Scientists at MIT are developing a self-boosting vaccine that can provide multiple doses of a vaccine via a single injection, reports Darko Manevski for Newsweek. The technology “could be particularly useful for administering childhood vaccinations in regions where people do not have regular access to medical care,” writes Manevski.
MIT researchers have created a thin, lightweight and flexible loudspeaker that is as thin as a few sheets of paper and can stick to most surfaces while producing high quality sound, reports Kendra Redmond for Science News Explores. “Because the design is so flexible and durable, companies could potentially integrate speakers into T-shirts or other personal items,” writes Redmond. “Or users could make their own.”
MIT scientists are developing self-boosting vaccine technology that could allow people to receive all of their vaccine doses in one shot, reports The Economist. This technology “would be a game-changer, not only for future pandemics but also for vaccination programs in remote regions where it is harder to deliver boosters,” The Economist notes.
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniela Hernandez spotlights the work of Media Lab Research Scientist Andreas Mershin in developing sensors that can detect and analyze odors. Mershin “is focusing on medical applications of olfaction technology. Inspired by dogs that have demonstrated an ability to sniff out malignancies in humans, he’s working on an artificial-intelligence odor-detection system to detect prostate cancer.”
Scientists from MIT and other institutions have detected the longest-lasting and most regular radio signal in the night sky, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. “Scientists think that the radio signal may be coming from a neutron star—what remains of the collapsed core of a giant star after it’s exploded as a supernova,” explains Carter.
Astronomers from MIT and elsewhere have discovered radio signals in space that they believe to be coming from a neutron star, reports Tim Marcin for Mashable. “Using the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) radio telescope, astronomers noticed a strange FRB, or radio burst, from a far-off galaxy billions of light-years from Earth.”
A study from MIT and the University of California San Diego highlighted how temperature variation can affect sleep, reports Veronika Samborska and Chris Campbell for the Financial Times. “That survey of 765,000 US respondents reported that increased night temperatures were linked to a higher number of nights of “insufficient sleep” in the self-reporting by participants,” write Samborska and Campbell.
Scientists from MIT and elsewhere have detected a series of fast radio bursts from a distant galaxy, reports Samantha Cole for Vice. “This detection raises the question of what could cause this extreme signal that we’ve never seen before, and how can we use this signal to study the universe,” says postdoctoral scholar Daniele Michilli. “Future telescopes promise to discover thousands of FRBs a month, and at that point we may find many more of these periodic signals.”
Graduate students Mehtaab Sawhney and Ashwin Sah were among the four mathematicians to demonstrate “it’s always possible to build such a hypergraph as long as you have enough nodes,” a 50-year-old proof first proposed by Paul Erdős, reports Leila Sloman for Quanta Magazine.
Prof. Benedetto Marelli has won the 2022 Bio Innovation Institute & Science Prize for Innovation, through which the editors of Science “seek to recognize bold researchers who are asking fundamental questions at the intersection of the life sciences and entrepreneurship.” Marelli is being recognized for his research into the “nanomanufacturing of structural biopolymers to engineer a new generation of advanced materials that can be inter-faced with food and plants,” reports Science.
The theory that a woodpecker’s brain is protected due to the tiny size and weight, originally suggested by Prof. Lorna Gibson, was confirmed by University of Antwerp researcher Sam Van Wassenbergh, reports Jon Hamilton for NPR.
A team of astronomers have identified a mysterious radio burst from a far-away galaxy, reports Wyatte Grantham-Philips for USA Today. “Imagine a very distant galaxy. And sometimes, some huge explosions happen that emit huge blasts of radio waves,” explains Daniele Michilli, who led the study and is a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “We don’t know what these explosions are, (but) they are so powerful that we can see them from across the universe.”
Postdoctoral scholar Daniele Michilli and members of the CHIME/FRB Collaboration have discovered radio bursts from a galaxy billions of light-years away, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. “The research team will continue to use CHIME to monitor the skies for more signals from the radio burst, as well as others with a similar, periodic signal,” writes Strickland, noting the work “could be used to help astronomers learn more about the rate of the universe’s expansion.”
Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have picked up repeated radio signals from a galaxy billions of light-years away from Earth, reports Ayana Archie for NPR. “Scientists have not been able to pinpoint the exact location of the radio waves yet, but suspect the source could be neutron stars, which are made from collapsed cores of giant stars,” writes Archie.
Prof. Nikta Fakhri and her colleagues have placed hundreds of starfish embryos into salt-water tanks where they arrange themselves into honeycomb-like patterns at the water’s surface, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. “These structures, which had never been seen before, may form because of the embryos’ swimming style and body shape,” explains Padavic-Callaghan.