TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes that a team of researchers, including MIT scientists, have detected fast radio bursts (FRB) coming from a distant galaxy. Coldewey explains that the researchers used the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment radio telescope, which “points at the whole sky and chooses where to ‘look’ using software,” to identify 13 new FRBs.
MIT researchers have developed an inhalable form of messenger RNA that could be used to help treat patients with lung disease, reports Christopher Intagliata for Scientific American. Intagliata explains that researchers hope to one day “use this technique to help cystic fibrosis patients.”
Nature reporter Alexandra Witze highlights the TESS satellite’s success in uncovering new exoplanets outside our solar system. Senior research scientist George Ricker feels, “TESS works better than team members had dared to dream,” Witze writes, adding that “its four cameras can see objects 20% fainter, and focus more sharply, than originally expected.”
The Economist spotlights Prof. David Autor and graduate student Juliette Fournier’s research examining the economic prospects for Americans without college degrees. Autor and Fournier found that, “the earnings of workers without a college education have scarcely risen in 50 years, after adjusting for inflation; for men they have fallen. This stagnation coincided with tectonic changes in American employment.”
NASA’s MIT-led TESS mission has discovered a new exoplanet orbiting a star 53 light years from Earth, reports Mike Wall for Space.com. The “sub-Neptune” planet is “about three times bigger than Earth, which means it's likely gaseous rather than rocky,” writes Wall.
At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Prof. David Autor presented new research showing that middle-skill jobs for Americans without college degrees are becoming increasingly rare in dense areas, reports Jeanna Smialek and Peter Coy for Bloomberg News. “It’s not clear where the land of opportunity is for non-college adults,” says Autor.
CNN reporter Ashley Strickland writes that NASA’s planet-hunting satellite TESS has discovered another exoplanet 53 light years away. Strickland explains that the exoplanet orbits “a bright neighboring star in the Reticulum constellation, with a 36-day orbit and a surface temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit.”
NASA’s MIT-led TESS mission has discovered a new exoplanet that is about three times the size of Earth, reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. “There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time,” explains postdoctoral fellow Diana Dragomir. “But we were lucky, and we caught the signals, and they were really clear.”
Verge reporter Loren Grush writes that NASA’s MIT-led TESS mission has discovered a third exoplanet. “The important thing about this system that’s especially unique is it’s near to us,” says postdoc Diana Dragomir. “What that means simply is we can study this system in detail. We can measure the mass of the planet and measure things about the star.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Brian Gormley speaks with Dr. Leo Anthony Celi, a principal researcher scientist at IMES, who encourages hospitals to share electronic medical data on intensive care patients. “De-identified data from 60,000 such cases now are freely available in a database called Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care,” writes Gormley of Celi’s work. “Scientists regularly publish papers based on this repository.”
Prof. Aviv Regev speaks with NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce about her work with the Human Cell Atlas trying to catalogue every cell in the human body. “We don't need to analyze every individual cell out of 37 trillion because the cells kind of repeat themselves,” says Regev. “All we need to do is sample enough of them from enough region in order to get comprehensive coverage.”
TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey highlights how MIT researchers have found that tiny satellites, called CubeSats, equipped with lasers could help keep telescopes on track while they are gathering information in space. The light emitted from the lasers could allow satellites “to calculate their position and the minute changes to their imaging apparatus caused by heat and radiation.”
TechCrunch reporter John Biggs writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that allows users to reverse-engineer complex items by deconstructing objects and turning them into 3-D models. Biggs writes that the system is a “surprisingly cool way to begin hacking hardware in order to understand it’s shape, volume and stability.”
WCVB-TV’s Mike Wankum visits MIT to learn more about Prof. Nicholas Fang’s work developing a new film that can be coated on windows and can block up to 70 percent of incoming solar heat. Wankum explains that the film “could lead to a future with less need for air conditioning.”
A new study by MIT researchers shows that the Sahara desert and North Africa alternate between wet and dry conditions every 20,000 years, reports the Xinhua news agency. The researchers found that the “climatic pendulum was mainly driven by changes to the Earth's axis as the planet orbits the sun, which in turn affect the distribution of sunlight between seasons.”