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.
A study co-authored by Prof. Josh Tenenbaum finds that learning a new language should start before age 10 to achieve a native-like grasp of the grammar, reports BBC News. People remain highly skilled language learners until about 17 or 18, but then fall off, which Tenenbaum says could be due to “a biological change” or “something social or cultural.”
Led by graduate student Adam Haar Horowitz, researchers at the Media Lab have developed a device, known as Dormio, which aims to understand how humans can control the “semi-lucid” phase before sleep, called “hypnagogia,” reports Laura Yan for Popular Mechanics. "I have no doubt that Hypnagogia holds applications for augmenting memory, learning, and creativity,” says Haar Horowitz.
The Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group has developed a device “to influence and extend the semi-lucid sleep state called hypnagogia,” writes Jesus Diaz of Co.Design. Called Dormio, the system is a “first step towards creating interfaces that allow us to interact with our subconscious the same way we interact with our conscious mind,” explains Diaz.
Research by Prof. Susumu Tonegawa suggests that a specific region of the hippocampus plays a role in how memories can trigger a physical stress response, writes Fiona McMillan for Forbes. The findings, McMillan notes, are “providing new insight into the complex interplay between emotion, stress and memory.”
Researchers at the Tangible Media Group have developed “programmable droplets” of water that can be used to communicate words. “One potential application is a mirror that, when steamed, allows someone to display a message from a smartphone” writes Jesus Diaz for Co.Design. “The larger idea is to provoke surprise and delight, the way only the natural world can.”
NASA’s recently launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) “will spend the next two years scanning 200,000 stars looking for any exoplanets orbiting them,” explains New Scientist. In about two months, once the satellite is in orbit and its cameras are tested, “there’ll just be a flood of information,” says MIT’s George Ricker, the principal investigator on TESS.
Writing for The Verge, Angela Chen highlights advances in AI that are allowing researchers to discover and understand new materials at a rapid pace. Chen cites a study co-authored by Assistant Prof. Elsa Olivetti, who “developed a machine-learning system that scans academic papers to figure out which ones include instructions for making certain materials.”
Using several comparative models, a new study led by MIT researchers reveals that China’s pledge to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 could cut down on as many as 160,000 premature deaths. “Politically, the research confirms why Chinese officials have their own internal reasons to cut CO2 even though the U.S. is abandoning Paris and disengaging internationally on climate,” writes Ben Geman for Axios.