Research

Senior lecturer Edward Golding speaks with Bloomberg’s  Caroline Hyde, Romaine Bostick and Joe Weisenthal about a new study he co-authored, which finds that Black Americans pay more for their homes.

7 News spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new wearable sensor that can be used to help people with ALS communicate. “The wearable technology, known as Comfortable Decoders, recognizes tiny facial movements that can help patients communicate simple statements, like ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I love you.’”

STAT reporter Elizabeth Cooney spotlights a new working paper by Profs. Martin Bazant and John Bush that explores the risk of airborne transmission of Covid-19. “Depending on ventilation, mask use, air filtration, and other variables, any indoor space may carry either low or high risk of transmission,” Bazant explains. 

CBS Boston reporter Juli McDonald spotlights how NASA's ORISIS-Rex spacecraft carried a key imagine instrument, designed and built by students from MIT and Harvard, on its mission to sample the surface of the asteroid Bennu. Prof. Richard Binzel, co-investigator for the mission, explains that, the device was developed to “measure the asteroid in X-ray light, which is part of the process of figuring out what the asteroid is made out of.”

Axios reporter Erica Pandey writes that a new working paper by MIT researchers explores the potential pitfalls posed by using algorithms to aid the hiring process. "Lots of companies have taken interest in using AI tools in the recruiting process," explains Prof. Danielle Li. "In that world, algorithms stand to have a big impact."

Bloomberg reporter Yalman Onaran writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds that Black homeowners pay more over the life of a home loan, hurting their ability to save for retirement. “The biggest reason for the gap is the risk-based pricing found in most U.S. mortgages, which disadvantage Black borrowers because they tend to make smaller down payments and have lower credit scores,” writes Onaran.

Axios reporter Bryan Walsh highlights how MIT researchers have developed a new solar-powered device that can extract drinkable water from the air and “could help alleviate water scarcity in some of the world's driest regions.” Walsh notes that the new design “makes use of a more common material called zeolite, doubling its capacity to generate water.”
 

Mashable reporter Emmet Smith spotlights how researchers from the MIT Media Matter Group have demonstrated how “silk can be harvested sustainably, using silkworms as active designers in the spinning of complex structures.”

A study co-authored by senior lecturer Richard Price explores the physics behind a spiraling football pass, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. “I went on to apply some pretty simple mathematics and do what physicists do," says Price. “Which is to try and throw away all of the irrelevant details and get the heart of something.”

Prof. Fadel Adib has created a new underwater device that not only broadcasts and receives sound, but is also powered by sound, reports The Economist. In the future, Adib and his colleagues hope the device could be used to “transmit information about water temperature, acidity and salinity.”

Researchers from MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future have released three new briefs that “explore the fragmented U.S. workforce training system for low- to moderate-skilled workers, as well as comparable programs in Europe,” writes Paul Fain for Inside Higher Ed. Fain notes that the briefs also examine “lessons from learning science and new technologies that could help make online education and workforce training more effective.”

MIT researchers have developed a solar-powered system that is able to extract drinkable water from dry air, reports Layal Liverpool for New Scientist. “In areas where water scarcity is a problem, it’s important to consider different technologies which provide water, particularly as climate change will exacerbate many water scarcity issues,” says graduate student Alina LaPotin.

Prof. Tonio Buonassisi writes for Indvstrvs about how businesses can use machine learning systems to help address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. “What has emerged through our research,” writes Buonassisi, “is a combination of automation, data science, and computation — building blocks that promise to accelerate the rate of new materials development tenfold, and eventually millions of times, faster.”

NBC News reporters Lindsay Hoffman and Caroline Kim spotlight graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s work uncovering racial and gender bias in AI systems in a piece highlighting women who are “shattering ceilings, making groundbreaking discoveries, and spreading public awareness during the global pandemic.” Hoffman and Kim note that Buolamwini’s research "helped persuade these companies to put a hold on facial recognition technology until federal regulations were passed.”

Third-year student Casey Johnson speaks with Washington Post reporter Luz Lazo about his work exploring the feasibility of using GPS technology to determine when a scooter is on the sidewalk. Lazo explains that Johnson wrote a “surface categorization algorithm to detect the periodic cracks in a sidewalk. He then added an accelerator sensor — which costs less than $1 — to detect when the scooter is being used on an asphalt road versus a concrete sidewalk.”