Researchers from MIT and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology have found a vaccine ingredient that may strengthen immune response, reports Natalie Colarossi for Newsweek. This combination-style vaccine ingredient “may boost the effectiveness of inoculations ranging from HIV to Covid-19,” writes Colarossi.
Prof. Kristin J. Forbes has found that "those parts of the consumer-price index influenced by global factors, such as commodity prices, currency fluctuations and global value chains, drove half the changes in the index between 2015 and 2017, up from about 25% in the early 1990s," reports Yuka Hayashi for The Wall Street Journal.
Air & Space Forces Magazine reporter Amanda Miller spotlights the Department of Air Force-MIT AI Accelerator, which is focused on furthering the science of AI. Thanks to such a close connection with “a world-class academic institution,” said Col. Tucker Hamilton, “we’re making advancements revolutionary to the entire field—the entire world.”
A new study by Prof. S.P. Kothari and Prof. Eric So finds that payment for order flow is not bad for investors.The researchers found that “the price improvement for retail investors using Robinhood was better than price improvement that institutional investors receive when they trade small lots of public exchanges,” reports Felix Salmon for Axios.
Reuters reporter Andrea Januta writes that using computer models Prof. Kerry Emanuel has found that hurricanes in the North Atlantic have been growing in intensity and frequency as global temperatures have increasing. Emanuel “turned to computer simulations to recreate climate conditions for the last 150 years. Using three different climate models, he then scattered hurricane “seeds,” or conditions that could produce a storm, throughout the models to see how many seeds developed into storms,” writes Januta.
CNN reporter Ashley Strickland writes that NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission, has discovered an exoplanet approximately the size of Mars where a year lasts for about eight hours. “Astronomers are eager to learn more about these small planets that quickly spin around their stars in less than 24 hours because they are not sure how they form and end up in such an extreme orbit,” writes Strickland.
A new study by Prof. Kerry Emanuel examining the history of hurricanes finds that North Atlantic hurricanes are increasing in frequency and intensity, write Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow for The Washington Post. Emanuel “employed a novel approach to evaluate past storm activity,” they write. “Rather than relying on historical observations, which may have gaps, he performed climate modeling to reconstruct a continuous record of hurricane activity over the past 150 years from which to gauge trends.”
Droplette, a skincare device designed by a group of MIT alumni, has been named one of the most innovative personal care products of 2021, reports Jordan Blok and Rachel Feltman for Popular Science. The product “turns pods of treatment like collagen and retinol into a super-fine mist to help skin absorb the ingredients more quickly,” writes Blok and Feltman. “The company’s ultimate aim is to use the tech to deliver drugs without needles."
Edgar Herwick of GBH News visits the lab of Prof. Mathias Kolle to explore the science behind what causes rainbows to arc across the sky. “The sun has to be behind you. Then water in the atmosphere in front of you. And that's usually when it rains, you get that condition,” says Kolle. “Then what you also want to do is you want to look at the right spot.”
Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, and Luke Yoquinto, a research associate at the AgeLab, emphasize the importance of increased investment in aging-related research in an article for The Boston Globe. Coughlin and Yoquinto call for “ramping up age-related disease research across the board: not just in health care and robotics, but also in smart-home tech, user design, transportation, workplace technologies, education and training, and nutrition. R&D in these fields won’t just improve lives; it will also strengthen tomorrow’s economy.”
A team of astronomers, including MIT researchers, has discovered an ultrahot Jupiter that orbits its star in just 16 hours, reports Robert Lea for Newsweek. “Ultrahot Jupiters such as TOI-2109b constitute the most extreme subclass of exoplanet,” explains former MIT postdoc Ian Wong. “We have only just started to understand some of the unique physical and chemical processes that occur in their atmospheres – processes that have no analogs in our own solar system.”
A new report by researchers from MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab, the Migration Policy Institute and the World Food Programme investigates the motivations and costs of migration from Central America, and finds that migrants spend $2.2 billion every year trying to reach the U.S., reports Catherine E. Shoichet for CNN. "That is an extreme amount of money," explains Prof. Sarah Williams. "That $2.2 billion is all paid for by the migrants themselves, so the risks, both in terms of debt and personal risk, is borne by the migrant."
Wired reporter Adam Rogers spotlights Prof. Nancy Kanwisher’s research on the fusiform face area, which becomes active when a person sees a face, and what would happen if the area were intentionally activated. Kanwisher’s experiment “certainly suggested the possibility, the power, of jacking directly into the brain,” writes Rogers.
CNET science writer Monisha Ravisetti spotlights MIT researchers who have successfully recorded the scale formation of butterfly wings during its transformation. “Understanding their schematics could ultimately benefit constructed materials like windows and thermal systems and even bring an ethereal quality to textiles,” writes Ravisetti.
Popular Science reporter Hannah Seo writes that MIT researchers have developed a way to watch and record how the microscopic scales on a butterfly’s wings grow and tile themselves as the butterfly develops inside its chrysalis. The researchers hope to “use butterfly scales as inspiration for the design of new materials,” writes Seo. “Butterfly scales have other fascinating properties such as water repellency and the ability to regulate temperature.”