MIT has announced the establishment of the MIT Morningside Academy for Design, reports Susan H. Greenberg for Inside Higher Ed. The new center “aims to foster collaboration and innovation across academic disciplines – including engineering, science, management, computing, architecture, urban planning and the arts – to address such pressing global issues as climate change, public health, transportation, and civic engagement,” writes Greenberg.
Bloomberg News spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new material that works like a microphone, converting sounds into vibrations and then electrical signals. “The development means the possibility of clothes that act as hearing aids, clothes that answer phone calls, and garments that track heart and breathing rates,” writes Bloomberg News.
Researchers from MIT and the Rhode Island School of Design have developed a wearable fabric microphone that can detect and transmit soundwaves and convert them into electrical signals, reports Shi En Kim for Popular Science. “Computers are going to really become fabrics," says Prof. Yoel Fink. "We’re getting very close.”
MIT researchers have created a flexible fiber that can generate electrical impulses that are conveyed to the brain as sound, reports Miriam Fauzia for The Daily Beast. “The researchers see endless possibilities for their smart fabric,” writes Fauzia. “The obvious application is in improving hearing aids, which Fink said have trouble discerning the direction of sound, particularly in noisy environments. But the fabric could also help engineers design wearable fabrics that can measure vital signs, monitor space dust in new kinds of spacecraft, and listen for signs of deterioration in buildings like emerging cracks and strains.”
Ariana Remmel spotlights “Carbon Queen,” a new book written by MIT News Deputy Editorial Director Maia Weinstock, which highlights the career of Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus. “Weinstock navigates the complexities of theoretical physics and research bureaucracy deftly,” writes Remmel. “She describes of carbon – from diamond to graphite – and their properties with sleek diagrams and colourful analogies that unpack basic principles and broader implications.”
Forbes contributor David Bressan writes that a new study by MIT researchers proposes that oxygen began accumulating in early Earth’s atmosphere due to interactions between marine microbes and minerals in ocean sediments. The researchers hypothesize that “these interactions helped prevent oxygen from being consumed, setting off a self-amplifying process where more and more oxygen was made available to accumulate in the atmosphere,” writes Bressan.
Science writer Maia Weinstock, deputy editorial director at MIT News, has written a new book titled “Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus,” which highlights the career of Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus, reports Vijaysree Venkatraman for Science. “In “Carbon Queen,” Weinstock has pieced together Dresselhaus’s story using decades of profiles, print interviews, oral histories conducted with the scientists herself, and new interviews with her contemporaries,” writes Venkatraman.
Physics World reporter Jesse Wade spotlights “Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus,” a new book by Maia Weinstock, deputy editorial director at MIT News. “With Carbon Queen, Weinstock does more than tell the story of a brilliant scientist’s life,” writes Wade. “She transports you into a world of curiosity and wonder, driven by enthusiasm and persistence.”
Prof. Susan Solomon and Eugenia Kalnay PhD ’71 are featured in a Washington Post piece highlighting “leading women in atmospheric and climate sciences who have forged the path to better our knowledge of the weather and world around us.” Solomon is an “internationally recognized as a leader in atmospheric sciences for her work in explaining the cause of the ‘hole in the ozone’ over Antarctica.”
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science, speaks with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai about what inspired her love of science, how to inspire more women to pursue their passions and her hopes for the next generation of STEM students. “Working and building with my hands has always been something I’ve enjoyed doing,” says Mavalvala. “But I’ve also always been interested in the fundamental questions of why the universe is the way it is. I couldn’t have been more delighted when I discovered there was such a thing as experimental physics.”
Smoke from Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 appears to have contributed to the breakdown of the ozone layer, according to a new study by MIT scientists, reports Sharon Udasin for The Hill. “The new study establishes the first direct link between wildfire smoke and ozone depletion,” writes Udasin.
Daily Beast reporter Miriam Fauzia writes that a new study by MIT scientists finds that smoke particles from wildfires are slowing the recovery of the ozone layer.
BBC News correspondent Helen Briggs writes that MIT scientists have found that increasing wildfires may slow the recovery of the ozone layer. "All the hard work that the world went to to reduce chlorofluorocarbons (ozone-depleting chemicals once used in aerosol sprays) is not paying off as well in the areas that experience extreme wildfires," explains Prof. Susan Solomon. "The best hope would be that we reduce global warming gases also and stop increasing the wildfires, but that's obviously more difficult."
A new study by MIT scientists finds that smoke emitted into the atmosphere from Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 resulted in depletion of the ozone layer, reports Donna Lu for The Guardian. The findings suggest “rising fire intensity and frequency due to the climate crisis may slow the recovery of the ozone layer.”
Smithsonian Magazine reporter Margaret Osborne spotlights MIT researchers who have discovered that specific neurons in the brain respond to singing, but not sounds such as road traffic, instrumental music and speaking. “This work suggests there’s a distinction in the brain between instrumental music and vocal music,” says former MIT postdoc Sam Norman-Haignere.