WCVB reporter Jessica Brown spotlights how researchers from the MIT AgeLab explored the most effective way to communicate with elderly individuals about driver retirement. The researchers found that “35% of older drivers are more likely to listen to a spouse who asks them to give up the keys,” explains Brown.
Prof. Benjamin Weiss, director of the MIT Paleomagnetism Lab, speaks with Forbes reporter Bruce Dorminey about the use of paleomagnetism to track the geographic origins of stromatolites. Weiss notes that he and his colleagues published a paper examining the magnetization of stromatolites in the Strelley Pool Chert in Australia’s Pilbara region. The team’s measurements show that these stromatolites formed within 8 degrees latitude of the equator, Weiss explains.
Research from the Data Provenance Initiative, led by MIT researchers, has “found that many web sources used for training AI models have restricted their data, leading to a rapid decline in accessible information,” reports Gary Drenik for Forbes.
Researchers at MIT have developed a new AI model capable of assessing a patient’s risk of pancreatic cancer, reports Erez Meltzer for Forbes. “The model could potentially expand the group of patients who can benefit from early pancreatic cancer screening from 10% to 35%,” explains Meltzer. “These kinds of predictive capabilities open new avenues for preventive care.”
Prof. Jon Gruber speaks with former Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and Security Andrea Cabral and GBH Boston Public Radio host Margery Eagan about the future of health care in the United States.
Craft in America visits Prof. Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine of CSAIL to learn more about their work with computational origami. “Computational origami is quite useful for the mathematical problems we are trying to solve,” Prof. Erik Demaine explains. “We try to integrate the math and the art together.”
Prof. Hugh Herr speaks with Nature reporter Fred Schwaller about his work developing bionic limbs. Schwaller notes that “Herr’s research team is focusing on surgical techniques and implants that improve on the electrodes used in current bionic-limb systems, which either penetrate the peripheral nerves or wrap around them.” Herr explains: “We’re reimagining how limbs should be amputated and bionic limbs constructed.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a robot capable of assembling “building blocks called voxels to build an object with almost any shape,” reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “You can get furniture-scale objects really fast in a very sustainable way, because you can reuse these modular components and ask a robot to reassemble them into different large-scale objects,” says graduate student Alexander Htet Kyaw.
Financial Times reporter Seb Murray highlights a new paper by Prof. Roberto Rigobon and Research Scientist Florian Berg that explores why different ESG ratings can paint different pictures of the same company, finding that “measurement differences between rating agencies are the main source of divergence.” Murray notes that “by exposing these inconsistencies, the research highlights the need for standardization, noting that regulators could help by harmonizing ESG disclosure practices. That would make ratings more reliable and useful for decision makers.”
Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, an AI startup working on developing Cursor, an AI-powered coding assistant, reports Marina Temkin for TechCrunch.
Researchers at MIT have developed a “new type of transistor using semiconductor nanowires made up of gallium antimonide and iridium arsenide,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “The transistors were designed to take advantage of a property called quantum tunneling to move electricity through transistors,” explains Knapp.
Researchers at MIT have developed a new virtual training program for four-legged robots by taking “popular computer simulation software that follows the principles of real-world physics and inserting a generative AI model to produce artificial environments,” reports Jeremy Hsu for New Scientist. “Despite never being able to ‘see’ the real world during training, the robot successfully chased real-world balls and climbed over objects 88 per cent of the time after the AI-enhanced training,” writes Hsu. "When the robot relied solely on training by a human teacher, it only succeeded 15 per cent of the time.”
Research Scientist Nick van der Meulen speaks with Financial Times reporter Bethan Staton about how automation could be used to help employers plug the skills gap. “You can give people insight into how their skills stack up . . . you can say this is the level you need to be for a specific role, and this is how you can get there,” says van der Meulen. “You cannot do that over 80 skills through active testing, it would be too costly.”
MIT researchers have analyzed tiny particles from a distant asteroid and found that a weak magnetic field may have helped form the outer planets in our solar system, reports Sabrina Lam for The Boston Globe. In the future, the researchers hope to use samples from other celestial bodies to identify magnetic fields in our universe. “An exciting thing that’s probably going to happen in the next few decades,” says Prof. Benjamin Weiss, “is that we’re going to start bringing samples back from comets.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Joshua Angrist, Prof. Parag Pathak and Amanda Schmidt of Blueprint Labs examine the effectiveness of Boston’s school assignment system and transportation policy. “Boston schools have improved greatly since 1974: Dropout rates for all students have declined, and gaps by race, while still present, have narrowed,” they write. “School assignment plans originating in 1974 may therefore be less useful today. It’s time to consider changing transportation policy in light of these changes in the city’s education landscape.”