A public-private consortium led by MIT has won a national competition to create a manufacturing institute aimed at moving the textile industry into the digital age, reports Steve Lohr for The New York Times. “This is about reimagining what a fabric is, and rebirthing textiles into a high-tech industry,” says Prof. Yoel Fink.
Boston Herald reporter Jordan Graham writes that a new nonprofit founded by MIT has been selected as the winner of a Department of Defense contest to establish a fiber research center. “The center and the institute is going to go anywhere fiber and fabric goes,” explains Prof. Yoel Fink, who led the proposal for the institute.
A consortium led by MIT has won a competition to host a federally funded research program focused on bringing the textile industry into the digital age, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. “Here is a bold vision that’s not just manufacturing stuff that we know about but also enabling a whole new interpretation of the fabric industry,” says Prof. Yoel Fink.
In this Science Nation video, Miles O’Brien explores Prof. Polina Anikeeva’s work developing a tool to repair nerve damage. “It would be wonderful if we were able to regenerate the spinal cord and restore the movement or if we were able to bypass the spinal cord with a device that mimics its function,” explains Anikeeva.
MIT researchers have developed the lightest and thinnest solar cells ever produced, reports Lindsey Kratochwill for Popular Science. “Instead of the usual method of fabricating each layer separately, and then depositing the layers onto the substrate, the MIT researchers made all three parts of their solar cell at the same time."
Inside Higher Ed's Carl Straumsheim speaks with Dr. Peter Fritschel about how LIGO researchers selected Physical Review Letters to publish the team’s discovery of gravitational waves. After LIGO members cast their votes, Fritschel explained that PRL was a “pretty clear winner,” citing its reputation as a “premier journals for physics results.”
Tech Insider’s Chris Weller reports on a new study by MIT researchers that examines how sneezes travel and spread viruses. The findings could help researchers “predict and prevent disease spread,” Weller explains. “If they know how quickly a pathogen spreads via sneeze, then they can learn more about the risks posed by the viruses themselves.”
Prof. Matthew Evans speaks with Joshua Sokol of New Scientist about the LIGO findings. “Until this detection, there was a question about the existence of binary black hole systems,” Evans explains. “So it is a pleasant surprise for us to have detected them.”
DAWN profiles Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, highlighting her work on LIGO, and what inspired her interest in physics and the hunt for gravitational waves. “Even when Nergis was a freshman, she struck me as fearless, with a refreshing can-do attitude,” says Robert Berg, a professor of physics at Wellesley College.
Profs. Rainer Weiss and Nergis Mavalvala speak with Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s On Point, about the detection of gravitational waves. “We fully expect, as with every revolution in astronomy, that when you open a new way of looking at it [the universe] you will learn things that I can’t even tell you yet,” says Weiss.
Joshua Sokol writes for New Scientist that the detection of gravitational waves will allow researchers to explore the universe’s most exotic objects. “Imagine you’re playing the movie of the universe. This is going to be the end of the silent movie era in astronomy because you have just added sound,” says Senior Research Scientist Erik Katsavounidis.
WBUR's Bruce Gellerman speaks with Prof. Nergis Mavalvala about what the detection of gravitational waves means for the future of astronomy. “The discovery itself is spectacular, but it’s the potential for what comes next that’s even bigger,” says Mavalvala. “We are really witnessing the opening of a new way of doing astronomy.”
Kendra Pierre-Louis writes for Motherboard about the work behind the LIGO team's detection of gravitational waves. Pierre-Louis explains that in the 1960s, Prof. Rainer Weiss was teaching a class on gravitational physics and “devised a method that he felt was theoretically more rigorous, using a clock and laser beams” to detect gravitational waves.
MIT researchers used high-speed cameras to examine how sneezes travel, reports Gillian Mohney for ABC News. The researchers found that “instead of a uniform cloud of droplets, a single sneeze would fragment in the air similar to paint being flung onto a canvas.”
In an article for Sky & Telescope, Robert Naeye writes about how the first detection of gravitational waves unleashes new possibilities for observing additional events in the universe. "This is the end of the silent-movie era in astronomy,” explains Senior Research Scientist Erik Katsavounidis.