Wall Street Journal reporter Atish Patel highlights new MIT research indicating that volcanic activity may have contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Patel explains that the findings suggest “dinosaurs were already in decline, suffering from the climate change prompted by the volcanic eruptions.”
Researchers have uncovered evidence that volcanic activity could have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs, reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post. Prof. Sam Bowring says the eruption “began just prior to the extinction and continued throughout.”
Scientific American reporter Charles Choi writes that MIT researchers have uncovered evidence that magnetic fields played a role in forming the early solar system. "Magnetic fields can introduce viscosity into the disk, essentially making the gas in it more sticky," explains MIT graduate student Roger Fu.
Thomas Burton of The Wall Street Journal writes that MIT researchers were among those awarded the first research grants under President Obama’s new BRAIN Initiative. Burton writes that one of the MIT grants will go toward “determining which exact brain circuits are involved in generating short-term memories that influence decisions.”
Boston Globe reporter Deborah Kotz writes that MIT researchers have been awarded new grants from the National Institutes of Health to further brain research. “Biophysicist Alan Jasanoff received a grant to develop imaging agents for functional MRI imaging that would target the flow of calcium into and out of brain cells,” writes Kotz of one of the MIT grants.
MIT neuroscientists were among the recipients of new grants for brain research from the National Institutes of Health, reports Jon Hamilton for NPR. Hamilton explains that as part of one grant, “Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will try to adapt functional MRI so that it can show the activity of individual brain cells.”