MIT’s mini cheetah robot was taught how to goal keep using simulation, reports Emmett Smith for Mashable. “The robot was able to block 87.5 percent of the shots taken, which is just slightly above the best professional goalies in the English Premiere League,” writes Smith.
In a new paper, MIT researchers detail the use of reinforcement learning to teach MIT’s mini cheetah robot to play goalie in a soccer match, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “In this work, we focused solely on the goalkeeping task, but the proposed framework can be extended to other scenarios, such as multi-skill soccer ball kicking,” the researchers explain.
Researchers from MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions have been developing an electric autonomous trash boat, reports Sarah Holder for Bloomberg. The boats “could reduce noise, pollution, and congestion, thus improving the quality of Amsterdam’s historic cityscape.”
Prof. Diana Henderson, Prof. Daniel Jackson, Prof. David Kaiser, Prof. S.P Kothari, and Prof. Sanjay Sarma have released a new white paper “summarizing their ideas for a new type of undergraduate institution,” writes David Rosowsky for Forbes. “The authors have done a commendable job identifying and assembling some of the proven high-impact practices each of these types of higher educational institutions can offer,” writes Rosowsky.
MIT has been named one of the top 10 best colleges in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, writes Celia Fernandez for CNBC.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School are investigating how exercise and high-fat diets can alter cells, genes and cellular pathways, reports Abby Patkin for Boston.com. “Their research could eventually help develop drugs that would mimic the effects of exercise and combat obesity,” explains Patkin.
Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma spotlights Prof. Kevin Chen’s research creating flying lightning bug robots that could be used to pollinate crops in vertical farms or even in space. “If we think about the insect functions that animals can’t do,” says Chen, “that inspires us to think about what smaller, insect-scale robots can do, that larger robots cannot.”
Researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School have conducted a study to see how exercise and high-fat diets can impact cells, reports WCVB. The researchers “say the data could eventually be used to develop drugs that could help enhance or mimic the benefits of exercise,” writes WCVB.
A new study by researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School has helped identify the impact of exercise and high-fat diets on cells, reports Darren Botelho for NBC Boston 10. “Years from now, those researchers say the data could lead to a pill that would help not only with weight loss, but with the overall effect from exercise – a better wellbeing,” explains Botelho.
Prof. Manolis Kellis speaks with Boston 25 about his team’s work exploring the underlying mechanisms exploring how exercise influences weight loss, findings that could offer potential targets for drugs that could help to enhance or mimic the benefits of exercise. “Such an intervention would be a complete game changer and the reason for that is that the obesity epidemic has led to the U.S. having a decreased life span compared to all other developed countries,” says Kellis.
Institute Prof. Barbara Liskov discusses the importance of including ethics and foresight as a key parts of computer science education, reports Susan D'Agostino for Inside Higher Ed. “The days of being naïvely technical, which we were for many years, are over,” says Liskov. “We need to open students’ minds so they think about the harm that can come from what they’re doing and so they ask, ‘What could I add that could act as a safeguard?’ It’s more than ethics. They need to think from a different perspective.”
Prof. Fadel Adib speaks with CBC Radio about his lab’s work developing a wireless, battery-free underwater camera that runs on sound waves. "We want to be able to use them to monitor, for example, underwater currents, because these are highly related to what impacts the climate," says Adib. "Or even underwater corals, seeing how they are being impacted by climate change and how potentially intervention to mitigate climate change is helping them recover."
At MIT’s AI Policy Forum Summit, which was focused on exploring the challenges facing the implementation of AI technologies across a variety of sectors, SEC Chair Gary Gensler and MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Dean Daniel Huttenlocher discussed the impact of AI on the world of finance. “If someone is relying on open-AI, that's a concentrated risk and a lot of fintech companies can build on top of it,” Gensler said. “Then you have a node that's every bit as systemically relevant as maybe a stock exchange."
Prof. Peter Shor and three other researchers have won the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their work in the field of quantum information, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Shor “invented the first quantum computer algorithm that was clearly useful. Shor’s algorithm can find the factors of large numbers exponentially faster than is thought to be possible for any classical algorithm,” the Breakthrough Foundation noted in its citation.
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation has named Prof. Peter Shor one of the four winners for the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his work in the field of quantum information, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. “The laureates honored today embody the remarkable power of fundamental science,” says Yuri Milner, one of the prize founders. “Both to reveal deep truths about the Universe, and to improve human lives.”