Local biotech companies raised money to help MIT’s Bear Lab study Fragile X syndrome by competing in lawn games, writes Allison Hagan for The Boston Globe. The $30,000 raised provides “a very real chance at a success in this disease, and it’s going to have a much broader impact,” says Prof. Mark Bear.
A new demographic model proposed by researchers from MIT Sloan and Yale finds that there may be double the number of estimated undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S., reports Scott Lanman for Bloomberg. MIT Senior Lecturer Mohammad Fazel-Zarandi and Jonathan Feinstein and Edward Kaplan of Yale found that, “the widely accepted estimate of 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States is too small.”
Two months after its launch, the TESS satellite has already identified two new exoplanet candidates, reports Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. “The team is excited about what TESS might discover next,” explains Prof. Sara Seager, who is serving as the deputy science director for the mission.
New Scientist reporter Will Gater writes that the TESS satellite has found its first two exoplanets. “This is one of the first objects we looked at,” says MIT postdoctoral fellow Chelsea Huang of the discovery of an exoplanet about 60 light years away. “We were immediately saying ‘hey this is too good to be true!’”
New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye writes about how the TESS satellite has already identified at least 73 stars that might have exoplanets. “TESS is doing great,” says George Ricker, a senior research scientist at MIT who is leading the TESS mission. Ricker adds that the satellite is, “all that we could have wished for!”
The TESS satellite has identified two new exoplanets, reports Joey Roulette for Reuters. “We will have to wait and see what else TESS discovers,” says Prof. Sara Seager, who is serving as the TESS deputy science director. “We do know that planets are out there, littering the night sky, just waiting to be found.”
Boston Herald reporter Alexi Cohan highlights a new lab at MIT, led by Prof. Tyler Jacks, that will investigate how the immune system can be used to treat and manage pancreatic cancer. “In the long term we hope that the work that we are doing will help us diagnose the disease at even early stage and maybe even prevent it altogether,” Jacks explains.
Prof. John Leonard speaks with Bloomberg News about his work with the Toyota Research Institute on developing a system that combines machine learning technologies and sensors to make vehicles safer. “Imagine if you had the most vigilant and capably trained driver in the world that could take over in a situation where a teenager took a curve too fast,” says Leonard of the inspiration for the system.
Prof. C. Cem Tasan speaks with BBC News reporter Chris Baraniuk about the potential for self-healing metals. Baraniuk explains that Tasan and his team are “investigating metals containing tiny structures that resist crack growth in each stress cycle.”
The first image captured during the initial orbit of the MIT-developed TESS satellite shows thousands of stars in the Southern Sky, reports Brooks Hays for UPI. “Galaxies, globular clusters and thousands of stars can be found within the portrait of the Southern Sky. Hidden in the image are exoplanets,” writes Hays.
The MIT-developed TESS satellite has sent back its first batch of images of the southern sky from its quest to identify nearby exoplanets, reports writes Chris Ciacci for Fox News. Ciacci notes that the resulting images are “nothing short of incredible.”
Popular Mechanics reporter John Wenz writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers examines how lithium moves through batteries. The findings could be used to help build a smarter battery, including “designing selective transport channels, additional shielding on batteries, or a battery additive that would prevent against corrosion or the formation of hot spots.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Amy Finkelstein finds that bundling Medicare payments for procedures such as hip and knee replacements reduces the use of post-acute care by about 3 percent, reports Austin Frakt for The New York Times. Finkelstein explains that she examined the use of post-acute care as “it is an area where there is concern about overuse.”
Axios reporter Andrew Freeman writes that the TESS satellite has captured its first images of the southern sky. “This swath of the sky’s southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories,” explains MIT’s George Ricker, TESS’ principal investigator.
Writing for The Guardian, Jeff Nesbit highlights Prof. Kerry Emanuel’s research showing that climate change is increasing the risk of extreme storms. Nesbit explains that Emanuel found that the risk for extreme storms in Tampa, Cairns, and the Persian Gulf increased by up to a factor of 14 over time as Earth’s climate changed.