Scientists from MIT and the University of Oxford have discovered that an ancient sequence of rocks found in Isua, Greenland have “a magnetic field strength of at least 15 microteslas or higher compared to the modern magnetic field of 30 microteslas,” reports David Bressan for Forbes. “These results provide the oldest estimate of the strength of Earth’s magnetic field derived from whole rock samples,” writes Bressan.
Prof. Earl K. Miller speaks with CBS News host Susan Spencer about multitasking, fear of laziness, and the importance of downtime. “A lot of times some of your best thoughts come to you when your conscious mind is out of the way, when you allow the unconscious thoughts to bubble up,” says Miller. “And sometimes it’s good to be lazy – not lazy, but to tune out a bit and let these thoughts bubble up.”
MIT researchers have uncovered the “photomolecular effect,” a process “that demonstrates for the first time that water can evaporate with no source of heat using light alone,” reports Anthony Cuthbertson for The Independent. The “discovery could impact everything from climate change calculations to weather forecasts, while also opening up new practical applications for things like energy and clean water production,” writes Cuthbertson.
ShareAmerica reporter Lauren Monsen spotlights Prof. Dina Katabi for her work in advancing medicine with artificial intelligence. “Katabi develops AI tools to monitor patients’ breathing patterns, hear rate, sleep quality, and movements,” writes Monsen. “This data informs treatment for patients with diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s, and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), as well as Rett syndrome, a rare neurological disorder.”
Researchers at MIT have discovered that “light in the visible spectrum is enough to knock water molecules loose at the surface where it meets air and send them floating away,” reports Michael Franco for New Atlas. “While the distinction between light-caused evaporation and heat-caused evaporation might not seem like a big one, the researchers say it could not only have a big impact on the way future evaporative projects are executed, but that it could also explain a long-standing discrepancy involving clouds,” writes Franco.
MIT researchers have “discovered hitherto unknown space molecule while investigating a relatively nearby region of intense star birth,” reports Robert Lea for Space.com. This discovery “revealed the presence of a complex molecule known as 2-methoxyethanol, which had never been seen before in the natural world, though its properties had been simulated in labs on Earth,” writes Lea.
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that a sequence of rocks from the Isua Supracrustal Belt in Greenland contain “an ironclad record of the early Earth’s magnetic field,” reports Keith Cooper for Space.com. “The new results from the Greenland rocks are considered more reliable because, for the first time, they are based on entire iron-bearing rocks (rather than individual mineral crystals) to derive the primordial field strength,” explains Cooper. “Therefore, the sample offers the first solid measure of not only the strength of Earth's ancient magnetic field, but also of the timing of when the magnetic field originally appeared.”
Interesting Engineering reporter Rizwan Choudhury spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds light can cause evaporation of water from a surface without the need for heat. The photomolecular effect “presents exciting practical possibilities,” writes Choudhury. “Solar desalination systems and industrial drying processes are prime candidates for harnessing this effect. Since drying consumes significant industrial energy, optimizing this process using light holds immense promise.”
Writing for Project Syndicate, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson draw upon the work of economist David Ricardo and his insights on the Industrial Revolution to explore how to respond to the challenge posed by AI to good jobs. “It is still possible to have pro-worker AI, but only if we can change the direction of innovation in the tech industry and introduce new regulations and institutions,” they write.
Writing for MIT Technology Review, Georgina Gustin chronicles the research journey of Polina Anikeeva, the MIT scientist and engineer who developed flexible brain probes to stimulate neurons and potentially treat neurological disorders. In 2017, Anikeeva became fascinated by the hypothesis that Parkinson’s might be linked to pathogens in the digestive system. Today she and her team use specialized devices to explore the brain-gut connection. “This is a new frontier,” Anikeeva says.
MIT researchers have developed a machine-learning accelerator chip to make health-monitoring apps more secure, reports Aman Tripathi for Interesting Engineering. “The researchers subjected this new chip to intensive testing, simulating real-world hacking attempts, and the results were impressive,” explains Tripathi. “Even after millions of attempts, they were unable to recover any private information. In contrast, stealing data from an unprotected chip took only a few thousand samples.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a new measure called “outdoor days,” which describes the number of days per year in which temperatures are comfortable enough for outdoor activities in specific locations around the world, reports Lebawit Lily Girma for Bloomberg News. “Changes in the number of outdoor days will impact directly how people around the world feel climate change,” says Prof. Elfatih Eltahir.
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Parmy Olson spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds AI chatbots can be highly persuasive when reinforced with facts and could potentially be used to help tackle conspiracy theories. “The scientists invited more than 2,000 people who believed in different conspiracy theories to summarize their positions to a chatbot — powered by OpenAI’s latest publicly available language model — and briefly debate them with the bot,” Olson writes. “On average, participants subsequently described themselves as 20% less confident in the conspiracy theory; their views remained softened even two months later.”
Prof. Esther Duflo will present her research on poverty reduction and her “proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires and increased corporate levies to G-20 finance chiefs,” reports Andrew Rosati for Bloomberg. “The plan calls for redistributing the revenues to low- and middle-income nations to compensate for lives lost due to a warming planet,” writes Rosati. “It also adds to growing calls to raise taxes on the world’s wealthiest to help its most needy.”
MIT scientists have uncovered evidence that the different layers of the brain’s cortex generate different brain waves, reports Simon Makin for Scientific American. “The findings may have implications for understanding—and even treating—neuropsychiatric conditions,” Makin explains.