A group of MIT scientists led by PhD candidate Crystal Owens has developed an Oreometer, a device used to determine if it is possible to evenly split an Oreo cookie every time, reports Maria Jimenez Moya for USA Today. “One day, just doing experiments, and, all of a sudden we realized that this machine would be perfect for opening Oreos because it already has … the fluid in the center, and then these two discs are like the same geometry as an Oreo,” says Owens.
Boston Globe reporter David Abel spotlights the Mice Against Ticks project, which is aimed at preventing tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease through immunizing mice. “With so many people suffering from Lyme every single day, which is an awful disease, we need a solution urgently,” explains graduate student and Mice Against Ticks research director Joanna Buchthal. “This offers a real, if revolutionary, way to tackle the problem.”
Bloomberg News reporter Janet Wu speaks with President L. Rafael Reif and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry during the Institute’s Climate Grand Challenges showcase event. “If you can capture the emissions -- literally, genuinely -- then you’re reducing the problem,” said Kerry of the importance of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.
MIT researchers have developed an “Oreometer” to test the optimal way to split an Oreo cookie, an exercise in rheology, or the study of how matter flows, reports Isaac Shultz for Gizmodo. "Our favorite twist was rotating while pulling Oreos apart from one side, as a kind of peel-and-twist, which was the most reliable for getting a very clean break,” explains graduate student Crystal Owens.
CNN reporter Madeline Holcombe spotlights a new study by MIT researchers exploring why the cream on Oreo cookies always sticks to one side when twisted open. Graduate student Crystal Owens explains that she hopes the research will inspire people "to investigate other puzzles in the kitchen in scientific ways. The best scientific research, even at MIT, is driven by curiosity to understand the world around us, when someone sees something weird or unknown and takes the time to think 'I wonder why that happens like that?'"
Graduate student Crystal Owens speaks with Popular Science reporter Philip Kiefer about her work exploring why the cream filling of an Oreo cookie always sticks to one side. “It turns out there’s not really a trick to it,” Owens says. “Everything you try to do will get mostly a clean break.”
Graduate student Crystal Owens and her colleagues tested the possibility of separating the two wafers of an Oreo in a way that evenly splits the cream filling using a rheometer, an instrument that measures torque and viscosity of various substances, reports Becky Ferreira for Vice. “After twisting Oreos apart with the instruments, the team visually inspected the ratio of creme on each wafer and logged the findings. A number of variations on the experiment were also introduced, such as dipping the cookies in milk, changing the rotation rate of the rheometer, and testing different Oreo flavors and filling quantities,” writes Ferreira.
Researchers from MIT and Arizona State University are working on a mission that “could resolve unanswered questions about ancient planetesimal cores floating in space – and go back in time to study Earth’s own formation,” reports Megan I. Gannon for Popular Science.
Boston Globe reporter Robert Weisman spotlights how researchers at the MIT AgeLab are “designing prototypes of ‘smart homes’ for older residents, equipped with social robots, voice-activated speakers that give medication reminders, motion sensors embedded in carpets to detect falls, and intelligent doorbells that double as security cameras.”
A new working paper by researchers from MIT and Yale finds that “80 percent of Americans think social media companies should take action to reduce the spread of misinformation,” reports Rachel Kraus for Mashable. “Our data suggests [Musk’s views] are not representative,” says Prof. David Rand. "A lot of people in Silicon Valley have this kind of maybe libertarian, extreme free speech orientation that I don't think is in line with actually how most Americans and social media platform users think about things."
Wall Street Journal reporter Luis Garcia spotlights how Prof. Antoinette Schoar and University of Chicago Prof. Steven Kaplan developed a public-market-equivalent (PME) method known as the Kaplan-Schoar approach that serves as an alternative advantage in comparing fund performance with stock market benchmarks. “The thing that PME allows you to do better is compare across fund vintages,” says Kaplan.
A team of researchers from MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory successfully reached a 30% jump in thermophotovoltaic (TPV) efficiency, reports Robert F. Service for Science. “[TPV] is a semiconductor structure that concerts photons emitted from a heat source to electricity, just as a solar cell transforms sunlight into power,” explains Service.
Prof. Evelina Fedorenko is studying a woman whose brain does not have a left temporal lobe in an effort to understand how the brain regions thought to play a role in language learning and comprehension develop. “Because EG’s left temporal lobe is missing, Fedorenko’s team had a chance to answer an interesting question: are the temporal regions a prerequisite for setting up the frontal language areas?” writes Grace Browne for Wired.
MIT announced five projects "targeting the world's toughest climate riddles" that were selected following a rigorous two-year competition, reports Benjamin Kail for Boston Business Journal. “Climate Grand Challenges represents a whole-of-MIT drive to develop game-changing advances to confront the escalating climate crisis, in time to make a difference,” says President L. Rafael Reif.
Neri Oxman, founder and former director of the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Wall Street Journal about how the work she started at MIT can impact the future of urban architecture. “As part of our research at MIT, we 3D-printed glass augmented with synthetically engineered microorganisms to produce energy [from the sun],” said Oxman. “This allows us to develop solar-harnessing glass façades that can act as a skin for pre-existing buildings.”