CNBC reporter Chloe Taylor writes that a study co-authored by MIT researchers examined Covid-19 antibody prevalence in Spain. The researchers found, “just 5% of participants presented with antibodies from point-of-care tests, while antibodies were detected in 4.6% of the blood samples.”
Axios reporter Erica Pandey writes that a study by Prof. Thomas Kochan underscores how the Covid-19 pandemic has uncovered longstanding shortcomings in worker power. "The key to going from isolated protests at a place like Amazon or Walmart to a force that’s really going to get the company to respond is the customer," says Kochan."Customers are the hidden source of power for workers."
WCVB reporter Jennifer Eagen highlights a new study by MIT researchers that indicates the actual number of Covid-19 cases could be much higher than official tallies. Prof. John Sterman explains that due to widespread inadequate testing, “the confirmed case count is too low. It misses many cases.”
Reporting for U.S. News & World Report, Robert Preidt highlights how a new study by MIT researchers finds the actual number of coronavirus cases worldwide may be 12 times higher than reported. “The scientists studied 84 of the most affected nations -- a total of more than 4.7 billion people -- and concluded that there were 88.5 million cases and 600,000 deaths as of June 18,” writes Preidt.
Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson speaks with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money about a new study that finds about half of the American workforce is now working remotely. Brynjolffson says he feels, "this portends a much bigger shift in the economy.”
MIT researchers have developed a new robotic system that uses a UV-C light fixture to disinfect surfaces at the Greater Boston Food Bank’s warehouse staging area, reports Matt Reed for WCVB. Research scientist Alyssa Pierson explains that the ultraviolet light "breaks apart the kind of outer incasing or shell of these pathogens."
MIT Press and the University of California at Berkeley are launching a journal that will offer peer reviews of Covid-19 research, reports Paul Baskin for Times Higher Education. “We want to align with what the research community is doing and what it wants,” says Amy Brand, director of MIT Press. “But we also want to build in more quality control and more accountability.”
Popular Mechanics reporter Caroline Delbert writes that MIT researchers are looking to “make molten salt reactors a little more practical by fine-tuning how they behave under extreme heat and pressure.”
A new study by MIT researchers explores how cellular guides in planarians appear to provide a roadmap for regeneration, reports Veronique Greenwood for The New York Times. Greenwood notes that the findings “may someday help scientists interested in helping humans regenerate injured neurons.”
MIT Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo as well as Prof. Michael Kremer of Harvard, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, will donate their $916,000 in prize money to the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics. “The donations will fund research grants that support the work of development economists and students through 2035,” reports Abbi Matheson for The Boston Globe.
Prof. Esther Duflo speaks with Molly Wood, host of the Marketplace Tech podcast, about the ways in which she uses artificial intelligence to enhance her poverty research. Machine learning allows researchers to pinpoint “where the program is the most effective, and therefore where a government with limited budget would want to expand it,” explains Duflo.
Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo speak with PBS NewsHour’s Paul Solman about their use of randomized control trials to address global poverty. “[T]hat's what the Duflo/Banerjee research is all about, trying to reduce the guesswork of economic development policy by seeing what seems to work, and what doesn't, at least in its current form,” explains Solman.
Principal research scientist Andrew Sutherland and a colleague at the University of Bristol have solved a decades-old math problem known as the “summing of the three cubes.” The team found the answer with the help of the platform the Charity Engine, “which utilizes idle, unused computing power from over 500,000 home PCs to create a crowdsourced and environmentally conscious supercomputer,” writes David Grossman for Popular Mechanics.
Ryan Mandelbaum writes for Gizmodo about the efforts of principal research scientist Andrew Sutherland and others to use a crowd-sourced supercomputer to solve a math problem that scientists have been working on since the 1950s. “You wait and wait and just when you’re at the point of giving up, the number shows up,” said Sutherland. “It’s very gratifying.”
MIT researchers have developed a skin patch that could be used to fight melanoma, reports Berkeley Lovelace Jr. for CNBC. “Our patch technology could be used to deliver vaccines to combat different infectious diseases,” explains Prof. Paula Hammond. “But we are excited by the possibility that the patch is another tool in the oncologists’ arsenal against cancer, specifically melanoma.”