MIT researchers have developed a new model that helps quantify a company’s security risk, and estimates possible financial losses, reports Catherine Stupp for The Wall Street Journal. The tool “collects encrypted data from companies about recent incidents and analyzes the anonymized information to determine the probability of different kinds of attacks more broadly,” writes Stupp.
In an article for Inside Higher Ed, Prof. Kerstin M. Perez writes about the importance of fostering a sense of belonging in the STEM fields.
Washington Post reporter Rachel Lerman highlights how MIT researchers developed a robotic system that uses UV light to disinfect spaces. “By knowing the geometry of the space — usually represented as a map — the robot can compute a patrolling trajectory and speed to expose all surfaces to the dosage that neutralizes the pathogens,” explains Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL.
In an article about capitalism and climate change, Bloomberg reporter Akshat Rathi spotlights principal research scientist Andrew McAfee’s book, “More from Less.” McAfee makes the case that “it is in capitalism’s nature to increase inequality,” writes Rathi, “and it is a responsive government’s job to reign in that excess.”
Emily Calandrelli SM ’13 speaks with STAT reporter Pratibha Gopalakrishna about her work aimed at getting children interested in science, the importance of representation in the STEM fields, and her new Netflix show. “I don’t shy away from the science because I think kids are very clever and know way more than a lot of people give them credit for,” says Calandrelli.
MIT scientists have uncovered an efficient new method to produce D-allose, a sugar alternative, reports Josseline Ramos-Figueroa for Massive Science. “This new development to produce D-allose has the potential to make this rare sugar readily and cheaply available for further exploration in other research areas,” writes Ramos-Figueroa.
In a piece exploring why certain countries experience wealth or poverty, The Economist spotlights Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s book, “The Narrow Corridor,” and recent research by Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson. The Economist notes that Acemoglu and Johnnson “found a further element of randomness which may explain contemporary patterns of wealth and poverty—namely, which countries are more prone to certain diseases.”
Profs. Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee join NPR’s Planet Money for overrated or underrated, a game in which Banerjee and Duflo, winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, “rate everything from bread to foreign aid to dating an economist.”
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights how, as part of an effort to reduce Covid-19 risk for health care workers, researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital developed a new system that enables remote vital sign monitoring. "We started to think about how we could protect healthcare providers and minimize contact with folks that might be infectious,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso.
Boston 25 spotlights how scientists from LIGO and Virgo have detected what may be the most massive black hole collision yet. “The result of the black holes colliding created the first-ever observed intermediate black hole, at 142 times the mass of the sun,” reports Boston 25.
Scientists from LIGO and Virgo have detected the largest collision between two black holes to date, which appears to have created an “intermediate-mass” black hole, reports Loren Grush for The Verge. Intermediate-mass black holes, “are really the missing link between [black holes with] tens of solar masses and millions,” says Prof. Salvatore Vitale. “It was always a bit baffling that people couldn’t find anything in between.”
A new working paper by MIT researchers details how the use of a universal basic income (UBI) helped people in Kenya with difficult economic situations, writes Kelsey Piper for Vox. The researchers found that the UBI provided “income benefits in good times and then stability benefits during bad times,” says Prof. Tavneet Suri.
CNN reporter Allen Kim spotlights how researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have modified a robotic dog so that it can be used to help measure a patient’s vital signs. “The researchers expect to focus on triage applications in the short term, with the goal of ultimately deploying robots like this to patients' hospital rooms to continuously monitor them and let doctors to check in on them without ever having to step into the room,” writes Kim.
CBS Boston features how researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital equipped a robot from Boston Dynamics with technology to enable remote vital sign monitoring.
Writing for Indvstrvs, Prof. Eugene Fitzgerald, CEO and director of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), explores new advances in silicon technologies. “With silicon computing saturating, the key to the future is interconnecting with other systems wirelessly and at lower power,” writes Fitzgerald.