NBC News reporter Maggie Fox writes that MIT researchers have developed a stretchy, wet bandage that can deliver medications. The device could “carry a thermometer to continuously measure skin temperature, or tiny devices to keep an eye on blood sugar levels for someone with diabetes.”
Anne Fisher reports for Fortune on a new paper co-authored by Senior Lecturer Don Sull that found that a large number of senior managers at major corporations do not know their companies’ priorities. “Among senior managers directly involved in setting their companies’ objectives, only about half could identify them,” writes Fisher.
Chris Sweeney reports for Boston Magazine that Prof. Cynthia Breazeal’s lab is participating in a new National Institutes of Health program aimed at examining how social robots can improve health and wellness. “The NIH wants to see if Breazeal’s creations can help ‘inspire curiosity’ and teach ‘the importance of hard work and determination’ to school-aged children,” writes Sweeney.
BBC News reporter Michelle Roberts writes that MIT researchers have fine-tuned the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system to make it safer and more accurate. This development is "vital if it [CRISPR] is to be used in humans to cure inherited diseases or inborn errors,” explains Roberts.
In an article for the Financial Times, Martin Sandbu argues that renewable energy should be seen as an opportunity for investment, highlighting an MIT report on renewable energy costs. The report documents the “extraordinary fall in renewable electricity generation costs and the good reason to expect them to continue to fall.”
Nancy Szokan of The Washington Post reviews Prof. Thomas Levenson’s new book “The Hunt For Vulcan.” “At heart, this is a story about how science advances, one insight at a time,” writes Szokan. “But the immediacy, almost romance, of Levenson’s writing makes it almost novelistic.”
On NPR’s All Things Considered, Prof. Thomas Levenson speaks about his book on the 50-year search for a non-existent planet, an example, he explains, of how science really works. “It takes a great leap of the imagination to get from what you really know you know to the wacky thing that turns out to be more true.”
Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks with Jeffrey Brown of the PBS NewsHour about her book, which explores how technology is impacting relationships. Turkle argues that people need to put down their phones and talk to each other “because it’s in conversation…that empathy is born, that intimacy is born, that relationship is born.”
Writing for Fortune, Prof. Zeynep Ton highlights a new trend among American companies to open on Thanksgiving in an effort to get an early jump on Black Friday. “This is a rotten break for employees forced to work while the rest of the family gathers together,” writes Ton.
Research scientist Caleb Harper speaks with Steph Yin of Popular Science about his work developing personal food computers, and the vegetables he grew for Thanksgiving using this technology with students in Boston-area schools. Harper says that food computers can help “kids understand the production of food.”
In an article for New Scientist, Anna Nowogrodzki writes that MIT researchers have developed a device that allows users to answer the phone with a kick of their foot. “The system’s algorithm analyses the foot’s motion and transmits the information via Bluetooth to your phone,” writes Nowogrodzki.
Postdoctoral fellow Steve Ramirez speaks with Bob Seay, host of WGBH’s Morning Edition, about his work with memory manipulation, which could be helpful for patients with PTSD or Alzheimer’s. Ramirex explains that his research shows the proof of principle “that we can go in and isolate one memory in the brain.”
Erica Klarreich writes for Quanta Magazine about how researchers have solved a 50-year-old math problem posed by MIT Prof. Emeritus Isadore Singer and his colleague Prof. Richard Kadison. The Kadison-Singer problem asked “how much it is possible to learn about a 'state' of a quantum system if you have complete information about that state in a special subsystem.”
MIT researchers have examined how droplets are formed in high-propulsion sneeze clouds, according to CBS Boston. “Droplets are not all already formed and neatly distributed in size at the exit of the mouth, as previously assumed in the literature,” explains Prof. Lydia Bourouiba.
Prof. Lydia Bourouiba has modeled how droplets are formed after a person sneezes, reports Jonathan Webb for BBC News. “The process is important to understand because it determines the various sizes of the final droplets - a critical factor in how a sneeze spreads germs,” writes Webb.