School of Architecture + Planning

Saqib Shah writes for FOX News that researchers from the Media Lab’s Electome project are launching an interactive tool “that compares tweets shared by the White House with a sampling of those shared by the public.”

Guardian reporter Nicola Davis spotlights Prof. Hugh Herr’s development of an autonomous exoskeleton device that could reduce the amount of energy humans use to walk. “We are taking a first principle approach, and joint by joint understanding deeply what has to be done scientifically and technologically to augment a human,” Herr explains. 

In this piece for The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about Prof. Kevin Esvelt’s idea to use gene-editing technology to eradicate Lyme disease. “This is an ecological problem,” Esvelt explains. “And we want to enact an ecological solution so that we break the transmission cycle that keeps ticks in the environment infected with these pathogens.”

Financial Times reporter Clive Cookson writes that MIT researchers have found evidence that flashing lights could potentially be used as a noninvasive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers found that “lights flashing on and off 40 times per second restored ‘gamma oscillation’ waves that were suppressed in the disease.”

MIT researchers have found that flashing light may reduce the buildup of beta amyloid protein in the brain, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease, writes Michelle Roberts for the BBC News. The researchers hope that “clearing beta amyloid and stopping more plaques from forming could halt Alzheimer's and its symptoms.”

Writing for The Atlantic, Ed Yong spotlights a study by MIT researchers that identifies a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s – using pulses of light to stimulate brain waves. Yong writes that the study “heralds a completely new approach to dealing with Alzheimer’s—changing neural activity, rather than delivering drugs or chemicals.”

MIT researchers have found that exposure to flickering lights at a precise frequency may help fight off Alzheimer’s disease, reports Melissa Healy for The Los Angeles Times. The technique recruits “neurons and other cell types in the brain to sort of enable the brain’s inner ability to repair itself,” explains Prof. Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute. 

Guardian reporter Hannah Devlin writes about a new study by MIT researchers that shows that strobe lighting can reduce levels of toxic proteins found in Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers found that “exposure to flickering light stimulated brain waves, called gamma oscillations, that are known to be disturbed in Alzheimer’s patients.”

Wired reporter Liz Stinson writes about Vespers, a series of 3-D printed death masks designed by researchers in the MIT Mediated Matter group. “The team used fluid dynamics modeling software, colorful, translucent resins, and a high-resolution, multi-material 3-D printer to produce hues, forms, and textures that look surprisingly organic—despite the masks’ association with death.”

CNN’s Jessica Ravitz describes how MIT researchers are working with surgeons from Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital to outfit a patient with a prosthetic limb that can be controlled by the brain. The patient will have “wireless sensors implanted in his muscles, which will integrate with the robotic prosthetic being created for him.”

MIT researchers are developing a bionic prosthesis that can be controlled by the wearer’s brain waves, reports Marie Szaniszlo for The Boston Herald. Graduate student Tyler Clites explains that the limb’s “versatility goes far beyond the technology that is currently available.”

Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz writes that MIT researchers are developing a prosthetic limb that can be controlled by the user’s brain waves. Researchers in Prof. High Herr’s lab collaborated with surgeons at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to “devise an amputation surgery that could prepare a limb for a brain-controlled prosthetic.” 

In an article for The New York Times Magazine about design challenges, Jon Gertner highlights Prof. Skylar Tibbits’ idea to reimagine cell towers. By making cell towers responsive to external stimuli, Tibbits believes they can gain in flexibility and functionality, and will have “personality and an aesthetic of movement.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Lee Hotz writes that MIT engineers have developed a flexible airplane wing that could improve a plane’s fuel consumption by improving the wing’s aerodynamics. Hotz explains that the wing’s “elastic airfoil can morph continuously to reduce drag, increase stall angle, and reduce vibration control flutter.”

Scott Clement of The Washington Post writes that researchers at the Laboratory for Social Machines have found that while the majority of Twitter conversation concerning the presidential campaign has centered around Donald Trump over the past week and a half, “battlegrounds differed in what particular issues or themes they focused on.”