Research

Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney spotlights “Made to Measure,” a permanent exhibit at the MIT Museum that showcases a selection of instruments designed to take a variety of measurements and have been central to scientific research and discovery at MIT and beyond. The exhibit’s displays explore strength, temperature, length and more. The How Far?” display “includes a taffrail log (used by sailors to measure distance), pedometers, a surveyor’s tape, a transit theodolite, several rulers, and a Smoot bar,” Feeney explains, “a unit of measurement based on the height of MIT undergraduate Oliver Smoot.” 

At a recent conference, Prof. Sergey Ovchinnikov and his colleagues presented a paper demonstrating how they have used advanced versions of ChatGPT to “generate amino acid sequences that code for biologically active proteins with a structural feature called a four-helix bundle,” reports Jeffrey Brainard for Science. “To Ovchinnikov’s surprise, ChatGPT produced gene sequences without further refinement of his team’s query,” writes Brainard. “Still, the application of ChatGPT to this task needs refinement, Ovchinnikov found. Most of the sequences his team produced did not garner 'high confidence' on a score predicting whether they would form the desired protein structure.” 

Prof. Christopher Palmer speaks with Marketplace reporter Carla Javier about the rise in auto loan delinquencies, noting that defaulting on a car payment is usually a borrower’s last resort, since people often need cars to get to work, so they’re more likely to not pay other bills first. “That could include not paying their mortgages or their rent, in part because it takes a long time to evict someone or to foreclose on a house,” Palmer explains.

Prof. Linda Griffith and her colleagues have “developed a model of the human gut to study how the organ’s microbes interact with immune cells and regulate inflammation,” reports Gemma Conroy for Nature. Griffith and her team “have also created models for endometriosis and pancreatic cancer,” writes Conroy. 

Prof. Pat Pataranutaporn speaks with The Guardian reporter Madeleine Aggeler about the impact of AI on human relationships. “If you converse more and more with the AI instead of going to talk to your parents or your friends, the social fabric degrades,” says Pataranutaporn. “You will not develop the skills to go and talk to real humans.” 

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks New York Times reporter Karen Weise about workplace automation at Amazon. “Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate,” Acemoglu. “Once they work out how to do this profitably, it will spread to others, too.” 

George Smoot '66, PhD '70, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, has died at the age of 80, reports Katrina Miller for The New York Times. Smoot’s work as a physicist “helped elucidate the story of cosmic creation, providing evidence of what he called the primordial seeds that grew into galaxies and galaxy clusters,” writes Miller. 

Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Kay Lazar about his recent study examining how Americans are preparing for their later years. “I’m hoping this is a kick-start moment, to start having people realize that it’s more than money,” says Coughlin. “It is more than my blood pressure and my cholesterol level, and that I need to start thinking about other dimensions.” 

Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab spotlights how researchers from the MIT AgeLab and John Hancock developed a new longevity index. The Index aims to change “how we measure, teach, discuss and think about the future of aging,” explains Coughlin. “The Index measures preparedness across eight critical domains that research shows are fundamental to quality of life in older age: health, finance, care, home, daily activities, social connection, community, and life transitions.

Fox Business reporters Daniella Genovese and Eric Revell spotlight a new longevity index developed by researchers from the MIT AgeLab and John Hancock that shows how “U.S. adults are largely underprepared to live well as they age.” Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, explains that the findings “underscore that taking some small but intentional steps — such as planning for a new hobby, starting a fitness routine or having a conversation about care — can lead to a better future and make a big impact on how we spend our later years."

Researchers at MIT have uncovered remnants of “proto Earth,” which existed before a Mars-sized meteorite slammed into the Earth billions of years ago, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. The researchers “found an odd imbalance of potassium isotopes in ancient rock samples,” explains Lee. “Chemical analyses revealed the anomaly couldn’t have emerged from any known geological processes on modern Earth.” 

Prof. Paulo Lozano has received funding from NASA’s University SmallSat Technology Partnership (USTP) to “explore integration of tiny electronic thrusters – a propulsion system using electrical power to propel spacecraft – onto satellites, reports Robin Roenker for USA Today. “We have many ideas (for application),” says Lozano. “One is to send tens or even hundreds of these small satellites to the asteroid belt to help study and characterize the asteroids’ surface structures.” 

Writing for Bloomberg, Prof. Carlo Ratti explores how street configuration and design can help reduce traffic speeds. “In studies we have conducted at our Senseable City Lab, we found that the posted speed limits often have little effect on how fast people drive,” writes Ratti. “Instead, the policies that work involve the design of the street itself.” 

A new study by researchers at MIT suggests that “the biggest and most computationally intensive AI models may soon offer diminishing returns compared to smaller models,” reports Will Knight for Wired. “By mapping scaling laws against continued improvements in model efficiency, the researchers found that it could become harder to wring leaps in performance from giant models whereas efficiency gains could make models running on more modest hardware increasingly capable over the next decade.” 

Graduate student Chung-Tao (Josh) Chou speaks with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about his work developing a magnetic transistor that could lead to more energy-efficient circuits. “People have known about magnets for thousands of years, but there are very limited ways to incorporate magnetism into electronics,” says Chou. “We have shown a new way to efficiently utilize magnetism that opens up a lot of possibilities for future applications and research.”