This video produced by The Wall Street Journal examines new research by MIT scientists showing how the soft palate plays a key role in the transmission of the flu. “The discovery should help scientists better understand the characteristics of flu viruses that have the ability to travel through the air.”
MIT researchers have developed a website that displays information on how people use their cellphones in different neighborhoods and times, reports Kevin Hartnett for The Boston Globe. Prof. Carlo Ratti explains that the data says, “a lot about how we live and how our cities work.”
Prof. Matthew Evans speaks with New Scientist reporter Joshua Sokol about the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Evans relates that while every generation has told their students that they will detect gravitational waves, “I tell my grad students this, and I think it’s really true.”
Prof. Carlo Ratti speaks with Catherine Lawson of Wired about the future of technologies and cities. “I think that we should focus more on design,” says Ratti. “Design is the best way not to predict the future, but to help create it.”
A new study co-authored by Prof. Jonathan Gruber found that while Quebec’s low-cost child-care system may help children academically, students who participate in the program may “have worse outcomes when it comes to health, life satisfaction and crime rates,” reports Jordan Press for The Huffington Post.
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about Innovation Teams (“iTeams”), an MIT program that helps students commercialize products out of lab technologies. “When it comes to emerging tech — the brand-new stuff that’s published in journals… sometimes the path to market isn’t what the researchers envisioned when they built it. iTeams wants to give the hard stuff a chance,” explains Subbaraman.
Prof. Ramesh Raskar is leading the development of a new platform aimed at maintaining order and calm during the Kumbh Mela festival, the AP reports. "We want to see how we can take this amazing challenge in crowds and food and security and housing and transportation ... and see how we can make this a tech-savvy Kumbh Mela,” says Raskar.
During a visit to MIT, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker stressed the need for government investment in research, reports Jeff Engels for Xconomy. “Our investment in R&D in this country is flat since, I think, 1980. It’s actually quite concerning at a time when the rest of the world, as you said, is not standing still,” said Pritzker.
CNBC’s Robert Ferris reports that researchers at MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital have devised a new method to create 3-D heart models. The new technique allows doctors to 3-D print replicas of a patient’s heart within 24 hours, making it practical for hospital use, Ferris explains.
Researchers at MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital are developing a new technique to convert images from MRI scans into physical models of the human heart, writes Lindsay Kalter for The Boston Herald. “This can definitely impact clinical practice in terms of helping surgeons plan more efficiently,” explains graduate student Danielle Pace.
“Researchers from MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital say they’ve come up with a better, faster way to build heart models,” writes Barb Darrow for Fortune. The team has devised a method for 3-D printing model hearts from MRI scans that takes three to four hours compared to the 10 hours typically required using current methods.
Graduate student Eric Arndt discusses his research on the bombardier beetle’s ability to produce a boiling-hot stream of liquid on the PBS program SciTech Now. “Insects, as it turns out, are very good material scientists,” explains Arndt. “Just studying these fundamental systems has the possibility of opening up all kinds of doors in all kinds of industries.”
Bourree Lam reports for The Atlantic on an interactive map of U.S. counties produced using Prof. Amy Glasmeier’s Living Wage Calculator. “Glasmeier says that firms can use it to estimate how to pay their employees fairly,” writes Lam.
In an Atlantic article about how Zappos has implemented a system of self-governance, Jerry Useem speaks with Prof. Thomas Malone about how falling information costs allow for different organizational structures. “There comes a time when it’s economically feasible to bring information to all points, so in some sense, everyone can know everything,” says Malone.
Ana Swanson reports for The Washington Post on an interactive map created by Prof. Amy Glasmeier that displays the gap between minimum wages and living wages across the U.S. The map shows that the East Coast “is one of the most challenging places for minimum-wage workers to make ends meet.”