Andrew Revkin writes for The New York Times about a compact design for a fusion reactor that could make fusion power a possibility within a decade. Revkin highlights how the research originated from an MIT course, writing, “it’s exciting to see academia integrating directly with innovation on this scale.”
Jamie Ducharme writes for Boston Magazine that MIT researchers are developing a biochemical sensor that could provide updates on cancerous tumors. The sensor “could be implanted in cancerous tissue during a patient’s first biopsy. After that, it would stay in the tissue and transmit data about the state of the tumor to an external device.”
Boston Globe reporter Kevin Hartnett writes that MIT researchers have shown it is impossible to create a faster version of the “edit distance” algorithm, which is used to compare the genomes of different species. Hartnett writes that the finding “has been greeted with something like relief among computer scientists.”
Kelsey Atherton of Popular Science reports on a system created by MIT researchers that allows robots to work in tandem to serve drinks. “This has uses beyond bartending,” writes Atherton. “MIT sees it as a potential system for hospitals or rescue work.”
A. T. Oxford of the Economist reviews “Why Information Grows” by Prof. César Hidalgo, in which he argues that economic growth is tied to the growth of information. “In his research, Mr Hidalgo’s used nifty techniques in statistical physics and network theory to shine a light on the diversity of production across countries,” Oxford explains.
MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm that allows robots to work together to efficiently serve drinks, Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston. Subbaraman explains that the technique provides a “smarter approach to collaboration, preparing for possible missteps like dropping a bottle, or picking up the wrong one.”
In a Boston Globe article about the high level of patent activity in Massachusetts, Emeralde Jensen-Roberts highlights MIT postdoctoral fellow Keith Hearon’s work developing a new type of biodegradable styrofoam, which he is patenting. “Now in the development phase, Hearon believes the citrus plastic with styrofoam has vast potential for larger-scale applications, thanks to its strength.”
“Google And Massachusetts Institute of Technology have figured out a way to remove those annoying reflections and other image obstructions, including fences and rain drops, from photos,” writes Nitya Rajan for The Huffington Post. The algorithm uses a short video to separate the foreground and background of an image.
Kim Yi Dionne writes for The Washington Post about Professor Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga’s book ‘Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe’: In it, Mavhunga “paints a vivid picture of hunting in Zimbabwe from the pre-colonial period to the present as he demonstrates how innovation is driven by ordinary people.”
Professor Edward Gibson speaks on Huffington Post Live about his research, which indicates that all human languages share a common link. “It turns out that across all languages people tend to put the words that go together to make the bigger phrases close together linearly in the sentences,” said Gibson.
LJ Rich reports for The BBC on an algorithm created by MIT and Google researchers that can remove reflections and obstructions from images. “The technique separates the foreground from the background using frames from a short video,” explains Rich.
“MIT PhD student Abe Davis has developed video technology that reveals an object’s hidden properties,” writes Joanna Goodman for The Guardian. “Davis uses high-speed silent video to capture and reproduce sound, including music and intelligible speech, from the vibrations it makes on inanimate objects.”
Dave Gershgorn writes for Popular Science about an algorithm created by MIT and Google researchers that can remove obstructions from photos: “[T]he algorithm detects what obstruction is in the foreground,” writes Gershgorn, “then replaces the space that would be missing, when the foreground and backgrounds layers are separated, with pixels from the other photos.”
“Researchers at MIT and Google have created an algorithm that uses multiple images taken from different angles to separate foreground obstacles from the subject that's in the background,” writes Lucy Perkins for NPR. The algorithm can be used to remove unwanted reflections from photos.
Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times writes about Professor Amy Finkelstein’s survey of low-income Oregonians in which she determined that those given access to Medicaid spent more on healthcare than the uninsured. “There’s overwhelming evidence from our study and others that when you cover people with health insurance, they use more health care,” said Finkelstein.