Research

WCVB-TV's Chronicle spotlights Prof. Linda Griffith, “a forerunner in the field of biological engineering,” for her research investigating endometriosis and breaking the stigma around menstruation. Griffith founded the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research in 2009 and “one of their objectives is to help develop ways of staging endometriosis, similar to how cancer is characterized.” Griffith notes that by focusing on menstruation and making it a science, “I think we will really change the game for women.

Prof. David Rand speaks with Wired reporter Brian Barrett about the implications of Meta’s new “community notes” system in addressing bias on social media platforms. “The motivator for all of this changing of Meta’s policies and Musk’s takeover of Twitter is this accusation of social media companies being biased against conservatives,” says Rand. “There’s just not good evidence of that.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found “that investors who use OpenAI’s GPT-4o to summarize earnings calls realize higher returns than those who don’t,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “The researchers recruited investors and had GPT-4o give them AI summaries aligned with their investing expertise,” explains Wiggers. “Sophisticated investors got more technical AI-generated notes, while novices got simpler ones.” 

A new tabletop exercise, developed by researchers at MIT and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has found that “a further buildup of U.S. nuclear capabilities would have limited effect on whether China might use its own nuclear weapons should a war over Taiwan erupt,” reports Brad Dress and Ellen Mitchell for The Hill. “The first large-scale war game of such an incident,” they write, “found that a U.S. buildup that goes past current modernization plans would not bolster nuclear deterrence in relation to Taiwan.” 

Writing for Wired, Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, highlights the future of “physical intelligence, a new form of intelligent machine that can understand dynamic environments, cope with unpredictability, and make decisions in real time.” Rus writes: “Unlike the models used by standard AI, physical intelligence is rooted in physics; in understanding the fundamental principles of the real world, such as cause-and-effect.”

Sloan research fellow Michael Schrage speaks with Fortune reporter Sheryl Estrada about the impact of AI on CFO roles. “The ongoing ‘Compound AI’ revolution, which involves approaching AI tasks by combining multiple interacting components, will increasingly transform the CFO role into that of an AI-powered chief capital officer (CCO),” says Schrage. “This is an analytics-driven shift that isn’t optional but imperative for enterprise growth.”

A new study co-authored by Prof. Emeritus Frank Levy that finds chatbot-style artificial intelligence could “fuel a reshaping of the population and labor market map of America,” writes Steve Lohr for The New York Times. Levy and his colleagues found that midsize cities in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and South are “well positioned to use AI to become more productive, helping to draw more people to those areas.” 

Knowable Magazine reporter Katherine Ellison spotlights Future You, a new program developed by researchers at MIT that “offers young people a chance to chat with an online, AI-generated simulation of themselves at age 60.” 

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found “the smallest asteroids ever detected within the main belt, which is a field between Mars and Jupiter where millions of asteroids orbit,” reports Sabrina Lam for The Boston Globe. “With new technology, we can find populations of asteroids that were inaccessible previously,” says Prof. Julien De Wit.  “Now we have the capability to be able to study this object further out, predict the orbit with much better accuracy, and decide what to do for potential or possible future impactors.”

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Times Higher Ed’s Jack Grove about the importance of maintaining economic and political discussions in higher ed. “It is fine for academics to speak on such issues as long as you can keep that separate from your classrooms and for what constitutes high-quality research,” says Acemoglu. “There are special times when academics should speak out.”

Prof. Daron Acemoglu highlights the importance of adopting alternative technologies in the face of AI advancements, reports Jared Newman for Fast Company. “We need investment for alternative approaches to AI, and alternative technologies, those that I would say are more centered on making workers more productive, and providing better information to workers,” says Acemoglu.

Inside Higher Ed has included MIT on their list of favorite college holiday greetings this year, reports Johanna Alonso. In this year’s animated video, “A student walks through the snow-dusted hallway, eventually happening upon an atrium where her classmates are playing instruments crafted from ice, sledding and crafting a snow beaver in the image of the institution’s mascot,” writes Alonso. 

Prof. Abhijit Banerjee speaks with Financial Times reporter John Reed about global politics and the increased need for trust in economists. On his book, Poor Economics, Banerjee says, “I think we have always thought that economic ideas were too important to be left out of the public discourse. There is a sense in which we think economics does a disservice to ourselves and the world by wrapping ourselves in this omniscient jargon.” 

Prof. Rob Simcoe speaks with Knowable Magazine reporter Elizabeth Quill about the role of the James Webb Telescope in advancing scientific discoveries. “The tools that we can bring to bear now on studying this epoch of cosmic history are unlike anything we’ve had before,” says Simcoe. 

Newsweek reporter Tom Howarth spotlights MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems as they announced plans to “build the world's first grid-scale commercial nuclear fusion power plant” in Virginia. “The plant is expected to generate 400 megawatts of electricity, enough to power approximately 150,000 homes or large industrial facilities,” writes Howarth.