Using the James Webb Telescope, researchers at MIT and elsewhere are studying the potential presence of “an Earth-like atmosphere on an exoplanet for the first time,” reports Jacopo Prisco for CNN. “The planet is part of a planetary system about 40 light-years away from Earth called TRAPPIST-1,” explains Prisco.
Gizmodo reporter Gayoung Lee writes that MIT researchers created “lab quakes” or miniature versions of earthquakes in a controlled setting and found that “anywhere between 68 and 98% of the energy goes into generating heat around a quake’s epicenter.” The findings “could help inform the creation of a physical model for earthquake dynamics or seismologists’ efforts to pick out regions most vulnerable to earthquakes.”
Prof. Rosalind Picard speaks with Bloomberg reporters Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec about technological advancements in wearable technology and how advances in the field could positively impact women’s healthcare. “The opportunities are huge for health with wearables and especially for women’s health,” says Picard. “There are so many conditions that are different for women than for men, and they’re not only vastly understudied but the kind of data is very under sampled.”
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science, joins Bob McDonald of CBC’s “Quirks & Quarks” to discuss how 10 years after LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves the observatories are still “helping scientists better understand the life cycles of stars, the nature of gravity, and transforming the way we explore the farthest reaches of space.” Mavalvala shares: "Scientists have been able to design and construct these instruments that are capable of measuring imperceptibly small changes in spacetime distance, and in the past 10 years the sensitivity of these instruments has improved. That’s what is allowing us to make greater discoveries.”
Writing for The New York Times, Dennis Overbye celebrates the 10-year anniversary of LIGO’s first direct detection of gravitational waves, underscoring how LIGO has advanced our understanding of the universe’s cosmic history. The first detection was a discovery that “changed astrophysics, opening a window onto previously inaccessible realms of nature in which space could rip, bend, puff up, crumple and even vanish,” writes Overbye. The late Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, who dreamed up the idea for LIGO, said of LIGO’s first detection in September 2015: “It was waving hello. It was amazing. The signal was so big, I didn’t believe it.”
Visiting Scholar Ariel Ekblaw SM '17, PhD '20 co-founded Rendezvous Robotics, a space infrastructure company developing new space technology, reports Aria Almalhodaei for TechCrunch. “The company is commercializing a technology called ‘tesserae,’ flat-packed modular tiles that can launch in dense stacks and magnetically latch to form structures on orbit,” writes Almalhodaei. “With a software command, the tiles are designed to unlatch and rearrange themselves when the mission changes.”
Researchers at MIT have developed the first full map of the quantum landscape that constrains how electrons move inside matter, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The map “offers a new way to understand and design materials, perhaps leading to, for instance, super-efficient wires that conduct electricity with no resistance,” Padavic-Callaghan explains. “A new view of what actually happens inside materials is bound to lead to new ways to improve them.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a new self-assembling battery material that could help combat growing concerns about EV battery waste, reports Grace Snelling for Fast Company. The new method “makes it much easier to separate [battery] component parts, leaving them ready for recycling,” writes Snelling.
Gizmodo reporter Gayoung Lee writes that scientists from the sPHENIX Collaboration, including MIT physicists, announced that the sPHENIX detector passed a “standard candle” test with “flying colors, correctly catching and measuring the energy level of colliding gold ions traveling close to the speed of light.” Lee notes that: “Passing the test bodes well for the detector’s future,” explaining that the detector was designed to precisely measure products of high-speed particle collisions. “The sPHENIX detector is like a ‘giant 3D camera’ tracking the number, energy, and paths of particles generated by a single collision.”
Researchers at MIT have found that generative AI “not only repeats the same irrational tendencies of humans during the decision making process but also lacks some of the positive traits that humans do possess,” reports Tamsin Gable for Forbes. “This led the researchers to suggest that AI cannot replace many tasks and that human expertise remains important,” adds Gable.
Inspired by a scene in Harry Potter, researchers at MIT have developed a new self-assembling battery material that could one day serve as an “easy-to-recycle alternative for manufacturing EV batteries,” reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. Notably, the process doesn’t require the harsh chemical and thermal conditions that make EV battery recycling so difficult, offering promising opportunities for recycling the batteries at scale.”
Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi speaks with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about her work uncovering issues with bias and trustworthiness in medical AI systems. “I love developing AI systems,” says Ghassemi. “I’m a professor at MIT for a reason. But it’s clear to me that naive deployments of these systems, that do not recognize the baggage that human data comes with, will lead to harm.”
In a video for CNN, graduate student Alex Kachkine explains his work developing a method using AI to create a reversible polymer film that could be used to restore damaged oil paintings, making the process faster than manual restoration. Kachkine explains that he hopes his work helps “get more paintings out of storage and into public view as there are many paintings that are damaged that I would love to see and it’s a real shame that there aren’t the resources necessary to restore them.”
Provost Anantha Chandrakasan speaks with Lavina Melwani of The Week about how his mother’s work ethic and energy helped inspired his career, how his formative experiences in education showed him the importance of persistence, and his goals as provost of MIT. Chandrakasan notes that he hopes to enable MIT researchers to continue making “extraordinary contributions and impact, whether it is in scholarship, educational innovation or entrepreneurship. My role is to promote excellence in academics, research and entrepreneurship, and I would like to deliver on the promise of enabling excellence.”
Graduate student Alex Kachkine speaks with New York Times reporter Ephrat Livni about his work creating a new AI technique for restoring paintings, and how his research on microchips helped inspire the development. Microchips “require very high degrees of precision,” Kachkine explains. “And it turns out a lot of the techniques we use to achieve that level of precision are applicable to art restoration.” Kachkine adds that he hopes conservators will be able to “leverage the benefits” of the techniques he gleaned from engineering to preserve “really valuable cultural heritage.”