National Science Foundation (NSF)

The Nature Podcast, hosted by Adam Levy and Shamini Bundell, highlights research from the Haystack Observatory and Prof. Li-Huei Tsai’s findings around Alzheimer’s and its connection to brain waves.

A robotic carpenter developed by CSAIL is pre-cutting wood for flat-pack furniture, making assembly safer and more efficient. Called AutoSaw, the idea “was not to replace human carpenters but to allow them to focus on more important tasks such as design,” writes Dave Lee for the BBC.

David Grossman of Popular Mechanics writes about AutoSaw, a system developed by CSAIL researchers that assists in custom build carpentry projects. The system is designed “to split the difference between machine-built quality and unique customization” and requires human assembly after the pieces are cut, explains Grossman.

Autosaw, the robotic carpenter developed by researchers from CSAIL, can cut pieces for furniture building, as long as you provide the raw materials. “It’ll cut pieces to shape, drill the necessary holes and even move them around the workshop for you,” writes Thomas Tamblyn for Huff Post.

Alan Rogers of MIT's Haystack Observatory co-authored a study that identifies the earliest traces of hydrogen in the universe. The gas is “from 180 million years after the Big Bang,” writes Elise Takahama for The Boston Globe, which suggests that stars would have appeared around this time, creating a “cosmic dawn.”

AutoSaw, developed in CSAIL, is “a new system of robot-assisted carpentry that could make the creation of custom furniture and fittings safer, easier, and cheaper,” writes James Vincent of The Verge. As postdoc Jeffrey Lipton explains, AutoSaw “shows how advanced robotics could fit into the workflow of a carpenter or joiner.” 

Using a modified Roomba vacuum, CSAIL researchers are able to autonomously cut pieces of wood for assembling furniture, writes Leah Crane for New Scientist. “Two lifting robots pick up a piece of wood, bring it over to a chop saw, and hold it in place while the saw cuts it to size,” Crane explains.

CSAIL postdoc Jeffrey Lipton, along with Prof. Daniela Rus and PhD candidate Adriana Schulz, has developed AutoSaw, a software-driven carpentry system that readies wood pieces for hand assembly, writes Mark Wilson of Co.Design. “We’re moving toward a new manufacturing revolution with 3D printers and robots to make objects with unprecedented complexity,” says Schulz.

Research published in Science demonstrates the ability of photons to bind together in a way previously thought impossible – creating a new form of light. “The photon dance happens in a lab at MIT where the physicists run table-top experiments with lasers,” writes Marissa Fessenden for Smithsonian. “Photons bound together in this way can carry information – a quality that is useful for quantum computing.”

Writing for Newsweek, Katherine Hignett reports that for the first time, scientists have observed groups of three photons interacting and effectively producing a new form of light. “Light,” Prof. Vladan Vuletic, who led the research, tells Hignett, “is already used to transmit data very quickly over long distances via fiber optic cables. Being able to manipulate these photons could enable the distribution of data in much more powerful ways.”

Research by Physics PhD candidate Sergio Cantu has led to the discovery of a new form of light, which happens when photos stick together, as opposed to passing through one another. “’We send the light into the medium, it gets effectively dressed up as if it were atoms, and then when it turns back into photons they remember interactions that happened in the medium,” Cantu explains to Leah Crane at New Scientist. 

MIT physicists have created a new form of light that allows up to three photons to bind together, writes Daniel Oberhaus for Motherboard. While the research is experimental, Oberhaus writes that the trio of photons “are much more strongly bound together and are, as a result, better carriers of information” than other photonic qubits.

MIT researchers have discovered a new family of viruses in the ocean that appears to play a key role in ocean ecosystems and could help provide insights on how viruses evolve, reports Marin Finucane for The Boston Globe.  Finucane explains that the findings could also lead to, "a better understanding of human biology.”

A study by Prof. Daniel Rothman shows that there could be enough carbon in the Earth’s oceans by 2100 to trigger a sixth mass extinction, reports Mark Fischetti and Jen Christiansen for Scientific American. 

Scientific American reporter Prachi Patel writes that a new study by Prof. Elsa Olivetti found that demand for cobalt, which is critical to electric vehicle batteries, could soon outstrip supply. “The best lithium battery cathodes [negative electrodes] all contain cobalt, and its production is limited,” Olivetti explains.