Prof. Edward Boyden has been honored as one of the recipients of the Breakthrough Prize, reports Sarah McBride for Reuters. Boyden is being recognized for his work “developing and implementing optogenetics,” writes McBride, which could open “a new path to treatments for Parkinson’s, depression, Alzheimer’s and blindness.”
Writing for Scientific American, Simon Makin explores the many applications of optogenetics, a tool developed by Prof. Edward Boyden, for which he was recently honored with a Breakthrough Prize. Makin explains that, “researchers have devised ways of broadening optogenetics to enter into a dynamic dialogue with the signals moving about inside functioning brains.”
Tina Casey reports for Popular Science that several MIT researchers have been honored with Breakthrough Prizes. Casey writes that Prof. Edward Boyden was honored for his work creating optogenetics, Prof. Joseph Formaggio and his team were honored for their research on neutrinos, and Profs. Larry Guth and Liang Fu won New Horizons Prizes.
In an article for The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about Prof. Feng Zhang and his work with CRISPR. Specter writes that Zhang was first inspired to pursue a career in science when he attended Saturday morning molecular biology classes as a middle school student. Zhang recalls that the class, “really opened my imagination.”
STAT reporter Sharon Begley profiles Prof. Feng Zhang. Begley writes that Zhang’s “discoveries could finally bring cures for some of the greatest causes of human suffering, from autism and schizophrenia to cancer and blindness.”
In an article for The Tech, Vivian Zhong writes about progress on MIT.nano. Prof. Vladimir Bulovic and Travis Wanat, senior project manager, explain that MIT.nano will make MIT “a much more effective place for all of us to be more productive … meeting the needs of the social structure of the campus that engages … our everyday research.”
Ryan Duffy reports for The Huffington Post on research scientist Caleb Harper’s food computer, designed to improve food-production efficiency. "The math is simple and staggering: we need to produce at least 50 percent more food to feed nine billion people by 2050," explains Duffy.
MIT spinoff C2Sense has developed a chip that gives computers a sense of smell and could be used to detect spoiling food, reports Klint Finley for Wired. The company’s goal is to make “wireless sensor chips so cheap that they could be built into a product’s packaging.”
In this video, Jim Drury of Reuters examines the new system developed by MIT researchers that enables drones to map and successfully navigate a new landscape.
In this video, BBC News reporter Stephen Beckett speaks with Prof. Dina Katabi about a new system her group developed that can track people through walls using wireless signals. “It’s using these very low-power signals, sending them, and observing the reflection of the body through the wall,” explains Prof. Dina Katabi.
Washington Post reporter Matt McFarland writes about graduate student Andrew Barry’s work developing a system that allows drones to successfully navigate obstacles. McFarland writes, “the work is significant because it shows a drone avoiding obstacles in an area that hasn’t been previously mapped.”
MIT researchers have developed a detection system that allows a drone to navigate obstacles while flying at speeds of 30 mph, writes Barb Darrow for Fortune. Darrow explains that the research is aimed at mitigating “the risk of using potentially very useful technology not just for package delivery but for building or land inspections, journalism, even fire fighting.”
Graduate student Andrew Barry has created software that allows a self-piloting drone to dodge obstacles at 30 miles per hour, reports Robert Ferris for CNBC. “The software, which is open source and available for free online, runs 20 times faster than existing navigational software,” reports Ferris.
Alyssa Newcomb reports for ABC News on a system developed by graduate student Andrew Barry that allows drones to avoid obstacles. Newcomb explains that the system, "operates at 120 frames per second and is able to extract depth information at a speed of 8.3 milliseconds per frame."
MIT researchers “demonstrated that a drone can zip through a maze of trees at 30 miles per hour swerving past obstacles in its way. The craft was able to do this using a stereo-vision algorithm that rapidly detects and avoids objects immediately in front of the craft,” reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston.