Technology and society

Kevin Kusch ’17 co-founded Notemeal, an nutrition app used by athletes at the professional and college level, reports Tim Casey for Forbes. “Notemeal’s first clients used the app to build meal plans for players and track their nutrition information. After Covid-19 hit, the NFL did not allow players to gather for meals, so Notemeal developed a feature where players could order directly through the app, see nutrition information such as carbohydrates, proteins and calories and pick up the food prepared at team kitchens to take home,” writes Casey.

TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights a new study by Prof. Daron Acemoglu that examines the impact of automation on the workforce. “We’re starting with a very clear premise here: in 21st-century America, the wealth gap is big and only getting bigger,” writes Heater. “The paper, ‘Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality,’ attempts to explore the correlation between the growing income gap and automation.”

MIT scientists have developed a miniature antenna that could one day be used to help safely transmit data from within living cells “by resonating with acoustic rather than electromagnetic waves,” reports Andrew Chapman for Scientific American. “A functioning antenna could help scientists power, and communicate with, tiny roving sensors within the cell,” writes Chapman, “helping them better understand these building blocks and perhaps leading to new medical treatments.”

Popular Science reporter Andrew Paul writes that a study co-authored by Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines the impact of automation on the workforce over the past four decades and finds that “‘so-so automation’ exacerbates wage gaps between white and blue collar workers more than almost any other factor.”

Fast Company reporter Nate Berg spotlights the grand opening of the redesigned MIT Museum. “Braiding the science and the art together, I think it places the science into the context that it is part of our culture and our lives, it’s not a white tower experience,” says Ann Neumann, director of exhibitions and galleries at the museum.

GBH Open Studio reporter Jared Bowen explores the new MIT Museum in Kendall Square. “The reimagined MIT Museum looks at all the advances in technology and their positive – and controversial – effects on society, from genetic engineering to the increasing role that artificial intelligence is playing in art and media,” says Bowen.  

Boston Globe correspondent Scott Kirsner explores the growth of quantum computing from the field's roots “at a 1981 meeting in Dedham, at MIT’s Endicott House conference center.” Bharath Kannan PhD ’22, co-founder and CEO of Atlantic Quantum, notes that if researchers could develop a computer that was natively quantum mechanical, "it would be game-changing for a lot of industries.”

Prof. Danielle Wood speaks with Bloomberg about the future of space technology and sustainability. Wood explains that she and her team are focused on developing a “space sustainability rating, which is a method to incentivize organizations to actually do what they can to reduce space debris now in Earth’s orbit.” 

Prof. Emeritus Tim Berners-Lee spoke at Lisbon’s Web Summit conference about Solid, an “open-sourced gambit to reinvent the web through new decentralized privacy-minded tools for wrangling data,” reports Harry McCracken for Fast Company. Solid was originally started as an MIT research project.

Principal research scientist Leo Anthony Celi speaks with Associated Press reporter Maddie Burakoff about how pulse oximeters can provide inaccurate readings in patients of color. Celi highlights how oxygen levels can also be measured by drawing blood out of an artery in the wrist, the “gold standard” for accuracy, but a method that is a a bit trickier and more painful. 

Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speaks with Forbes reporter John Koetsier about the future of robotics. “I have been on a quest to have universal machines,” says Rus. “My idea is to create universal robot cells that could combine to form different types of machines, each with the same capability.”

Writing for The Hill, Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, explores how automation could ease the supply chain crisis. “Automation in these settings doesn’t mean replacing employees, but developing more robust inventory management software and using systems like scanners and conveyors that make our jobs easier,” writes Rus. “This would enable warehouse workers to focus on other more detail-oriented roles, from overseeing the operation of forklifts to improving the efficiencies of distribution centers.”

Vox reporter Bryan Walsh spotlights Prof. Max Tegmark, co-founder of The Future of Life Institute (FLI), for his work in reducing technological existential disasters. “In creating FLI, Tegmark joined a host of other institutions… that arose in recent years to put both a scholarly and an activist lens of the rising danger of existential catastrophes,” writes Walsh.  

Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. David Rand explores how social media platforms could channel partisan motivations to help moderate the spread of misinformation online. “Combating misinformation is a challenge requiring a wide range of approaches,” writes Rand. “Our work suggests that an important route for social media companies to save democracy from misinformation is to democratize the moderation process itself.”

MIT Museum Director John Durant speaks with Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney about the significance of the new location of the MIT Museum and what makes the museum such a special place. Of the museum’s new home in the heart of Kendall Square, Durant says, “I think MIT is committing itself here to the importance of its museum as a kind of gateway institution, as a way of helping the wider community understand what MIT is about.”