School of Science

Prof. Rudolf Jaenisch speaks with Fortune reporter Carolyn Barber about the immune system’s response to Covid-19. “The immune system is really stimulated–it’s in hyperdrive,” says Jaenisch. 

MIT researchers have “used an algorithm to sort through millions of genomes to find new, rare types of CRISPR systems that could eventually be adapted into genome-editing tools,” writes Sara Reardon for Nature. “We are just amazed at the diversity of CRISPR systems,” says Prof. Feng Zhang. “Doing this analysis kind of allows us to kill two birds with one stone: both study biology and also potentially find useful things.”

Postdoctoral associate Milan Klöwer shares how large conferences can impact air travel and personal carbon footprints, reports Sydney Johnson for KQED. “Flying is one of the sectors where there are enormous inequalities,” says Klöwer. “The people that earn the most [money] fly the most, and therefore have personal carbon footprints that are thousands of times larger than the poorest people on the planet. There is a responsibility for people to understand that problem about how they are personally emitting.”

Prof. David Rand speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Mims about the impact of generative AI on the spread of misinformation. “When you show people deepfakes and generative AI, a lot of times they come out of the experiment saying, ‘I just don’t trust anything anymore,’” says Rand.

MIT researchers have successfully figured out how to trap tiny electrons in a three-dimensional crystal prison, reports Jess Thomson for Newsweek. The researchers hope that “the flat band properties of the electrons in these crystals will help them to explore new quantum states in three-dimensional materials,” Thomson explains, “and therefore develop technology like superconductors, supercomputing quantum bits, and ultraefficient power lines.”

Cognito Therapeutics, founded by Prof. Ed Boyden and Prof. Li Huei Tsai, has developed a “specialized headset that delivers 40Hz auditory and visual stimulation” to the brain, which could potentially slow down the cognitive decline and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease, reports William A. Haseltine for Forbes. Prof. Li-Huei Tsai “and her team speculated that if gamma wave activity is reduced in Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps, artificially stimulating the brain may enhance synchronized firing and restore cognition,” writes Haseltine.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered that the young cosmos hosted a large number of tempestuous galaxies with large black holes at their cores, reports Charlie Wood for Quanta Magazine. “The exact numbers and the details of each object remain uncertain, but it’s very convincing that we’re finding a large population of accreting black holes,” says Prof. Anna-Christina Eilers. “JWST has revealed them for the first time, and that’s very exciting.”

Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with Living on Earth host Jenni Doering about the future of extreme weather forecasting. “We have to do a much better job projecting long term risk, and how that's changing as the climate changes so that people can make intelligent decisions about where they're going to live, what they're going to build, and so on,” says Emanuel. “We need better models, we need better computers, so that we can resolve the atmosphere better, we need to make better measurements of the ocean below the surface, that's really tough to do.”

Science News reporter James Riordon writes that by employing a new technology called frequency-dependent squeezing, LIGO detectors should now be able to identify about 60 more mergers between massive objects like black holes and neutron stars than before the upgrade. Senior research scientist Lisa Barsotti, who oversaw the development of this new technology, notes that even next-generation gravitational wave detectors will be able to benefit from quantum squeezing. “The beauty is you can do both. You can push the limit of what is possible from the technology of laser power and mirror [design],” Barsotti explains, “and then do squeezing on top of that.”

Researchers from MIT and Harvard have found that an adult’s ability to “parse the early attempts of children to talk may also help the children learn how to speak properly faster,” reports Jess Thomson for Newsweek. “These adult listening abilities might help children communicate very early and highlight that speech is a good way to share information with others," says postdoctoral associate Stephan Meylan. "That said, there is a lot of diversity in how adults and children interact across the world, both within and across different social and cultural contexts. This means that there are very likely many pathways to understanding language."

Joseph J. Kohn ’53, “who played a key role in extending the mathematics of calculus,” has died at 91, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. “Dr. Kohn studied how mathematical functions behave in the realm of complex numbers,” writes Chang. “This field is esoteric, even to many mathematicians. But the techniques that Dr. Kohn developed have found use in tackling a wide range of problems in mathematics as well as fundamental equations in physics, including Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”

Nature reporter Neil Savage speaks with former members of Prof. Moungi Bawendi’s research group about their work with Bawendi on synthesizing quantum dots. Manoj Nirmal PhD '96 recalls how, “what I was really intrigued and fascinated by was, it was very different than anything else that was happening in the [chemistry] department.” Christopher Murray PhD '95 rejoiced in the Nobel Prize announcement, saying, “It’s extremely exciting to see that what [Moungi] built is recognized as part of the Nobel prize.”

Prof. Moungi Bawendi, recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, speaks with CBC Quirks & Quacks host Bob McDonald about his work in quantum dots and nanotechnology. “I really want to stress that the beginning of this field, we were interested in this because it was a brand new material, it was a size region that no one had investigated before,” says Bawendi. “This was before people talked about nanoscience and nanotechnology, we were just very curious how the properties evolved from the molecular properties… to the bulk properties.”

MIT researchers Lisa Barsotti, Deep Chatterjee and Victoria Xu speak with Curiosity Stream about how developments in gravitational wave detection are enabling a better understanding of the universe. Barsotti notes that in the future, gravitational wave science should help enable us to, “learn more about dark matter about primordial black holds to try to solve some of the biggest mysteries in our universe.” Xu notes, “the detection of gravitational waves is a completely new window that has opened into our universe.”

Arvid Lunnemark '22, Michael Truell '22, Sualeh Asif '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, a startup building an “‘AI-native’” software development environment, called Cursor,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “In the next several years, our mission is to make programming an order of magnitude faster, more fun and creative,” says Truell. “Our platform enables all developers to build software faster.”