Boston Globe reporter Astead Herndon writes that an international team of astronomers, including researchers from MIT, have discovered three potentially habitable planets. “This is a paradigm shift,” says Julien de Wit, a postdoc at MIT. “These planets are the best shots for us to search for other habitats, and maybe even life.”
MIT researchers have developed a technique to help predict the thickness of a round shell, reports Alexandra Ossola for Popular Science. The findings “could help researchers create shells with a predictable thickness and a uniform consistency at an industrial scale. That’s useful for a range of products, including pills and aerodynamic vehicles.”
In this video, The Economist explores how MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm that can predict where and when rogue waves might strike. The algorithm “identifies groups of waves most likely to form a rogue wave. The MIT algorithm is so thrifty that a ship’s skipper can run it on a laptop.”
MIT researchers have developed an algorithm capable of predicting the onset of rogue waves, writes Jason Thomson for The Christian Science Monitor. The algorithm, “hunts through data collected about surrounding waves, sifting for signs of clusters that could coalesce and crest into one of these behemoths.”
MIT researchers have developed an algorithm that can predict rogue waves, reports Matt Burgess for Wired. Burgess explains that the algorithm uses “statistical data, collected from buoys in the ocean, to quantify the range of possible waves for any body of water.”
Popular Science reporter Mary Beth Griggs writes that MIT researchers have developed a new tool that could provide advanced warning of rogue waves. The tool should allow crews “to detect rogue wave minutes before they form, giving them enough time to adjust course, or at least hang on.”
Inside Higher Ed's Carl Straumsheim speaks with Dr. Peter Fritschel about how LIGO researchers selected Physical Review Letters to publish the team’s discovery of gravitational waves. After LIGO members cast their votes, Fritschel explained that PRL was a “pretty clear winner,” citing its reputation as a “premier journals for physics results.”
Tech Insider’s Chris Weller reports on a new study by MIT researchers that examines how sneezes travel and spread viruses. The findings could help researchers “predict and prevent disease spread,” Weller explains. “If they know how quickly a pathogen spreads via sneeze, then they can learn more about the risks posed by the viruses themselves.”
MIT researchers have found that two types of turbulence within plasma could explain the heat loss that takes place in fusion reactors, reports Thomas Tamblyn for The Huffington Post. “With the mystery solved, researchers can now better understand how the plasma reacts and then in turn start working on fundamental ways to combat it.”
Prof. Matthew Evans speaks with Joshua Sokol of New Scientist about the LIGO findings. “Until this detection, there was a question about the existence of binary black hole systems,” Evans explains. “So it is a pleasant surprise for us to have detected them.”
DAWN profiles Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, highlighting her work on LIGO, and what inspired her interest in physics and the hunt for gravitational waves. “Even when Nergis was a freshman, she struck me as fearless, with a refreshing can-do attitude,” says Robert Berg, a professor of physics at Wellesley College.
Profs. Rainer Weiss and Nergis Mavalvala speak with Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s On Point, about the detection of gravitational waves. “We fully expect, as with every revolution in astronomy, that when you open a new way of looking at it [the universe] you will learn things that I can’t even tell you yet,” says Weiss.
Joshua Sokol writes for New Scientist that the detection of gravitational waves will allow researchers to explore the universe’s most exotic objects. “Imagine you’re playing the movie of the universe. This is going to be the end of the silent movie era in astronomy because you have just added sound,” says Senior Research Scientist Erik Katsavounidis.
WBUR's Bruce Gellerman speaks with Prof. Nergis Mavalvala about what the detection of gravitational waves means for the future of astronomy. “The discovery itself is spectacular, but it’s the potential for what comes next that’s even bigger,” says Mavalvala. “We are really witnessing the opening of a new way of doing astronomy.”
Kendra Pierre-Louis writes for Motherboard about the work behind the LIGO team's detection of gravitational waves. Pierre-Louis explains that in the 1960s, Prof. Rainer Weiss was teaching a class on gravitational physics and “devised a method that he felt was theoretically more rigorous, using a clock and laser beams” to detect gravitational waves.