The MIT Media Lab has awarded its first Disobedience Award to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha and Prof. Marc Edwards, for their work drawing attention to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, reports Scott Malone for Reuters. "They saw…an actual harm that was occurring and they did what they needed to do to intervene," explains Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab.
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about NATO, arguing that the alliance is a crucial component of U.S. security policy. “Should the alliance shatter, all the social infrastructure that allows people to collaborate will break with it,” Levenson explains.
MIT senior Lilly Chin, winner of the 2017 Jeopardy! College Championship, speaks to Paris Alston of WGBH about her experience on the competition. “I wasn’t expecting to get in, I just wanted to have some fun with it,” Chin says about initially trying out for the quiz show.
Lilly Chin, a senior at MIT majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, won the 2017 Jeopardy! College Championship, reports Kenneth Singletary for The Boston Globe. Singletary notes that “for her efforts, Chin won $100,000 and a chance to play on the Tournament of Champions.”
Mickey Edwards of The Los Angeles Times reviews Prof. Heather Hendershot’s book about William Buckley. “Hendershot is clever to have used his 'Firing Line' television show as an introduction to both Buckley and the rise of conservative intellectual opposition to the liberal orthodoxy,” writes Edwards.
New York Times reporter Randy Kennedy writes about “The Enemy,” a virtual reality project created by Prof. Fox Harrell and Visiting Scholar Ben Khelifa that is aimed at allowing visitors to learn from individuals on both sides of long-standing conflicts. The project “holds the promise of opening up new frontiers for the integration of journalism and art,” writes Kennedy.
In this video, Prof. Heather Hendershot speaks with Mary Kissel of The Wall Street Journal about her new book examining the impact of William F. Buckley’s program the “Firing Line.” “He was the key player in forging a sophisticated, urban, elegant image for right wing conservatism. And that got me interested in him,” Hendershot explains.
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Atlantic about the response to author Andrea Wulf winning the Royal Society Insight Investment Book Prize. “Discounting a great work at the moment it earns one of science writing’s highest honors based on the gender of its creator is just one more barrier women science writers have to deal with that men don’t.”
In an NPR piece about diversity in sci-fi, Jeff Young highlights a study by Prof. Edward Schiappa that found TV viewers became more accepting after watching shows that introduce them to different cultures. "At this point, it's a pretty unequivocal finding that TV can affect how people feel and think about others," says Schiappa.
In an article for TIME, Shane Parrish writes about and highlights excerpts from Prof. Alan Lightman’s book, “The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew.” Parrish writes that “‘The Accidental Universe’ is an amazing read, balancing the laws of nature and first principles with a philosophical exploration of the world around us.”
On NPR’s All Things Considered, Prof. Thomas Levenson speaks about his book on the 50-year search for a non-existent planet, an example, he explains, of how science really works. “It takes a great leap of the imagination to get from what you really know you know to the wacky thing that turns out to be more true.”
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about the MRI Prof. Rebecca Saxe’s created of herself and her infant son. “Art does many things, but certainly one of them is to give us images that confront us with shards of the strange experience of being human,” writes Levenson. “Science, an artful craft, can do the same — as it does here.”
Matthew Price of The Boston Globe reviews “The Hunt for Vulcan” by Prof. Thomas Levenson, which chronicles the history of the search for the non-existent planet Vulcan. “The key question, as Levenson puts it, is ‘what happens when a prediction fails to find its match in nature?’” writes Price.
Prof. Thomas Levenson speaks with Boston Globe reporter Amy Sutherland ahead of the publication of his new book, “The Hunt for Vulcan” about the books he likes to read and what makes for good science writing. “Science writing should convey information, but in a literary form,” Levenson explains.
Carolina Morena writes for The Huffington Post about Prof. Junot Díaz's appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” where he discussed the importance of reading books by people from different backgrounds. "You look at this country and you look at this world and you need to understand it in complex ways," said Díaz.