MIT researchers have developed a device that captures pollution emitted from a car’s tailpipe, and turns it into high-quality ink, reports Melissa Lott for Scientific American. “A typical ballpoint pen holds about 0.25 milliliters of ink – meaning that one vehicle can produce almost 3 pens worth of ink per minute,” explains Lott.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Hannah Furfaro highlights Treepedia, an online tool developed by researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab, that analyses tree cover in cities around the world. “Street greenery is a really important part of the urban environment,” explains postdoctoral fellow Xiaojiang Li.
MIT researchers have developed a device that draws water from the air using solar power, writes David Morris for Fortune. The device could serve as a possible solution for regions facing issues with water access, and “could unleash massive growth in regions where it’s still a problem, both at home and abroad,” concludes Morris.
Joe Palca of NPR reports on a device developed by researchers from MIT and the University of California at Berkeley that uses a new technique to extract water from the air. Palca explains that the device uses “less power and works in drier environments,” than other technologies designed to turn water vapor into drinking water.
STAT reporter Eric Boodman writes that MIT researchers have engineered living materials that glow when they detect certain chemicals. Boodman notes that the researchers hope the living sensors “could at some point be used to pick up dangerous toxins or the chemical signs of disease.”
TIME reporter Alice Park writes that MIT researchers have modified the CRISPR gene-editing system so that it could be used to diagnose disease. Park explains that the researchers, “used CRISPR to recognize specific substances that bacteria and viruses make. Picking up even the slightest whisper of these products can alert doctors that an infection is active.”
Vincent Fish, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory, speaks with Hannah Osborne of Newsweek about the first attempt to capture an image of a black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope. “What we expect to see is an asymmetric image where you have a circular dark region,” says Fish. “That’s the black hole shadow.”
A device co-developed by Prof. Evelyn Wang can remove water vapor from the air, producing almost 3 liters of water a day, writes Robert Service for Science. The device could eventually be used to provide homes in the driest parts of the world with “a solar-powered appliance capable of delivering all the water they need, offering relief to billions of people.”
Prof. Evelyn Wang and her colleagues have developed a device that can remove water from the air, writes Sam Lemonick for Forbes. “The technology could be a boon to people living in arid regions or places where there is extreme drought,” writes Lemonick.
MIT researchers have developed a new technique that uses the CRISPR gene-editing system to diagnose diseases, reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post. Achenbach explains that the tool could potentially be used to “detect not only viral and bacterial diseases but also potentially for finding cancer-causing mutations.”
Newsweek reporter Hannah Osborne writes that researchers from MIT and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a device that can extract drinking water from the air using power generated by sunlight. “Because this device is passive you can really reach out to remote areas that don’t have infrastructure,” explains Prof. Evelyn Wang.
Simon Makin of Scientific American writes that MIT researchers have discovered the brain uses a complimentary memory system that simultaneously creates and stores both long and short-term memories. “There is a division of labor. The hippocampus can form active memories very quickly, while the cortex takes care of long-term stability,” explains Prof. Susumu Tonegawa.
Astronomers are using data gathered by telescopes around the world to develop the first image of a black hole, according to the AFP. “All the data -- some 500 terabytes per station -- will be collected and flown on jetliners to the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, where it will be processed by supercomputers.”
A study co-authored by Visiting Assistant Prof. Maria Loumioti finds that male bonding between loan officers and customers often leads to poor loan outcomes, reports Suzanne Woolley for Bloomberg. This feeling of common identity creates a sense of trust simply because “you identify yourself through this bond,” says Loumioti.
In this CBS News Sunday Morning segment, Prof. David Autor speaks with David Pogue about the impact of automation on employment. Autor notes that while in the “last 200 years, we’ve had an incredible amount of automation…this has not in net reduced the amount of employment.”