Research

Dr. Michael Hecht speaks with Meghna Chakrabarti of WBUR’s Radio Boston about NASA’s discovery of water on Mars. Hecht says that the discovery “opens up a whole new avenue for using what nature gives us on Mars to help us explore.” 

Boston Globe reporter Andrew Joseph writes about the public gallery at the Koch Center for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, which features a rotating selection of life-science images captured by scientists during their research. “Microscopic images are blown up into a work of art almost 8 feet across, sharing a view of science rarely seen outside the lab,” writes Joseph. 

Researchers from MIT, Philips and Boston Medical Center are collaborating on new technology to diagnose brain injuries, reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston. “The goal is to investigate whether ultrasound readers can help doctors assess the severity of a head injury,” Subbaraman writes. 

Washington Post reporter Rachel Feltman writes that MIT researchers have designed a new robotic hand with soft, 3-D printed fingers that can identify and lift a variety of objects. Prof. Daniela Rus explains that her group’s robotic hand operates in a way that is “much more analogous to what we do as humans."

Writing for Popular Science, Mary Beth Griggs reports on the soft robotic gripper developed by researchers at MIT CSAIL. “The silicone fingers are equipped with sensors that analyze the object they are touching and compare it to other items in its database,” Griggs writes. 

CNBC reporter Robert Ferris writes about how MIT researchers have developed a soft robotic hand that can identify and safely grasp delicate objects. Ferris explains that the researchers designed a “soft silicone ‘hand’ with embedded sensors that they can train to recognize different things.” 

MIT CSAIL researchers have developed a silicon gripper that allows robots to grasp a wide variety of items, reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston. Subbaraman explains that the hand expands “to accommodate a shape, and grasps radially – surrounding an object instead of picking it up with pincers.”

Prof. Heidi Williams, a 2015 MacArthur Fellow, speaks with Bloomberg’s John Tozzi about why drug companies are underinvesting in long-term research. Williams explains that there are “scientifically feasible projects that aren’t getting done because there aren’t sufficient incentives." 

The Broad Institute Foundry, a synthetic biology lab, has been awarded a new grant from DARPA to pursue research on engineering cells in an effort to “find better treatments for disease, make new biofuels, or create fabrics woven with life,” reports Alexandra Ossola for Popular Science. 

Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks with ABC News about the impact of constant connectivity on how people relate to one another in the digital age. “Before we had our phones, conversation was the way we satisfied our need for stimulation,” explains Turkle. Face-to-face conversation “lays the groundwork for empathy.”

MIT researchers have developed a new material that mimics the cuttlefish’s ability to change texture, reports Gian Volpicelli for Wired. "We used ordinary plastic," explains graduate student Mark Guttag. "The important thing was figuring out the right difference in stiffness between the matrix and particles." 

Boston Globe reporter Kathleen Burge speaks with Prof. Heidi Williams, a 2015 MacArthur fellow, about how she felt upon learning she had been honored by the MacArthur Foundation and her research examining technological change in the health care market. “It’s quite overwhelming to hear this news and to get that vote of support,” said Williams. 

Prof. Heidi Williams has been named a 2015 MacArthur “Genius” award winner, according to the Associated Press. Williams was honored for her research exploring, “the causes and consequences of innovation in health care markets.”

Alexandra Ossola writes for Popular Science that MIT researchers have found a molecule that could make the CRISPR gene-editing technique more precise. The new molecule “makes the editing process easier to control and could create new possibilities for how scientists can edit DNA in the future.”

Matt McFarland writes for The Washington Post about Prof. David Mindell’s new book, in which he argues that automation can take away from the enjoyment of working. “The most advanced (and difficult) technologies are not those that stand apart from people, but those that are most deeply embedded in, and responsive to, human and social networks,” Mindell explains.