Prof. Marcia Bartusiak writes for The Washington Post about Eileen Pollack’s book, “The Only Woman in the Room,” which examines the obstacles facing women in science. Bartusiak writes that, “Pollack draws attention to this important and vexing problem with a personal narrative, beautifully written and full of important insights on the changes needed to make those barriers crumble.”
Prof. Matthew Evans speaks with New Scientist reporter Joshua Sokol about the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Evans relates that while every generation has told their students that they will detect gravitational waves, “I tell my grad students this, and I think it’s really true.”
Prof. Max Tegmark speaks with David Pogue of Scientific American about his views on the future of artificial intelligence. “AI also has enormous upsides…if we get it right. Let's not just drift into this like a sailboat without its sail up properly. Let's chart our course, carefully planned,” Tegmark says.
Marcelo Gleiser of The Chronicle of Higher Education reviews “A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design” by Prof. Frank Wilczek, which examines the mathematical symmetry of the physical world. “The book is an ode to Nature’s beauty, as seen by a physicist’s mathematical eye: beauty equated with symmetry and symmetry with truth,” writes Gleiser.
Don Willmott writes for The Huffington Post about a theoretical design for a compact fusion reactor created by MIT researchers. “The MIT reactor should ultimately be able to produce five to six times the energy it consumes, MIT's scientists say, about 190 megawatts,” explains Willmott.
John Farrell writes for Forbes about Prof. Frank Wilczek’s new book, “A Beautiful Question.” In his book, Wilczek argues that, “the world was created to embody beautiful ideas, and if there is a Creator, he’s an artist above all.”
Huffington Post contributor Derrick Crowe writes about a new MIT study that examines how increasing ocean acidification is impacting phytoplankton populations. The study showed how ocean acidification, “can throw off the balance of the plankton population, causing significant changes with profound implications for other species that depend on them.”
The Economist examines Prof. Max Tegmark’s theories on the existence of multiple universes. Tegmark is, “one of the leading proponents of multiverses,” according to The Economist. “Dr Tegmark suggests a fourfold classification of possible types of multiverse.”
Andrew Revkin writes for The New York Times about a compact design for a fusion reactor that could make fusion power a possibility within a decade. Revkin highlights how the research originated from an MIT course, writing, “it’s exciting to see academia integrating directly with innovation on this scale.”
Prof. and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek provides readers of The Wall Street Journal with a glimpse into his everyday routines in this piece chronicling a week in his life. Wilczek writes that he spends most of one day “on my recent obsession: expanding perception.”
MIT researchers have found that increasing ocean acidification will impact phytoplankton species worldwide, reports Michelle Toh for The Christian Science Monitor. Toh explains that the researchers found, “the balance of various plankton species will radically change as the world’s oceans increase in acidity over the next 85 years.”
UPI reporter Brook Hays writes about new MIT research examining how ocean acidification will impact phytoplankton. The researchers found that “more acidic waters could allow some species to outcompete and wipe out entire other species" of phytoplankton.
In an article for Forbes, Greg Satell applied Prof. Jeremy England’s theories about the meaning of life to the way new technologies are impacting humans. Satell writes that if England is right and “the purpose of life is to create order,” humans can find meaning in, “channeling our energies to adapt to that which is to come.”
Last weekend Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus became the first woman to receive the IEEE Medal of Honor for her pioneering work with carbon materials, reports Melissa Lott for Scientific American. Lotts writes that Dresselhaus is known “for her work with buckminsterfullerenes (buckyballs), nanotubes and graphene as well as her dedicated work ethic and caring nature.”
In an article for TIME, Jeffrey Kluger reports that MIT researchers have uncovered the mystery behind Saturn’s Earth-sized cyclones. The researchers found that lots of mini-storms combine to produce “one massive, long-lived one at the top of the planet.”