Prof. Max Tegmark speaks with Richard Webb at New Scientist about shifting his focus from cosmology to “intelligence, both human and artificial.” “It was very natural for me to gravitate to the biggest unsolved mystery that’s sort of coming within range,” says Tegmark. “We are able to see things with telescopes that our ancestors could never see, and the same thing is happening now with the mind.”
Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Harvey Lodish emphasizes the importance of foreign workers and immigrants to the U.S. economy. “Without students and workers from outside the U.S., it’s difficult to see how the current successes of U.S. scientific research and innovation could continue,” writes Lodish.
TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that CSAIL researchers have built a new two-fingered robotic gripper. The researchers “equipped their robotic gripper with fingertips that are not only made out of a soft material, but that also have embedded sensors which help it continually detect the position of a cable between the grippers to better control holding and manipulating them while performing simple tasks like detangling.”
WBUR’s Carey Goldberg explores how MIT researchers developed a new CRISPR-based research tool that can be used to detect Covid-19. "A lot of things that we try fail," says research scientist Jonathan Gootenberg. "And that’s OK. Because sometimes you find these things that are really, really awesome."
A new study by MIT researchers explores how cellular guides in planarians appear to provide a roadmap for regeneration, reports Veronique Greenwood for The New York Times. Greenwood notes that the findings “may someday help scientists interested in helping humans regenerate injured neurons.”
Verge reporter Justine Calma writes that states in the Midwest and Great Lakes region could see $4.7 billion in health benefits by maintaining current renewable energy standards. “This research shows that renewables pay for themselves through health benefits alone,” explains Emil Dimanchev, senior research associate at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
A new study by MIT researchers examining the impact of energy policies that reduce fine particulates in the air finds that there are “substantial health benefits in Rust Belt states when utilities are required to supply escalating amounts of renewable power,” reports Ben Geman for Axios.
Writing for Science, Derek Lowe spotlights how MIT researchers are developing a platform that could be used to automate the production of molecules for use in medicine, solar energy and more. “The eventual hope is to unite the software and the hardware in this area,” reports Lowe, “and come up with a system that can produce new compounds with a minimum of human intervention.”
Prof. Emeritus Daniel Freedman has been awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his work devising the theory of supergravity, reports Philip Ball for Scientific American. Freedman notes that the award, “takes the cake—it is the cap of my long career.”
Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane reports that Prof. Emeritus Daniel Freedman has been named a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his discovery of supergravity. “The discovery of supergravity was the beginning of including quantum variables in describing the dynamics of spacetime,” explains Edward Witten, chairman of the selection committee.
The Economist explores how the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led NASA mission, has identified a number of new exoplanets and, in the process, helped astronomers and scientists unearth new details about our universe. This latest discovery, according to The Economist, “will help answer some of the biggest questions in the rapidly growing science of exoplanetology.”
MIT researchers have developed a new technique to synthesize the feel-good molecules in the Kava plant root, reports Carey Goldberg for WBUR. “What we do in our lab is to actually start from plants that have thousands of years of use in traditional medicine," says Prof. Jing-Ke Weng. "We already know there's something in that plant that works to treat some illness."
Profs. Daniel Rothman and Daniela Rus contributed to a Boston Globe piece exploring what the next big moonshot challenge should be. Rothman noted that, “We need to understand how the Earth system responds to environmental change,” while Rus expressed a desire to explore interspecies communication and the development of intelligent clothing.
A new study by MIT researchers finds that there are differences in how genes are used in men and women, reports Angus Chen for WBUR. “I think we are at present missing a lot because we operate with what is essentially a unisex model in biomedical research,” explains Prof. David Page.
A study by Prof. Dan Rothman finds that increasing greenhouse gas emission rates could trigger a mass extinction in the ocean, reports Priya Shukla for Forbes. Shukla writes that Rothman found if a certain carbon threshold “is breached, it would take tens of thousands of years for the oceans to return to their original unperturbable state.”