Research

In response to a reader’s question about self-driving cars, Mercury News reporter Gary Richards describes new technology in the works by MIT researchers to allow, “driverless cars to change lanes more like human drivers do.”

Researchers from a number of universities, including MIT, have developed a new refillable, implantable device that can deliver drugs to the heart tissue to help treat a heart attack, reports Xinhua. "After a heart attack we could use this device to deliver therapy to prevent a patient from getting heart failure," explains Prof. Ellen Roche.

Xinhua reports that MIT engineers have developed a new method of harvesting water from industrial cooling towers that could decrease the operating cost of power plants. Eventually the new method could also be used to harvest, “safe drinking water for coastal cities where seawater is used to cool local power plants.”

In an article published by Wired, Jordana Cepelewicz highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Earl Miller that examines the capacity limit for the human brain’s working memory. Cepelewicz explains that the research, “not only provides insights into memory function and dysfunction, but also offers further evidence for a burgeoning theory of how the brain processes information.”

WCVB reporter Mike Wankum visits the Camera Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab to learn more about a device that uses photon imaging to see through dense fog. Wankum explains that the device can, “calculate how fog typically reflects laser light and then removes the fog from the equation, revealing an image hidden inside.”

Writing for IEEE Spectrum, David Wagman spotlights a new technology from MIT researchers that could offer water-scarce cities, “a new source of the precious resource” by capturing and reusing water from cooling towers. Prof. Kripa Varanasi notes that their system, “can achieve on the order of 99 percent efficiency,” in capturing the water droplets.

MIT researchers have developed a system that captures water from power plant cooling towers, writes Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Finucane explains that, “the captured water would be pure, distilled water and could be piped to a city’s water system or it could be used in the power plant’s boilers, which, unlike the cooling system, require clean water.”

MIT researchers developed an electrically charged fog collector that can attract and collect more water droplets than a regular fog harvester, writes Matt Simon for Wired. The technology could eventually be used to recover water from power plant cooling towers where it can, “capture the plumes and collect that water,” explains Prof. Kripa Varanasi.

In an article for The Verge, Angela Chen highlights a new technique developed by MIT researchers to harvest water from fog. In the future, the researchers hope to place the harvesters, “near cooling plumes to collect and reuse water that would otherwise be lost.”

Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with Lisa Mullins of WBUR’s All Things Considered about investing in biotech. Lo explains that, “if we can use finance to reduce the risk, we will actually be able to bring lots more capital into the industry and be able to get therapies to patients faster.”

NBC Mach reporter Tom Metcalfe writes that MIT researchers are developing autonomous boats that could be used to ferry goods and people and could help ease traffic congestion. “We believe that with fleets of very agile autonomous boats we can offload some street traffic onto the waterways,” explains Prof. Daniela Rus.

Fast Company reporter Adele Peters writes that MIT researchers have developed a system that captures large amounts of water from the cooling towers used on power plants and data centers. Prof. Kripa Varanasi explains that he hopes this new technology can be used to address water scarcity: “We are thinking of each of these cooling towers as water farms.”

Co.Design reporter Jesus Diaz writes that MIT researchers have developed a new technique to 3-D print photorealistic representations of objects. Diaz explains that this could have significant potential in education and scientific visualization: “While you can look at a 3D representation of data in virtual or augmented reality, looking at a real physical model is an experience that is hard to beat.”

CNBC reporter Thomas Catenacci writes that researchers at the MIT Design Lab are collaborating with Puma to develop a new shoe made with bacteria that can react to how the wearer is feeling. They presented their ‘biodesigns’ at Milan Design Week, notes Catenacci, explaining that the shoe’s material can learn “a user's specific heat patterns and opens up ventilation based on those user-specific heat patterns.”

To prove that the data used to train machine learning algorithms can greatly influence its behavior, MIT researchers input gruesome and violent content into an AI algorithm, writes Benjamin Fearnow for Newsweek. The result is “Norman,” an AI system in which “empathy logic simply failed to turn on,” explains Fearnow.