John Tirman, executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies, writes for WBUR about opposition within the Republican party to immigration reform. “Opposition to immigration reform is one of the more perplexing symptoms of Washington paralysis nowadays,” says Tirman.
Boston Globe reporter Jon Garelick writes about the MIT Wind Ensemble and MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, detailing the history of both performance groups. Garelick writes that a new album by the two groups, “Infinite Winds,” is “one of the most compelling CDs of the year.”
In an article for The Huffington Post, John Tirman argues that the wave of migration from African and Latin American countries is a crisis caused partially by economic and political policies that American and European leaders have played a role in shaping. “Until the first world policies change, the third world will keep coming, at all costs,” Tirman writes.
Boston Globe reporter Jeremy Eichler reviews the final concert performed this year as part of Sounding, a new annual concert series at MIT, which featured a celebration of American experimental music. The annual series concluded on Saturday night with a “roiling and joyful 80th birthday tribute to minimalist pioneer Terry Riley,” Eichler writes.
Natasha Singer writes for The New York Times about Professor Natasha Dow Schüll’s research examining how people have begun to use technology to alter their behavior. “It is not really about self-knowledge anymore,” says Schüll. “It’s the nurselike application of technology.”
Chun Han Wong writes for The Wall Street Journal about a study coauthored by MIT graduate student Yiqing Xu that finds an ideological divide in China based on geography. The researchers found that, “provinces with higher levels of economic development, trade openness, urbanization are more liberal than their poor, rural counterparts.”
Brett Smith reports for redOrbit on a new study by Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa on the development of human language. Miyagawa explains his finds that the brain “at some point 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, hit a critical point, and all the resources that nature had provided came together in a Big Bang and language emerged pretty much as we know it today.”
Prof. Nikhil Agarwal has found that a lack of positions at prestigious institutions leads to low salaries among medical residents, reports Angela Chen for The Wall Street Journal. Agarwal found that, "applicants are willing to pay an 'implicit tuition'...to have a prestigious and high-demand residency."
John Winters of WBUR reviews Professor Alan Lightman’s memoir of growing up in Memphis, “Screening Room: Family Pictures.” “I’d wanted to write a book about Memphis for many years and also to explore more of the complex relationship between my grandfather, my father and myself,” says Lightman.
Matt Cantor of USA Today writes that by examining the key features that augment a violin’s sound, MIT researchers have found that the shape and design of the “f-holes” give the instrument its acousitcal power. The researchers also found that the instrument’s shape evolved gradually over time, by chance.
The Associated Press reports on the career of Professor Emeritus Irving Singer, a prominent philosopher who passed away Feb. 1 at the age of 89. Singer, who served on the MIT faculty for more than 50 years, wrote 21 books in the field of humanistic philosophy.
Professor Emeritus Irving Singer, who taught philosophy at MIT for more than 50 years and was well known for his three-volume work, “The Nature of Love,” died on Feb. 1, reports Sam Roberts for The New York Times. Singer penned 21 books on everything from creativity and morality to love aesthetics, literature, music and film.
MIT researchers have found that few health care studies use the random assignment method, considered to be the gold standard in scientific research, reports U.S. News & World Report. The researchers “analyzed hundreds of studies about improving health care and found that only 18 percent of those conducted in the United States used the random assignment method.”
A new study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein found that few health care system studies used the random assignment method, considered the gold standard for scientific research, reports Sabrina Tavernise for The New York Times. “The beauty of randomization is that it allows you to be sure of the cause,” says Finkelstein of the importance of using the method.
In a piece exploring the possibility of time travel, BBC News reporter Sean Coughlan highlights Prof. Brad Skow’s new book about the concept of time. Skow argues that, “past moments or experiences are just as real as the present, but are inaccessible in another part of time.”