CBC News’ Anna Maria Tremonti explores a new study by MIT researchers that examines how children interact with AI toys. The study shows, “how children can develop emotional ties with the robots, which was cause for concern for the MIT researcher,” Tremonti explains.
HuffPost reporter Thomas Tamblyn writes that MIT and Harvard researchers have created a range of origami-inspired robotic muscles. “These ultra-flexible materials could be applied to everything from deep-sea robotics to creating tiny yet incredibly strong tools for performing surgery,” Tamblyn explains.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed a new origami-inspired artificial muscle that can lift up to a thousand times its own weight, reports Amina Khan for The Los Angeles Times. Khan explains that the robotic muscles, “offer a new way to give soft robots super-strength, which could be used everywhere from inside our bodies to outer space.”
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala speaks with Massive reporter Prabarna Ganguly about her work engineering high-precision laser beams to detect signals from deep space, the long hunt for gravitational waves and her hopes for future generations of scientists. Ganguly writes that Mavalvala is, “one of the stalwarts in a long, arduous, and deeply human discovery of faraway perturbations rippling through the universe.”
Prof. Timothy Lu speaks with STAT reporter Eric Boodman about his work trying to harness bacteria to treat disease. Lu notes that his lab is also currently working on, “building these genetic circuits for therapeutic applications, but instead of targeting bacteria, we’ve been focused on using human cells.”
Boston Globe reporter Alyssa Meyers writes that MIT researchers have observed how the flu spreads between cells in the body. “Once it’s infected a cell and has commandeered its inner workings, the virus makes copies of itself that gather into buds attached to the membrane. The buds then break free from their host and go on to infect other cells.”
Researchers at MIT will begin studying how Boston-area drivers interact with driver assistance systems, reports Aarian Marshall for Wired. Research Engineer Bryan Reimer explains that he and his colleagues hope to gain a better understanding for how, “driving is beginning to transform from one where the human has primary oversight responsibility to one where the human is actively engaged in a robotic interaction with the vehicle.”
A new study by MIT researchers shows how stress can lead people to make risky decisions, reports Kristin Hugo for Newsweek. “The study lends insights into how neurological disorders affect people. It could be the stress of dealing with inabilities to function properly and staving off cravings, compounded with the chemical effects on the brain, that are influencing people’s uninhibited behavior.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Amina Khan writes that researchers from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration have identified gravitational waves emitted from the smallest black hole they have detected. “Its mass makes it very interesting,” explains Prof. Salvatore Vitale. The discovery, he adds, “really starts populating more of this low-mass region that [until now] was quite empty.”
MIT researchers have developed a new material that harvests sunlight and converts it into energy, reports Sydney Pereira for Newsweek. “Inspired by the structures that plants use to gather sunlight and turn it into energy, the material mimics circuitry found in nature for harvesting light,” Pereira explains.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Christopher Matthews highlights a new study by Prof. Kerry Emanuel that shows Texas faces an increased risk of devastating rainfall due to climate change. The study demonstrated how greenhouse gas emissions, “help warm offshore waters—a phenomenon that can magnify the severity of storms and generate more rain, creating bigger floods.”
In a letter to The Financial Times, Prof. Jessika Trancik, postdoc Geoffrey Supran, and graduate student Marco Miotti clarify results from a study the lab released last year that compares emissions of gas and electric vehicles. “Not only do electric cars usually emit less than petrol ones already, but over time, as the carbon footprint of electricity continues to fall, that gap will widen,” the researchers explain.
Boston Globe reporter Alyssa Meyers writes that a new study by MIT researchers shows that probiotics could be used to help fight high blood pressure. The researchers found that probiotics, “can boost beneficial bacteria in the human gut that prevent pro-inflammatory immune cells from increasing in number." Pro-inflammatory immune cells have been linked with hypertension.
Media Lab researcher Anushka Shah analyzes recent news coverage using the MIT Media Cloud on WBUR’s Here & Now. As an open source platform, the Media Cloud allows “people to have a stronger tool to be able to analyze and reflect in the media,” Shah says.
A study by Prof. Kerry Emanuel finds that storms like Hurricane Harvey, which produced 20 inches of rain, are six times more likely to occur as a result of global warming, reports Robinson Meyers of The Atlantic. Rainfall will worsen because “storms of all types—not just hurricanes—will retain more moisture in a warmer climate,” explains Meyers.