“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.
Rob Britton writes for The Huffington Post about a new paper by Professor Bill Swelbar on the high subsidies provided to several Gulf airlines by their governments: Swelbar argues that “massive subsidies provided to Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, are harming airline service to and from small and medium-sized communities.”
“Researchers at the Camera Culture Group, headed by Ramesh Raskar at the MIT Media Lab, have designed the eyeSelfie, an inexpensive hand-held device for taking a photograph of the retina,” writes Vijee Venkatraman for BetaBoston. Retinal monitoring has been shown to help identify a variety of diseases and risk factors.
Megan Turchi writes for Boston.com about ‘The Good Jobs Score,’ a method for evaluating food retailers based on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and productivity, developed by Professor Zeynep Ton. Ton hopes “the score will bring attention to some of the drivers of success that are rarely included in annual reports.”
Graduate students Sydney Do and Andrew Owens will debate Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp at a convention celebrating the red planet this month, writes Steve Annear for The Boston Globe: “Do, Owens, and other MIT researchers released a paper in October questioning the Mars One mission design and practicality.”
A slideshow compiled by Boston.com highlights “some of the faces and places” from MIT’s history. The slideshow features historic images of campus, research projects, sporting and student events, and more.
Prof. John Ochsendorf speaks with Kara Miller of WGBH's Innovation Hub about what architects can learn from the design of ancient buildings. “In many climates around the world, architecture developed specifically to its climate,” says Ochsendorf. “Today...we can air condition our way out of any heat, so we build glass boxes in the desert.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Weber writes about Prof. Zeynep Ton’s “Good Jobs” index, which “scores employers on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and productivity.” Ton explains that she hopes the index will “bring attention to some of the drivers of success that are rarely included in annual reports.”
In a Bloomberg News article about Market Basket CEO Arthur T. DeMoulas, Tom Moroney highlights how Prof. Thomas Kochan teaches last year’s Market Basket strike as a case study in his classes. Moroney writes that according to Kochan, Market Basket’s “coalition of salaried managers, hourly non-union workers, suppliers and customers is unprecedented in U.S. labor history.”
Jamie Ducharme of Boston Magazine writes about a polymer gel being developed by researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital that could allow for swallowable medical devices. “Improving slow-release safety could open the door for devices that control hunger in obese patients, diagnose gastrointestinal issues, extend the effects of drugs, and more,” Ducharme explains.
Research led by Professor Paul Osterman in 2013 indicates that policymakers’ focus on the “skills gap” among American workers may be misplaced, writes David Scharfenberg for The Boston Globe. According to the study, “employers, for the most part, are simply not demanding the high-level talents that the skills gap rhetoric would suggest.”
Pheobe Gavin reports for Slate on self-assembling origami robots developed by Professor Daniela Rus’ team that could one day be refined for use in surgery or other medical applications: “The origami robot can walk, swim, push objects, climb inclines, and carry objects twice its weight.”