Fast Company reporter KC Ifeanyi writes about “Coded Bias,” which explores how graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s “groundbreaking discovery and subsequent studies on the biases in facial recognition software against darker-skinned individuals and women led to some of the biggest companies including Amazon and IBM rethinking their practices.”
New York Times reporter Devika Girish reviews “Coded Bias,” a new documentary that chronicles graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s work uncovering how many AI systems can perpetuate race and gender-based inequities. “When you think of A.I., it’s forward-looking,” says Buolamwini. “But A.I. is based on data, and data is a reflection of our history.”
Smithsonian reporter Corryn Wetzel spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new technology inspired by camel fur that could be used to keep food and medical supplies chilled. The researchers hope the new system could be applied to “lots of areas that require passive cooling—meaning no external energy needs to power the process. Possible applications include insulating food storage, medical supplies and buildings.”
MIT researchers have created a new material that mimics camel fur and could be used to help keep food and medical supplies cool without electricity, reports Layal Liverpool for New Scientist. “We achieve evaporation and insulation at the same time, extending the cooling period significantly,” explains Prof. Jeffrey Grossman.
Writing for Scientific American, Prof. Carlo Ratti explores the “transformative” potential of quantum sensors. Ratti writes that quantum sensors could enable autonomous vehicles to “‘see’ around corners, underwater navigation systems, early-warning systems for volcanic activity and earthquakes, and portable scanners that monitor a person's brain activity during daily life.”
Prof. Kevin Esvelt writes for The Boston Globe about the need for transparency surrounding gene-editing research. “We should establish transparent, publicly accessible standards to help determine whether, when, and how research that could impact everyone should proceed,” Esvelt explains.
A new study by MIT researchers finds that super-spreading events are larger drivers of the Covid-19 pandemic than originally thought, reports Carey Goldberg for WBUR. “We found in our study that super-spreading events can indeed be a major driver of the current pandemic,” says postdoc Felix Wong. “Most people generate zero or one cases, but it's the people generating hundreds of cases that we really should be worried about.”
European Pharmaceutical Review reporter Hannah Balfour writes that researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology have developed a new dissolvable gelatin microcarrier that can help enhance cell production. “Innovations in microcarriers will aid in the scalability of certain cell types such as mesenchymal stromal cells for cell-based therapy, including for regenerative medicine applications,” says Associate Provost Krystyn Van Vliet.
Prof. Kiyoshi Masui speaks with Verge reporter Loren Grush about how astronomers have detected fast radio bursts coming from a magnetar within our own galaxy. “This is the missing link,” Masui says. “Now we’ve seen a fast radio burst coming from a magnetar, so it proves that at least some fraction of fast radio bursts we see in the universe come from magnetars.”
Writing for The Conversation, graduate student Craig Robert Martin delves into his research exploring how the Himalayas were created. “By decoding the magnetic records preserved inside them, we hoped to reconstruct the geography of ancient landmasses – and revise the story of the creation of the Himalayas,” writes Martin.
MIT researchers have developed a new battery-free, underwater navigation system, reports Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch. “Ultimately, the system and future versions that are based on the same technology could enable future robotic submarine explorers to better map the ocean floor,” writes Etherington, “and perform all kinds of automated monitoring and sub-sea navigation.”
Quartz reporter Nicolás Rivero highlights a study co-authored by Prof. David Rand that examines the effectiveness of labeling fake news on social media platforms. “I think most people working in this area agree that if you put a warning label on something, that will make people believe and share it less,” says Rand. “But most stuff doesn’t get labeled, so that’s a major practical limitation of this approach.”
Fox News reporter Kayla Rivas features Prof. Richard Larson’s work developing a new algorithm that could be used to help more accurately pinpoint sources of Covid-19 infections in sewer systems. The algorithm could be used to help “toggle between normal testing to an emergency schedule to locate asymptomatic cases fast before they infect others.”
Boston Globe reporter Corrie Pikul spotlights Prof. Li-Huei Tsai’s work finding that exposure to a specific pattern of rhythmic lights and sound bursts could potentially serve as a non-invasive treatment for Alzheimer’s. “These are really surprising findings,” says Tsai. “We are seeing multiple different cellular responses that are consistent with increased brain health.”
Forbes contributor Adi Gaskell writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a machine learning system that can determine whether a task is best performed by a human or AI. The researchers developed the system to be “capable of learning and adapting as it goes, such that it can identify,” Gaskell explains, “when the expert isn't available or whether they have a certain level of experience, before choosing whether to defer to them.”