In an article for Salon, Associate Prof. Noelle Eckley Selin and postdoc Sae Yun Kwon discuss their latest research, which examined emissions in China. They write that although mercury pollution is often associated with fish consumption, “China’s future emissions trajectory can have a measurable influence on the country’s rice methylmercury” levels, as well.
The Economist explores the basics of free trade, its benefits and downsides, with Prof. John Van Reenen. “With free trade, you come into more contact with foreign companies, new ideas, new people and so on,” explains Van Reenen. “That’s mutually beneficial. And it is a political force for cooperation.”
Eric Mack writes for Forbes about a new system from MIT researchers that uses GPS in conjunction with LIDAR and IMU sensors to power self-driving vehicle navigation. Graduate student Teddy Ort says the system “shows the potential of self-driving cars being able to actually handle roads beyond the small number that tech companies have mapped.”
Bucking conventional wisdom, research co-authored by Prof. Josh Tenenbaum shows that “picking up the subtleties of grammar in a a second language does not fade until well into the teens,” writes Dana G. Smith for Scientific American. “To become completely fluent, however, learning should start before the age of 10.”
MapLite, a new system developed by CSAIL, aims to help autonomous vehicles navigate uncharted areas, writes Jesus Diaz for Co.Design. “[I]f autonomous cars can reach the millions of people who live beyond the city and are unable to pilot their own vehicles,” said graduate student Teddy Ort, “they will be uniquely capable of providing mobility to those who have very few alternatives.”
MIT researchers have identified the brain circuit required for observational learning, reports Xinhua. According to the study, the area involved in evaluating social information is more active when witnessing an experience and “relays information about the experience” to the region important for processing emotions.
A new paper co-authored by Prof. Omer Yilmaz and Prof. David Sabatini found that fasting substantially “improves stem cells' ability to regenerate,” reports Xinhua. The researchers hope this finding could lead to new drug treatments that “stimulate regeneration without requiring patients to fast, which is difficult for most people.”
Alumni Keith Dionne and Frank Gentile, who met as graduate students in 1983, have launched a biotech company based on how cells detoxify and repair themselves, reports Jonathan Saltzman of The Boston Globe. Saltzman explains that by creating drugs to induce a process called autophagy, Dionne and Gentile hope to “help cells rid themselves of debris associated with diseases” like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
New research from Sloan finds that entrepreneurs in their 40s are more successful than those in their 20s, writes Amy Wilkinson for The Wall Street Journal. The researchers also show that older company founders “were 125% more successful if they were previously employed in the particular sector in which they were starting a new business,” explains Wilkinson.
Forbes contributor Frederick Daso describes the vision of two mechanical engineering alumni, Victoria Gregory and Gabriel Alba-Rivera, who co-founded Magis Industries, which develops consumer products based on viral social media trends. “Going forward,” writes Daso, “the team hopes to not only develop more products, but also continue to improve the process of product development itself.”
CNN’s Sophie Tatum reports that six scientists from the U.S., including a senior research scientist with MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, will join France’s new climate change initiative. The effort, notes Tatum, is meant to offer the international scientific community a chance to, “increase its efforts in battling climate change.”
NPR’s Laurel Wamsley speaks with Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media, about how to create a better social network. Zuckerman, reports Wamsley, thinks a decentralized structure is part of the answer and says the algorithm that sits behind the news feed is ripe for reinvention.
Assistant Prof. Lydia Bourouiba is highlighted in a documentary series that aims to inspire future generations of women in STEM. Producer Emily Driscoll writes in Scientific American that Bourouiba’s work studying droplets from sneezes and toilet flushes “could mean new designs for hospitals and our understanding of disease transmission.”
New research suggests “children are highly skilled at learning the grammar of a new language up until the age of 17 or 18, much longer than previously thought,” reports Kashmira Gander in Newsweek. “We may need to go back to the drawing board in trying to explain why adults have trouble learning language,” Joshua Hartshorne, who co-wrote the study as a postdoc at MIT, tells Gander.
Data USA, a website built by Associate Prof. César Hidalgo in collaboration with Deloitte and Datawheel, provides prospective college students with comprehensive data on U.S. universities, revealing “metrics on topics like the most popular degrees, the breakdown of faculty by gender, the student loan default rate, and the amount of federal funding universities receive,” writes Katharine Schwab for Co.Design.