WBUR’s Deborah Becker and Lynn Jolicoeur report on the new MIT-MGH partnership aimed at developing better tools to treat disease. Prof. Arup Chakraborty hopes the collaboration will allow researchers to take risks. “Safe ideas are often not the transformative ones,” he says.
A new technique developed by MIT researchers for capturing waste heat that can be used to produce electricity has been named one of 10 World Changing ideas by Scientific American, reports Ryan Bradley. “This is something attractive,” says Dr. Yuan Yang, a postdoctoral associate at MIT, “because low-grade heat is everywhere.”
BostInno’s Elise Harmon writes that a $15 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to MIT could “help pave the way for a comprehensive cybersecurity policy.” The gift to MIT is part of $45 million in total to MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley as part of the foundation’s Cyber Initiative.
Prof. Robert Langer speaks with Trisha Gura of Science about his work as an engineer and entrepreneur. Says Langer of how he became an entrepreneur, “I could see that by having these little companies, you could make an enormous impact.”
MIT’s Daniel Weitzner speaks with BetaBoston’s Nidhi Subbaraman about a new cybersecurity policy initiative supported by the Hewlett Foundation. Weitzner explains that researchers will examine what kind of laws and public policy are needed to make “[technologies] more trustworthy.”
Boston Globe reporter Callum Borchers writes about how MIT researchers have developed a new coating that could reduce the risk posed by ingesting batteries. The battery has “been shown in lab tests to deactivate an ingested battery without compromising its performance in electronic devices,” writes Borchers.
USA Today reporter Tracy Moran writes about the use of environmentally friendly materials in constructing buildings, highlighting Prof. Rolland Pellenq’s work to make concrete more sustainable. “His work has proven that reducing the ratio of certain materials can make concrete nearly twice as resistant to fractures while cutting concrete emissions by as much as half,” writes Moran.
Brendan Borrell writes for Scientific American about how MIT researchers have engineered the DNA of E.coli to detect and record environmental information. “Building gene circuits requires not only computation and logic, but a way to store that information,” says Prof. Timothy Lu. “DNA provides a very stable form of memory and will allow us to do more complex computing tasks.”
MIT engineers have altered the DNA of E.coli so that it can store memories, reports Colin Barras for New Scientist. The research could “pave the way for cellular biographers that can be inserted into our bodies for the inside scoop on our health,” Barras explains.
Nature highlights the top science news of the week, including the new interdisciplinary center at MIT aimed at examining the microbiome. “The center will initially focus on inflammatory bowel disease, but organizers hope to eventually broaden the scope to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, arthritis and autism,” Nature reports.
Nidhi Subbaraman of BetaBoston writes that Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus has been honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Subbaraman explains that Dresselhaus conducted early research into the electric properties of graphite, “and her work led to the discovery of graphene, the atom-thin carbon sheets that are expected to revolutionize the way we work with electronics.”
David Jackson of USA Today writes about the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, including two MIT honorees, Institute Professors Mildred Dresselhaus and Robert Solow. Dresselhaus was honored for “deepening our understanding of condensed matter systems and the atomic properties of carbon,” while Solow was recognized for “laying the groundwork for much of modern economics.”
Alexandra Ossola of Popular Science features Prof. Kamal Youcef-Toumi’s work developing an autonomous robot to patrol pipes for leaks. “The two-liter-bottle-size prototype cruises through pipes at up to 3 miles per hour in search of subtle pressure differences that indicate a loss of fluids,” writes Ossola.
Wired reporter Kyle Vanhemert writes about the next-generation space suit Professor Dava Newman is designing to give astronauts greater mobility. The suit, a “form-fitting ‘soft exoskeleton’,” would serve as a “second-skin suit” for astronauts, Newman explains.
In a piece for The Atlantic, Sarah Laskow writes about how MIT researchers have developed a new drug-delivery capsule that could serve as an alternative to injections. The new drug capsule would make it possible to “deliver drugs that would otherwise break down in the digestive tract.”