Media Lab

Saqib Shah writes for FOX News that researchers from the Media Lab’s Electome project are launching an interactive tool “that compares tweets shared by the White House with a sampling of those shared by the public.”

The City of Haverhill will test a solar-powered bench designed by Soofa, a Media Lab spinoff, reports Brenda J. Buote for The Boston Globe.  The city will “track how often the bench is used as a way to measure positive community development.”

Kevin Roose of The New York Times writes about “Whiplash,” a new book co-written by Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab, which examines the next generation of technology. Roose explains that the book “puts forth broad theories of technological change, accompanied by examples from their work at the Media Lab.”

Guardian reporter Nicola Davis spotlights Prof. Hugh Herr’s development of an autonomous exoskeleton device that could reduce the amount of energy humans use to walk. “We are taking a first principle approach, and joint by joint understanding deeply what has to be done scientifically and technologically to augment a human,” Herr explains. 

In this piece for The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about Prof. Kevin Esvelt’s idea to use gene-editing technology to eradicate Lyme disease. “This is an ecological problem,” Esvelt explains. “And we want to enact an ecological solution so that we break the transmission cycle that keeps ticks in the environment infected with these pathogens.”

Writing for Wired, Juan Enriquez highlights the MIT Center for Extreme Bionics, which was launched in an effort to develop technologies that augment human performance and could help eliminate disabilities. Enriquez writes that the center’s “long-term ambitions are breathtaking.”

KQED reporter Queena Sook Kim highlights Code Next, a program created by researchers from the Media Lab and Google aimed at encouraging high school students to learn to code through the process of making. “Coding is also making, and it takes the same problem-solving skills as making stuff in real life,” Kim explains. 

Guardian reporter Mark Harris writes about research scientist Caleb Harper’s work developing sensor-controlled systems that could allow farmers to grow food in varying conditions around the world. Harper has also developed a system to share data on optimal growing conditions in the hopes of providing “access to biology in the same way that HTML gave us access to the internet.”

Grace Leslie, a Media Lab visiting scientist, is creating music using the signals produced by the electrical activity of her brain and changes in her heart rate, writes Richard Gray for BBC Future. Leslie believes that this new form of musical expression “could be used to help those who have difficulty interacting with the world, such as those with autism.”

MIT researchers have found that flashing lights could potentially be used to stave off Alzheimer’s disease, writes Oscar Williams for The Huffington Post. “Light stimulation directed to the hippocampus, the part of the brain that processes memories, led to a reduction of…beta amyloid,” which is found in Alzheimer’s disease. 

Financial Times reporter Clive Cookson writes that MIT researchers have found evidence that flashing lights could potentially be used as a noninvasive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers found that “lights flashing on and off 40 times per second restored ‘gamma oscillation’ waves that were suppressed in the disease.”

MIT researchers have found that flashing light may reduce the buildup of beta amyloid protein in the brain, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease, writes Michelle Roberts for the BBC News. The researchers hope that “clearing beta amyloid and stopping more plaques from forming could halt Alzheimer's and its symptoms.”

Writing for The Atlantic, Ed Yong spotlights a study by MIT researchers that identifies a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s – using pulses of light to stimulate brain waves. Yong writes that the study “heralds a completely new approach to dealing with Alzheimer’s—changing neural activity, rather than delivering drugs or chemicals.”

MIT researchers have found that exposure to flickering lights at a precise frequency may help fight off Alzheimer’s disease, reports Melissa Healy for The Los Angeles Times. The technique recruits “neurons and other cell types in the brain to sort of enable the brain’s inner ability to repair itself,” explains Prof. Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute. 

Guardian reporter Hannah Devlin writes about a new study by MIT researchers that shows that strobe lighting can reduce levels of toxic proteins found in Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers found that “exposure to flickering light stimulated brain waves, called gamma oscillations, that are known to be disturbed in Alzheimer’s patients.”