Wired reporter Will Knight spotlights how MIT researchers built a machine learning system that can help predict which patients are most likely to develop breast cancer. “What the AI tools are doing is they're extracting information that my eye and my brain can't,” says Constance Lehman, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and division chief of breast imaging at MGH.
Fast Company reporter Kristin Toussaint writes about how MIT researchers have developed a new technique for growing wood-like plant tissues in the lab. The work, they say, is still in its very early stages, but provides a starting point to a new way of producing biomaterials. “It’s a process that eventually could help accelerate our shift away from plastics and other materials that end up in landfill toward materials that can biodegrade,” writes Toussaint.
TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that devises hardware architecture that can speed up a robot’s operations. Etherington notes that “this research could help unlock the sci-fi future of humans and robots living in integrated harmony.”
TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that MIT researchers have developed a new method for growing plant tissues in a lab. “Potential applications of lab-grown plant material are significant,” writes Etherington, “and include possibilities in both agriculture and in construction materials.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that claims about superweapons are not realistic, reports William J. Broad for The New York Times. “There’re lots of claims and not many numbers,” says research affiliate David Wright. “If you put in the numbers, you find that the claims are nonsense.”
Forbes contributor Adi Gaskell spotlights how the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future recently released a comprehensive report examining the future of work. Gaskell writes that the Task Force's report emphasizes the “pressing issues of our time as one of improving the quality of jobs to ensure that prosperity is shared across the economy.”
Scientific American reporter Prachi Patel spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a solar-powered system that can extract drinkable water from the air. “The $100 setup yields almost six liters an hour in the lab and about half of that outdoors,” writes Patel.
New York Times reporter Steve Lohr spotlights Inrupt, an MIT startup founded by Prof. Tim Berners-Lee, which is aimed at providing people more control over their personal data. “Tim has become increasingly concerned as power in the digital world is weighted against the individual,” explains Daniel Weitzner, a principal research scientist at CSAIL.
Forbes contributor Sharon Goldman spotlights Prof. Yossi Sheffi’s new book, “The New (Ab)Normal,” which examines how companies shifted their operations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Goldman writes that in the book, Sheffi “details how businesses grappled with the chaos of the pandemic, and explores what enterprises are likely to do to survive and thrive in 2021 and beyond, after the pandemic starts to subside.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, Scott Kirsner spotlights Inrupt, an MIT startup that has developed new technology that “proposes a major change in how personal data are stored that would give you much more control.”
A series of papers by MIT researchers demonstrates how their design for a new nuclear fusion reactor should work, reports Oscar Schwartz for The Guardian. “Fusion seems like one of the possible solutions to get ourselves out of our impending climate disaster,” says Martin Greenwald, deputy director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Reporting for CBS News, Grace Segers spotlights how Alex Padilla ’94 has been selected for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ Senate seat. “Alex Padilla worked his way from humble beginnings to the halls of MIT, the Los Angeles City Council and the State Senate, and has become a national defender of voting rights as California's Secretary of State,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes that Prof. Dava Newman has been selected as the new director of the MIT Media Lab. Coldewey notes that Newman is "starting off the job by emphasizing one of the best qualities a leader should have: listening to the people she’ll be leading.”
Prof. Dava Newman speaks with WBUR’s Max Larkin about being selected as the new director of the MIT Media Lab. Larkin highlights how Newman, an aerospace engineer and former deputy administrator of NASA, “comes into the role with a stellar resume.” Newman remarks that “superstars and genius come in all forms and shapes.” As director, she says she hopes to celebrate the lab’s “‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations.’”
Alex Padilla ’94 has been selected to replace Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the Senate, and will be the first Latino from California to join the Senate, reports Domenico Montanaro for NPR. “From those struggling to make ends meet to the small businesses fighting to keep their doors open to the health care workers looking for relief, please know that I am going to the Senate to fight for you,” said Padilla. “We will get through this pandemic together and rebuild our economy in a way that doesn't leave working families behind."