Scientists have found evidence that the ozone hole over Antarctica is getting smaller and forming later in the year, reports Seth Bornstein for the Associated Press. Prof. Susan Solomon, lead author of the study, says the findings are a "tremendous cause for hope" for fixing other environmental problems.
USA Today reporter Doyle Rice reports that a team of researchers led by MIT Prof. Susan Solomon has found that the Antarctica ozone heal is beginning to heal. “The discovery shows global attempts to improve Earth's environment can work, providing a template for how humanity could tackle the exponentially larger issue of climate change,” Doyle writes.
New York Times reporter Henry Fountain writes that researchers have found evidence that the ozone hole over Antarctica is getting smaller. “We are seeing the planet respond as expected to the actions of people,” says Prof. Susan Solomon. “It’s really a story of the public getting engaged, policy makers taking action, and business getting engaged.”
Researchers from MIT and other institutions have found that the Antarctic ozone hole has begun to heal, reports Chris Mooney for The Washington Post. “If you use the medical analogy, first the patient was getting worse and worse, and then the patient is stabilized, and now, “explains Prof. Susan Solomon, “the patient is really starting to get better.”
MIT researchers have developed a new water-based material that could be used to make artificial skin, long-lasting contact lenses and drug-delivering bandages, writes Jamie Ducharme for Boston Magazine. “It’s interesting to imagine a world where your medicine cabinet is stocked with hydrogel-elastomer hybrids instead of contact lenses and Band-Aids,” writes Ducharme.
Ryan Mandelbaum of Popular Science speaks with David Shoemaker, who leads MIT’s LIGO Lab and Advanced LIGO, about the second successful detection of gravitational waves. "It’s wonderful," says Shoemaker. "It’s so different from the first one ... but its importance is no less."
Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz writes that scientists have been able to detect gravitational waves for the second time. “It’s a wondrous thing,” said David Shoemaker, who leads the MIT lab that helped build the detectors. “Three months apart, 1.4 billion years ago, these two events happened at two different places in the sky.”
Scientists have observed a second pair of black holes colliding using the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. Overbye writes that LIGO provides “a way of hearing the universe instead of just looking at it.”
For the second time, scientists have detected gravitational waves produced by the collision of two black holes, reports Irene Klotz for Reuters. “We are starting to get a glimpse of the kind of new astrophysical information that can only come from gravitational-wave detectors,” says David Shoemaker, who leads Advanced LIGO.
In an article for New Scientist, Lisa Grossman writes that for the second time the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves. “This gives us confidence,” says MIT research scientist Salvatore Vitale. “It was not just a lucky accident. Seeing a second one tells us clearly that there is a population of black holes there.”
Prof. Rainer Weiss speaks with Clara Moskowitz of Scientific American about why he is excited by the public’s reaction to the successful detection of gravitational waves. Weiss says that for him one of the most gratifying things is if he and his colleagues can help “make the argument that science is something everybody gets benefit from.”
In this video, BBC World News reporter Adam Shaw learns about the stretchy, water-based hydrogel MIT researchers developed that could be used as a smart bandage to sense temperatures and deliver medication. “This is a new way to think about this interface between the human body and electronic devices,” explains Prof. Xuanhe Zhao.
Boston.com reporter Sanjay Salomon writes about how “Duckietown,” a model city developed by MIT researchers, could help make self-driving cars a reality. “We realized if you scale down autonomous driving to something very small there’s lots of research to do on a smaller scale with none of the logistical challenges of real autonomous vehicle research,” explains postdoc Liam Paull.
In this article and video, Nature reporter Corie Lok spotlights Prof Lydia Bourouiba’s work studying the fluid dynamics of coughing and sneezing. Bourouiba explains that her research combines “fluid mechanics to problems that are relevant in health and epidemiology to understand better how pathogens are transmitted.”
Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, speaks with Science’s Jeffrey Mervis about her new role as chair of the National Science Board. “U.S. research and education are really what has kept this country at the forefront,” says Zuber. “I think that even in this environment… research spending ought to still be up.”