Justin Bachman writes for Bloomberg BusinessWeek about Prof. Dava Newman’s proposal for the skin-tight BioSuit, meant to replace today’s bulky spacesuits. BioSuit “shrinks onto the body, achieving pressurization not with gas but with a soft exoskeleton of heat-activated materials that shape to fit the traveler’s frame.”
Julie Hirschfeld writes for The New York Times about MIT alumna and U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Megan Smith. Smith has “a tinkerer’s enthusiasm for finding problems and looking for ways to solve them," says former CTO Aneesh Chopra.
Jon Chesto writes for The Boston Globe about a new battery technology from Professor Don Sadoway’s company, Ambri, that allows for more efficient grid-level power storage: “The goal is to allow electric utilities or big industrial plants to store power so it can be released at times of high usage.”
According to The Economist, a battery design “being developed by Donald Sadoway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would use two sorts of liquid metal, separated by a liquid electrolyte.” Using metals of varying densities, Sadoway’s design would allow the substances to float as separate layers in a container.
Sarah Kaplan of The Washington Post highlights Prof. Sangbae Kim’s work developing a robot modeled after the cheetah. Kim explains that he took inspiration from the cheetah’s movements to design a robot that could run. “We can steal a lot of ideas from nature that we can apply . . . to speed up our engineering evolution,” he explains.
MIT engineers have “developed an algorithm that shows the relationship between luggage weight and fuel consumption,” writes Heather Hansman for Popular Science. The researchers found that reducing each person’s luggage by 11 pounds would save one percent of fuel consumption.
Nidhi Subbaraman of BetaBoston writes about the affordable wheelchair made out of bike parts developed by Prof. Amos Winter. Winter and his team have now created a second wheelchair that allows riders to “navigate ski slopes and bike trails.”
MIT engineers are developing a paper test that can identify Ebola, writes BetaBoston reporter Nidhi Subbaraman. Prof. Lee Gehrke’s goal is to develop a “cheap, disposable front-line detector for this disease that many people can get their hands on — and fast,” Subbaraman reports.
MIT engineers have examined the feasibility of the Mars One colonization plans and found that new technologies will be necessary for human survival on Mars, writes Lucy Draper for Newsweek. “[W]e do think it’s not really feasible under the assumptions they’ve made,” says Professor Oliver De Weck.
MIT researchers have designed a robotic cheetah that could possibly be used in search and rescue operations or as inspiration for the design of prosthetics, reports the Associated Press. “Our goal is we are trying to make this robot to save a life,” says Prof. Sangbae Kim.
The result of five years of testing, a robotic cheetah developed by MIT researchers can run at speeds of 10 miles per hour and jump 16 inches high, reports the Associated Press. "In the next 10 years, our goal is we are trying to make this robot to save a life," explains Professor Sangbae Kim.
Professor Mildred Dresselhaus speaks with NPR’s Audie Cornish about receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Cornish explains that Dresselhaus got her nickname, the Queen of Carbon, based on her work with carbon, which “paved the way for the rise of nanotechnology.”
MIT alumnus Noam Angrist and seniors Anisha Gururaj and Elliot H. Akama-Garren were among 32 Rhodes scholars selected from the U.S. this year, reports Jennifer Smith for The Boston Globe. “The American scholars will join an international group of students chosen from 14 other global jurisdictions, according to the Rhodes Trust,” Smith reports.
Two MIT seniors and alumnus Noam Angrist have been named Rhodes Scholars, reports Dave Collins for the Associated Press. “It’s a total dream come true,” says Angrist. “The skills I will get at (Oxford) are just incredible, and I’ll come back into the world fully equipped to do what I love to do.”
Cory Bennett of The Hill writes about a broad effort to tackle cybersecurity challenges at MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. “MIT will examine the immediate policy concerns, such as how to protect vulnerable financial and medical data, as well as emerging technologies like self-driving cars and drones,” explains Bennett.