device, called Dormio, that can be used to record and even guide a person’s dreams, reports Mashable. Dormio is aimed at providing “insights into how dreams work and their effect on various things like memory, emotion, creativity.”

Michael Hecht of MIT’s Haystack Observatory speaks with Perry Russom of NECN about MOXIE, a new experimental device that will convert carbon dioxide in the Marian atmosphere into oxygen. Hecht explains that the inspiration for MOXIE lies in how it would be easier, “if we could make that oxygen on Mars and not have to bring this huge honking oxygen tank with us all the way from Earth.”

Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Vox reporter Brian Resnick about how Martian materials collected by the Perseverance rover might provide clues about early life forms on Earth. "These [Martian] rocks are older, by half a billion or a billion years, than anything that’s well preserved that we have on Earth,” says Bosak.

Boston Globe reporter Caroline Enos spotlights the contributions of MIT researchers to the Mars 2020 mission, in particular the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE. “MOXIE could have a big impact on future missions if it is successful,” Enos explains.

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.