CBS This Morning’s Dana Jacobson explores how MIT researchers are developing technology to enable robots to assist with disaster response, including a robotic cheetah and a system that 3-D prints robots. Prof. Russ Tedrake says that, “there's a natural transition from the robots in the labs now into the robots doing meaningful work.”
Times Higher Ed reporter Matthew Reisz writes about a new study by MIT research that provides evidence that physical proximity helps drive collaboration. Reisz explains that the “research also confirms the importance of designing academic buildings to encourage cross-disciplinary research.”
The Economist reviews Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee’s latest book, which examines how new digital technologies will impact businesses. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, “believe that the latest phase of computers and the internet have created three shifts in how work happens.”
MIT researchers have found that by 2050 climate change could deplete water basins and reduce crop yields, reports The Boston Globe’s Alyssa Meyers. If no action is taken to combat climate change, “numerous basins used to irrigate crops across the country will either start to experience shortages or see existing shortages ‘severely accentuated.’”
Forbes reporter Kevin Murnane writes about how MIT researchers have used a computer vision system to examine how several American cities physically improved or deteriorated over time. Murnane writes that the study “provides important support for nuanced versions of traditional theories about why urban neighborhoods change over time.”
Washington Post reporter Robert Samuelson highlights a study co-authored by Prof. David Autor that finds that new technologies can lead to productivity increases that often generate more jobs. Autor and his colleagues found that “every 10 percent gain in productivity resulted in a 2 percent gain in employment spread over four years.”
CSAIL researchers have developed drones that can drive and fly through a city-like setting, reports Gareth Mitchell for BBC News. The goal for this research is to have the vehicles “coordinate with each other and make intelligent decisions when they fly and drive,” says graduate student Brandon Araki.
A study by MIT researchers shows that physical proximity can increase collaboration, reports Colleen Flaherty for Inside Higher Ed. The researchers examined thousands of papers and patents stemming from MIT research and found that “paper collaborators in the same workspace were three times more likely to work together than those located 400 meters apart.”
In this Wired video, Adam Savage visits Prof. Neil Gershenfeld for a tour of the Center for Bits and Atoms. Savage explains that researchers at the Center for Bits and Atoms are working on developing the future of manufacturing, and “it’s not additive or subtractive, it’s biological. They are developing machines that can make machines that can make machines.”
Avantika Chilkoti of The New York Times assesses news coverage of the health care debate using Media Cloud, a platform that tracks online stories developed in part by researchers from the MIT Center for Civic Media. Since May, news about Russia and former FBI director James Comey “outstripped coverage of the health care bill on 30 of 67 days,” writes Chilkoti.
Prof. Ben Olken speaks with BBC News reporter Gareth Mitchell about how the cancellation of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes impacted traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia. Olken and his colleagues found that in addition to traffic substantially increasing in areas that previously had HOV lanes, without the carpool lanes, “traffic gets worse all over the city.”
UPI reporter Amy Wallace writes that MIT researchers have applied a computer vision system to help quantify the physical improvement of American neighborhoods. The researchers found that “density of highly educated residents, proximity to central business districts and other attractive areas, and the initial safety score assigned by the computer system are strongly related to improvements.”
The Washington Post Editorial Board highlights a paper co-authored by Prof. David Autor examining how technological advancements are impacting the labor market. Autor found that productivity growth associated with new technologies results in higher overall employment, but that job growth has been highly polarized. The study shows the need for societies to, “redouble their efforts to provide education and training.”
In an article about metal organic frameworks (MOFs), Max Opray of The Guardian highlights Prof. Evelyn Wang’s work developing a device that can extract water from the air. The transparent box developed by Prof. Wang and her team “delivers enough drinking water for a person’s daily needs,” explains Opray.
A study by MIT researchers shows that carpool lanes can help reduce a city’s traffic, reports Matt McFarland for CNN. The researchers found that the removal of HOV lanes increased driving times across Jakarta, Indonesia. "The magnitude was enormous and more than I would've expected," says Prof. Ben Olken.