MIT researchers have developed a new satellite observation technique that can gauge how fast rivers flowed on Mars billions of years ago and how fast they currently flow on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, reports Talia Lissauer for The Boston Globe. “We can use these other worlds to help us understand what keeps planetary climate stable, or in some cases, what allows planetary climate to change really drastically over time like on Mars,” says Prof. Taylor Perron.
Jeff Heglie ’85 co-founded For Bitter For Worse, a zero-proof spirits company focused on bringing non-alcoholic cocktails to market, reports Ann Trieger Kurland for The Boston Globe. “They have won medals for their drinks, which are crafted like spirits,” writes Kurland. “Herbs and botanicals are first macerated in alcohol to extract their flavors, then they use a still to remove the alcohol in a process Heglie, an MIT graduate, calls ‘reverse bootlegging.’ Natural ingredients — organic roots and juices, fruit peels, spices, and more — are blended into the robust base to add layers of flavor.”
Popular Science reporter Jon Kelvey writes that astronomers from MIT and elsewhere recently captured views of a galaxy cluster as it existed when it was 5 billion years old, and found it is one of the few relaxed galaxy clusters from that time period in the cosmos. The findings “could be telling us that galaxies are forming at a younger age than we thought,” in the early universe, explains graduate student Michael Calzadilla. “That’s challenging our timeline of when things happened.”
Prof. Tracy Slatyer and Prof. Janet Conrad speak with Scientific American reporter Clara Moskowitz about their favorite discoveries in the field of physics. Slatyer notes that “the accelerating expansion of the universe has to be a strong contender.” For Conrad, “I think my favorite event in physics was the prediction of the existence of the neutrino [a subatomic particle with no charge and very little mass] because so much of our fundamental approach to physics today grew out of that moment.”
Researchers at MIT have discovered that the ocean’s color has changed considerably in the last 20 years and is “another warning sign of human-driven climate change,” reports Maria Luisa Paul for The Washington Post. “These ecosystems have taken millions of years to evolve together and be in balance,” says Senior Research Scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz. “Changes in such a short amount of time are not good because they put the whole ecosystem out of balance.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, Prof. Emeritus Ernest Moniz explores the risks associated with the cesium-137 devices used in hospitals. “Boston hospitals have an opportunity to receive tens of thousands of dollars of grants toward the purchase of new equipment that is just as effective for medical and research purposes as the radiological devices they have been using for decades,” writes Moniz, “while shedding the liabilities and security costs associated with cesium sources.”
Michael Goldberg PhD '08 founded Surge Therapeutics, a company developing a hydrogel immunotherapy treatment aimed at reducing the risk of surgically-removed cancers returning, reports India Rice for Forbes. “Broadly speaking, immunotherapy is a range of cancer treatments that aim to strengthen the immune system’s ability to fight cancer,” explains Rice. “But what makes Surge’s solution different is that it’s applied during surgery as opposed to other immunotherapies that are delivered weeks before or weeks after surgery.”
Prof. Ev Fedorenko has been studying the differences in “the neural architecture of speakers who speak languages with different properties,” reports Sofia Quaglia for Wired. “Her studies suggest that the core features of language systems in the brain seem similar across the board,” explains Quaglia.
Researchers from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) are using high-temperature superconducting tape as a key part of the design for their tokamak reactor, reports Tom Clynes for IEEE Spectrum. The researchers believe that “this novel approach will allow it to build a high-performance tokamak that is much smaller and less expensive than would be possible with previous approaches,” Clynes notes.
MIT researchers are hoping to use Dyson maps “to translate the language of classical physics into terms that a quantum computer—a machine designed to solve complex quandaries by leveraging the unique properties of quantum particles—can understand,” reports Darren Orf for Popular Mechanics.
MIT researchers have found that over the past two decades, the color of the world’s oceans has changed significantly, reports Talib Visram for Fast Company. The change “is likely due to human-induced climate change,” explains Visram. “The color shifts matter in that they signal changes in ecosystem balance, which have the power to disrupt fragile marine food webs.”
CNN reporter Jack Guy spotlights a new study co-authored by researchers at MIT, which shows that the ocean’s color has changed considerably over the last 20 years and human-caused climate change is likely responsible. “All changes are causing an imbalance in the natural organization of ecosystems,” says senior research scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz. “Such imbalance will only get worse over time if our oceans keep heating.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered that the ocean’s hue has changed significantly over the last 20 years, reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. “A shift in ocean color is an indication that ecosystems within the surface may also be changing,” writes Baisas. “While the team can’t point to exactly how marine ecosystems are changing to reflect the shift, they are quite sure that human-induced climate change is likely behind it.”
A new study led by a team including researchers at MIT has found that more than half of the world’s ocean has changed color in the last 20 years, reports Coco Liu for Bloomberg. “The color shift could be caused by changes in plankton communities that are critical to the marine food chain,” writes Liu. “And biodiversity isn’t the only thing at stake: The shift could also affect how much carbon dioxide the ocean takes up, since different types of plankton have different abilities to absorb it."