“At our best, scientists are explorers and what I’ve discovered is that life can change in the blink of an eye,” writes Prof. Sara Seager in an excerpt from her new book, “The Smallest Lights in the Universe” published by The Guardian. “We need to hold on to the glimmers of hope – however small – and to continue to search for what really matters.”
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach about the Breakthrough Initiative she is leading aimed at exploring the feasibility of sending an exploration mission to Venus. “We just want to do something small and fast and focused,” says Seager. “Can we send a microscope and look for life directly?”
A CRISPR-based diagnostic test for Covid-19 developed by researchers from MIT and the Broad Institute could produce results within an hour, reports Deborah Becker for WBUR. "Using these technologies will really allow for much more rapid testing — down from days to sometimes less than an hour," said McGovern fellow Jonathan Gootenberg. "That would enable a drastic change in how the tracing and handling of the pandemic is done."
A team of researchers, led by Prof. Sara Seager, is planning to investigate why phosphine has been found on Venus and the discovery’s potential implications, reports Mike Wall for Space.com. “We are thrilled to push the envelope to try to understand what kind of life could exist in the very harsh Venus atmosphere and what further evidence for life a mission to Venus could search for,” says Seager.
A new center established at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research is aimed at accelerating the development of novel therapies and technologies, writes Katie Jennings for Forbes. The hope is that “we can identify common pathways, either a common molecular pathway that's a chokepoint for a therapy or a common group of neurons or neural systems,” says Prof. Robert DeSimone, director of the McGovern Institute.
Boston Globe reporter Felice Freyer writes about the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience, which was established at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research thanks to a $28 million gift from philanthropist Lisa Yang and MIT alumnus Hock Tan ’75. “The center will develop tools to precisely target the malfunctioning genes and neurons underpinning brain disorders,” writes Freyer.
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Holly Williams on CBS This Morning about the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. “Finding phosphine leaves us with two equally crazy ideas,” says Seager. “One is that there is some unknown chemistry, and the other one is that there’s some possibility there might be some kind of life producing phosphine on Venus.”
Research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva speaks with Washington Post reporters Joel Achenbach and Marisa Iati about her work trying to determine whether phosphine in the clouds of Venus could be a potential indicator of life. “We did our very best to show what else would be causing phosphine in the abundance we found on Venus,” says Sousa-Silva. “And we found nothing. We found nothing close.”
Writing for CNN, Prof. Sara Seager explores the significance of the paper she co-authored detailing the discovery of phosphine on Venus. “Our finding of phosphine gas now raises Venus as just one more place to take seriously in the search for life beyond Earth,” writes Seager, “maybe not so crazy after all.”
Wired reporter Sarah Scoles spotlights the work of research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva, known as Dr. Phosphine on Twitter, and her quest to learn more about phosphine. Scoles writes that Sousa-Silva is a “leading expert in this little-characterized molecule. She identified 16.8 billion features across the full spectrum, greatly expanding on the mere thousands anyone knew about before.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniela Hernandez writes about a new study co-authored by MIT researchers detailing signs of phosphine on Venus. Clara Sousa-Silva, a research scientist at MIT, explains that Venus is an “abominable place,” but noted that “the clouds themselves could be habitable.”
The discovery of phosphine, a potential indicator of life, in the atmosphere of Venus, “is unbelievably important, and it is unbelievably exciting,” says research scientist Janusz Petkowski in an interview with Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane. “Everything about this is completely unexpected.”
Research scientists Clara Sousa-Silva and Janusz Petkowski speak with Tiziana Dearing of WBUR’s Radio Boston on the significance of finding phosphine on Venus. “We found something extraordinary on Venus,” says Sousa-Silva. “It may be just a sign of really strange chemistry that we cannot begin to consider, but there is a small possibility that it may be a sign of not just strange chemistry, but strange biochemistry, and the culprit is the molecule phosphine.”
Atlantic reporter Marina Koren writes that astronomers have detected signs of a gas produced by microorganisms in the clouds of Venus. “As crazy as it might sound, our most plausible explanation is life,” explains research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva.
Astronomers have uncovered phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, a potential sign of microbial life, reports Seth Borenstein for the AP. Prof. Sara Seager explains that she and her colleagues, “exhaustively went through every possibility and ruled all of them out: volcanoes, lightning strikes, small meteorites falling into the atmosphere. ... Not a single process we looked at could produce phosphine in high enough quantities to explain our team’s findings.”