In a video for CNN, graduate student Alex Kachkine explains his work developing a method using AI to create a reversible polymer film that could be used to restore damaged oil paintings, making the process faster than manual restoration. Kachkine explains that he hopes his work helps “get more paintings out of storage and into public view as there are many paintings that are damaged that I would love to see and it’s a real shame that there aren’t the resources necessary to restore them.”
Provost Anantha Chandrakasan speaks with Lavina Melwani of The Week about how his mother’s work ethic and energy helped inspired his career, how his formative experiences in education showed him the importance of persistence, and his goals as provost of MIT. Chandrakasan notes that he hopes to enable MIT researchers to continue making “extraordinary contributions and impact, whether it is in scholarship, educational innovation or entrepreneurship. My role is to promote excellence in academics, research and entrepreneurship, and I would like to deliver on the promise of enabling excellence.”
Graduate student Alex Kachkine speaks with New York Times reporter Ephrat Livni about his work creating a new AI technique for restoring paintings, and how his research on microchips helped inspire the development. Microchips “require very high degrees of precision,” Kachkine explains. “And it turns out a lot of the techniques we use to achieve that level of precision are applicable to art restoration.” Kachkine adds that he hopes conservators will be able to “leverage the benefits” of the techniques he gleaned from engineering to preserve “really valuable cultural heritage.”
Beth Pollack, a research scientist in the Department of Biological Engineering, speaks with The Guardian’s Science Weekly hosts Madeleine Finaly and Ian Sample about her research on chronic fatigue syndrome (MF CFS) and other chronic illnesses. “There are a number of interesting treatments addressing the different aspects of immune disfunction with different immunomodulators,” says Pollack.
In an Opinion for the Financial Times, Prof. Carlo Ratti explains how trees can help cool our cities. “[I]n a hotter world, trees should be considered more than decoration. This ancient infrastructure can cool not just our buildings but the cities themselves,” writes Ratti. “And with AI, we can now plant better, with precision urban forestry. In a warming world, the smartest climate tech may be rooted in the ground — and it doesn’t strain the power grid.”
Prof. Laura Lewis discusses her research exploring how the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in your brain while you sleep can help eliminate “waste," like “excess proteins and other molecules that can be toxic, if not removed,” reports Lydia Denworth for Scientific American. “Lewis found that CSF also flows when people are awake but less effectively,” explains Denworth. “Lewis’s conclusion: sleep, a state that is essential for human health, has a distinct pattern of CSF flow—and that pattern changes as the stages of sleep shift.”
WBUR reporter Rachell Sanchez-Smith spotlights two health tech devices being developed by Prof. Yoel Fink and Prof. Canan Dağdeviren, respectively, that aim to “give the wearers — and their doctors — a clearer picture of their overall health.” Fink has created “a thread capable of storing data, running artificial intelligence algorithms, sensing motion and sound, and communication through Bluetooth,” while Dağdeviren’s wearable ultrasound scanner can be used to make breast cancer screening “more comfortable and more accurate,” explains Sanchez-Smith.
Researchers at MIT have “developed an antenna that can adjust its frequency range by physically changing in its shape” reports Mrigakshi Dixit for Interesting Engineering. “Instead of standard, rigid metal, this antenna is made from metamaterials — special engineered materials whose properties are based on their geometric structure,” explains Dixit. “It could be suitable for applications like transferring energy to wearable devices, tracking motion for augmented reality, and enabling wireless communication.”
Writing for The Guardian, Prof. Carlo Ratti highlights his work using “AI to compare footage of public spaces from the 1970s with recent video” from the same locations in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. “The findings are striking: people walk faster, linger less, and are less likely to meet up,” explains Ratti. “By using AI to study urban public spaces, we can gather data, pick out patterns and test new designs that could help us rethink, for our time, our modern versions of the agora– the market and main public gathering place of Athens.”
MIT researchers have developed a new method to fortify foods and beverages as part of an effort to combat global malnutrition, reports Insha Naureen for Food Ingredients First. “The innovation offers a potential solution to the global malnutrition crisis due to iron deficiency, which can lead to anemia, impaired brain development in children, and increased infant mortality,” Naureen explains. “Beyond iron and iodine, this platform can also deliver multiple micronutrients or bioactive compounds in a single formulation, enabling targeted nutritional strategies,” explains Ana Jaklenec, a principal investigator at the Koch Institute.
Researchers at MIT have developed a new nutrient fortification process “to deliver essential nutrients such as iron and iodine in foods and drinks,” reports Ben Cornwell for New Food Magazine. “With around two billion people worldwide suffering from iron deficiency, which can lead to anemia, impaired brain development in children and higher infant mortality, this solution from MIT could address a major global issue,” writes Cornwell.
After observing the collision between a supernova and a black hole, researchers at MIT and elsewhere are rethinking our understanding of the life and death of stars, reports Jeanine Santucci for USA Today. "One of the only reasons that we were able to make this discovery and understand how scientifically interesting it was was through the combination of researchers in machine learning and in astrophysics," says postdoctoral scholar Alex Gagliano.
With the help of a newly designed machine learning algorithm, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have spotted a “never-before-seen type of supernova that involves a nearby black hole,” reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “We’re now entering an era where we can automatically catch these rare events as they happen, not just after the fact,” said postdoctoral scholar Alex Gagliano. “That means we can finally start connecting the dots between how a star lives and how it dies, and that’s incredibly exciting.”
Using generative AI, researchers at MT have designed new antibiotics to combat MRSA and gonorrhea, reports James Gallagher for the BBC. "We're excited because we show that generative AI can be used to design completely new antibiotics," says Prof. James Collins. "AI can enable us to come up with molecules, cheaply and quickly and in this way, expand our arsenal, and really give us a leg up in the battle of our wits against the genes of superbugs."
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speaks with CBS News reporter Tony Dokoupil about her work developing AI-powered robots. “AI and robots are tools,” says Rus. “They are tools created by the people, for the people. And like any other tools they’re not inherently good or bad; they are what we choose to do with them. And I believe we can choose to do extraordinary things.”