Curt Nickisch of WBUR reports that MIT, Harvard, MGH and The Boston Globe are joining forces for HUBweek, a weeklong festival focused on innovation to be held in the fall of 2015. “MIT plans to host a huge gathering called SOLVE to tackle with some of the world’s most perplexing problems,” reports Nickisch.
Yiqing Shao of Boston Magazine reports on HUBweek, a new innovation festival that will be co-hosted by MIT, The Boston Globe, Harvard and MGH. “By uniting so many of the region’s leading institutions, HUBweek itself embodies the open, collaborative spirit that has helped make Greater Boston and Cambridge a hotbed of innovation and new ideas,” said MIT President L. Rafael Reif.
Boston Globe reporter Michael Levenson writes about HUBweek, an “innovation-themed festival” that aims to showcase Boston. As part of HUBweek, MIT will host “‘Solve’ to brainstorm solutions to problems in education, energy, the environment, manufacturing, and infrastructure.”
“If the festival helps experts in Greater Boston make new connections across disciplines and across institutions — and find common interests and opportunities for collaboration with people around the world — the region as a whole can only benefit,” writes The Boston Globe Editorial Board of HUBweek, which will be co-hosted by MIT.
Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times writes about Prof. Amy Finkelstein’s work “trying to help researchers find rigorous ways to evaluate new approaches to the health delivery system — questions about what sorts of services to offer different patients, financing methods for care, or other such questions.”
Professor Jonathan Gruber speaks with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan of WGBH about health care enrollment following the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. “States like California and Massachusetts, that really care about implementing the law, have done well,” says Gruber. “They’ve gotten the word out and signed people up.”
Sacha Pfeiffer of WBUR speaks with Jonathan Eig, the author of a new book on the history of birth control, about the role of MIT alumna Katherine McCormick in the development of the birth control pill. McCormick, a pioneer of the women's suffrage movement, funded much of the research that led to the creation of the pill.
Robert J. Szczerba of Forbes reports on how cameras are changing health care, featuring new work from researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. The researchers are developing a new technique to measure heart rate via subtle head movements, Szczerba writes.
Cari Romm of The Atlantic writes about a new draft paper co-authored by MIT Professor Heidi Williams examining infant mortality rates in the U.S. Researchers found that part of the reason for the higher infant mortality rate in the U.S. is that “American babies are mostly fine while they’re in the hospital and during their first days at home—but over time, that changes.”
In a piece for Forbes, John C. Goodman writes about a new study co-authored by MIT Professor Heidi Williams that examines why the U.S. infant mortality rate is about twice that of other developed countries. The researchers found that “the US postneonatal disadvantage is driven almost entirely by excess mortality among individuals of lower socioeconomic status.”
In a piece for the Washington Post about infant mortality rates, Christopher Ingraham highlights a new study co-authored by Professor Heidi Williams examining why the U.S. infant mortality rate is so high. The researchers found that the higher mortality rates are due, “entirely, or almost entirely, to high mortality among less advantaged groups."
Lauren Leamanczyk reports for CBS Boston on organjet.com, a website created by Professor Sridhar Tayur that helps patients determine where waiting times for organ transplants are shorter. Tayur says that the system can cut years off the time a patient spends on the list.
Heather Kelly of CNN writes about the breast pump hackathon hosted at MIT recently. The winning design, the Mighty Mom utility belt, turned a “pump into a hands-free portable device that is worn discreetly under clothes and can work while the wearer goes about her regular routine,” writes Kelly.
A hackathon held over the weekend at the MIT Media Lab sought to develop a better design for the breast pump, writes Rachel Ehrenberg for The Atlantic. “[M] ost women will tell you that the experience of using the breast pump sucks, literally and figuratively,” says Media Lab researcher Catherine D'Ignazio.
In a piece for The New Yorker, Michelle Nijhuis writes about the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck! hackathon, held at the MIT Media Lab. The winning team came up with an idea for a, “portable, hands-free pump that could be used while commuting or caring for small children,” writes Nijhuis.