Research

Gil Aegerter of NBC News reports on new MIT research examining the impacts of climate change on snowfall. Professor Paul O’Gorman found that “global warming would affect snowfall extremes less than it did average snowfall,” writes Aegerter. 

Doyle Rice of USA Today writes about the new MIT study showing that despite warming brought about by climate change, extreme snowfall will still occur in the Northern Hemisphere. Researchers found that while “yearly average snowfall declines due to climate change in most regions, it actually increases in regions with very low surface temperatures,” writes Rice. 

Reuters reporter Sharon Begley writes about the new MIT study showing that memories can be rewired in the brain. "We could switch the mouse's memory from positive emotions to negative, and negative to positive," says Professor Susumu Tonegawa of the research. 

New York Times reporter Pam Belluck examines new MIT research exploring how the brain links emotions to memories. The study provides a basis for using psychotherapy to help patients “reduce the feelings of a bad memory they have,” says Professor Susumu Tonegawa. 

Penny Sarchet writes for New Scientist about how MIT researchers have successfully altered emotions associated with specific memories in mice. "Emotion is intimately associated with the memory of past events and episodes, and yet, the emotional value of the memories is malleable," says Professor Susumu Tonegawa.

MIT scientists have uncovered how memories are linked with positive and negative emotions, reports Dennis Thompson for CBS News. "The memory information stored is not only about what happened, but also about the context in which the event occurred," says Professor Susumu Tonegawa.

Carolyn Johnson writes for The Boston Globe about Professor Susumu Tonegawa’s research into rewiring memories in rodents. “That adds to a body of research from MIT over recent years that has shown that administering a drug can wipe out a negative memory in mice,” writes Johnson. 

A team led by Professor Susumu Tonegawa effectively manipulated the emotions associated with certain memories in mice, reports Jonathan Webb of BBC News. “By artificially activating circuits in the brain, scientists have turned negative memories into positive ones,” writes Webb.

James Hamblin of The Atlantic reports on the new MIT study that shows implementing a cap on carbon emissions would result in health care savings. An economy-wide cap and trade program "would result in a net benefit of $125 billion in human health costs,” writes Hamblin. 

Slate reporter Jordan Weissman writes about Professor David Autor’s new paper, presented at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas’s City’s Economic Symposium. In the paper, Autor argues that robots and computers will not replace humans in the labor market as they lack the ability to reason like the human brain.  

Charles Pulliam-Moore of the PBS NewsHour reports on new research from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab showing that humans are happier and more productive when robots are in control.  The research, “could lead to situations in which human employees could be empowered by machines, rather than replaced by them,” Pulliam-Moore writes. 

CBC News reports on the MIT study examining how carbon reduction policies impact health care spending. “They discovered that the greatest health savings came from the cap-and-trade program, with savings coming in at 10.5 times the $14.5-billion cost of such a program,” CBC reports. 

Erika Fry writes for Fortune about the spread of infectious diseases, highlighting a study by researchers from MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering that examines how infectious diseases could spread worldwide through air transportation. The researchers developed a metric to rank and predict which U.S. airports would be the most influential spreaders of a disease. 

The MIT Alumni Association’s Slice of MIT blog features highlights of MIT President L. Rafael Reif’s Ice Bucket Challenge. “MIT President L. Rafael Reif is the Institute’s 17th president, but he is almost surely the first MIT president to publicly dump a bucket of near-freezing water over his head,” writes Jay London. 

Reuters reports on Professor David Autor’s new paper on how automation and computers are impacting the labor market. "I expect that a significant stratum of middle skill, non-college jobs combining specific vocational skills with foundational middle skills - literacy, numeracy, adaptability, problem-solving and common sense - will persist in coming decades," Autor explains.