Alan Neuhauser of U.S. News & World Report writes about a new report by researchers from MIT, the EPA and other institutions that examines the costs of climate change and the economic benefits of climate action. The report “asserts that restraining global warming to 2 degrees Celsius…will save close to a trillion dollars by 2100.”
A new report by researchers from MIT and the EPA quantifies the impacts of climate change on the U.S. economy, reports Coral Davenport for The New York Times. The report found that the U.S. may face “up to $180 billion in economic losses because of drought and water shortages.”
A new study co-authored by MIT Prof. Joseph Doyle found that juveniles who were incarcerated were less likely to return to school and more likely to return to jail as adults, reports Chris Sweeney for Boston Magazine. “If you want to be tough on crime, locking up juvenile offenders is counterproductive,” says Doyle.
After the release of a paper from U.C. Berkeley researchers detailing how certain strains of yeast may be used to produce opioids, Professor Kenneth Oye coauthored a commentary calling for regulation in the field, writes Lexi Pandell for Wired. “I haven’t seen anything quite like this before,” says Oye.
Rachel Feltman writes for The Washington Post about a commentary by Professor Kenneth Oye that calls for regulation of genetically modified yeast that could potentially produce opiates. “It’s not like tomorrow someone’s going to have a fully integrated, one-pot pathway to go from sugar to morphine,” says Oye. “But it’s coming.”
Michael Le Page writes for The New Scientist about Professor Kenneth Oye’s commentary on research indicating that genetically engineered yeasts could be used to produce opiates. Oye provides a number of policy recommendations to prevent illicit opium production, including outlawing the distribution of opiate-making yeast strains.
Professor Kenneth Oye has coauthored a commentary on a paper that demonstrates researchers may be close to being able to engineer morphine from yeast, writes Nicola Twilley for The New Yorker. The authors worry this “could put illicit opiate production into the hands of many more people, at a much smaller scale.”
Donald McNeil writes for The New York Times about a commentary coauthored by Professor Kenneth Oye on advances that could make it possible to produce morphine using genetically modified yeast. Oye argues for “locking up the bioengineered yeast strains and restricting access to the DNA that would let drug cartels reproduce them.”
The Associated Press writes about Professor Kenneth Oye’s commentary on a paper by researchers at U.C. Berkeley that shows how morphine and other painkillers can be manufactured without opium poppies. Oye calls for regulation in order to prevent abuses.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Brian Potts highlights the MIT Energy Initiative’s (MITEI) report on the future of solar energy. Potts writes that solar subsidies should be reconsidered, citing the MITEI report’s findings that “net metering is inefficient and should be redesigned.”
A report from the MIT Energy Initiative recommends that U.S. policymakers change their approach to solar technology, reports Erik Sherman for CBS News. “Unless a substantial price is put on carbon dioxide emissions, expanding solar output to levels needed to fight climate change will be cost prohibitive without major change in government policy,” Sherman writes.
Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick writes that a team of MIT engineers has won top prize in a competition designed to spur innovation in desalination technologies for a solar-powered system they developed. “The system, when fully operational, can supply the basic water needs of a village of between 2,000 and 5,000 people,” Warrick explains.
Professor Richard Schmalensee speaks with Ben Johnson of Marketplace about a new report by the MIT Energy Initiative on the state of solar technology. “Federal R&D policy needs to look toward transformative new technologies not just marginal improvements on the stuff we have today,” says Schmalensee.
A new MITEI report outlines actions the U.S. government could take to facilitate large-scale deployment of solar energy, reports Yeganeh Torbati for Reuters. "Ideally ... rather than subsidize investment, we would subsidize production," says Francis O’Sullivan, an author of the report.
Megan Smith, the White House CTO and an MIT alumna, speaks with Wired reporter Jessi Hempel about how she became interested in science, her experience at MIT and her goals for her time at the White House.