In an article for Wired, Kevin Hartnett examines Prof. Scott Sheffield’s work studying geometric randomness. “You take the most natural objects—trees, paths, surfaces—and you show they’re all related to each other,” Sheffield explains. “And once you have these relationships, you can prove all sorts of new theorems you couldn’t prove before.”
In an article for The New York Times, Kate Murphy highlights Prof. Alex “Sandy” Pentland’s study that analyzes whether perceived friendships are mutual. The study found that feelings of friendship “were mutual 53 percent of the time while the expectation of reciprocity was pegged at 94 percent.”
During a Financial Times podcast, Prof. Heidi Williams speaks about her work studying the impact of patent policy and technology on medical research and health care. Williams explains that her work focuses on the role patents and policies play in developing "the medical technologies that are most beneficial to patients.”
MIT researchers have developed what they believe to be the toughest English-language tongue twister, writes Justin Kitch for The Huffington Post. The tongue twister “pad kid poured curd pulled cold” is difficult to say because “it’s an example of alternating repetition, where consonant sounds are repeated at the beginnings of every other word,” Kitch explains.
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Akst writes that MIT researchers have found that our musical tastes are culturally instilled. The researchers played consonant and dissonant chords from members of a remote Amazonian tribe and found that “they had no preference for one sound over the other—unlike the large majority of North Americans and Europeans, who prefer consonance.”
MIT researchers have outlined a new way of developing a lithium-oxygen battery that would increase the battery’s energy efficiency and longevity, according to The Economist. “In trials which discharged and recharged the battery 130 times, it lost less than 2% of its capacity,” The Economist notes.
Science reporter Adrian Cho profiles Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, exploring everything from his decades-long dedication to the search for gravitational waves to his reputation as a mentor. Prof. Emeritus Robert Birgeneau notes that Weiss was respected for “his passion and his courage in going after really important physics.”
MIT researchers have developed a portable system that could produce biotech drugs on demand, reports Lisa Rapaport for Reuters. “The table-top machine has the potential to one day produce proteins to treat any number of a wide range of conditions like cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, and hemophilia,” writes Rapaport.
Graduate student Max Opgenoord and MIT senior Sara Volz are featured in The Improper Bostonian’s list of 25 rising stars, age 25 and under. Opgenoord was honored for his work on the MIT Hyperloop team, and Volz was noted for her work experimenting with algae as a sustainable fuel source.
Prof. Susan Lindquist has been named a recipient of the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, according to the AP. Lindquist’s research has raised hopes that “treatments could prevent protein ‘misfolding’ that drives degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease.”
Alyssa Newcomb writes for NBC News that MIT researchers have developed a system that allows users to interact with virtual objects. Newcomb explains that the “technology could be used to make movies or even by engineers wanting to find out how an old bridge may respond to inclement weather.”
CSAIL researchers have created a tool that allows people to interact with videos, writes Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. The technique could “make augmented reality animations integrate even more with the 'reality' part of augmented reality, help engineers model how structures will react when different forces are applied, or as a less expensive way to create special effects.”
A portable device developed by MIT researchers uses programmable yeast to create drugs on demand, reports Jamie Ducharme for Boston Magazine. The device “could be a lifesaver for doctors working in vulnerable conditions, such as the battlefield, a remote village, or even an ambulance,” writes Ducharme.
Prof. Polina Anikeeva speaks with Cory Johnson of Bloomberg West about the emerging field of bioelectronics. Concerning future applications of bioelectronics, Anikeeva says that she thinks “we will start seeing more and more devices coming in and being implanted into various parts of the nervous system to treat disorders we haven’t even thought of before as neurological.”
MIT researchers have developed a programmable vaccine that could be used to respond to disease outbreaks, reports Ben Gruber for Reuters. The vaccine harnesses “messenger RNA, a genetic material that can be programmed to fight any viral, bacterial or parasitic disease by provoking an amplified immune response.”