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.
Cynthia Graber writes for The Boston Globe Magazine that MIT researchers developed a robot to collect sewage samples, in an effort to gain a better understanding of public health problems. The samples can pinpoint harmful environmental factors as well as “neighborhoods with high rates of infectious diseases or even obesity, levels of illegal drug use, and pollutants.”
In this video, CNN spotlights how researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab have developed a robot, named Luigi, to collect bacteria from the sewers in an effort to better understand public health. "Sewers represent a unique opportunity where health data from everybody in a community is pooled together,” explains Prof. Eric Alm.
Emma Grey Ellis writes for Wired that MIT researchers are aiming to get a better grasp on public health in cities around the world by analyzing the microbes in sewage systems using a robot dubbed Luigi. Wilson explains that sewage “carries drug metabolites, DNA, even biomarkers for diabetes—and all that data is available in real time.”
ABC News reporter Gillian Mohney writes that Prof. Lydia Bourouiba has captured footage of a person sneezing, showing how far sneeze droplets can travel. Bourouiba found that “large droplets tended to land within 1 to 2 meters (about 3 to 6 feet) and that small droplets could get as far as 6 to 8 meters away (19 to 26 feet).”
Prof. Lydia Bourouiba has published a new slow-motion video of a person sneezing as part of her research into how sneezes spread disease, reports Rae Ellen Bichell for NPR. Bichell explains that Bourouiba’s research is aimed at better understanding “how to prevent microbes from moving from a sick person or contaminated surface to somebody else.”
In this article and video, Nature reporter Corie Lok spotlights Prof Lydia Bourouiba’s work studying the fluid dynamics of coughing and sneezing. Bourouiba explains that her research combines “fluid mechanics to problems that are relevant in health and epidemiology to understand better how pathogens are transmitted.”
CBC News reporter David Common writes that as part of a project called Underworlds, MIT researchers have developed robots that can sample human waste in sewers in an effort to better understand public health. "One of the holy grails of this project during its inception was to identify viral outbreaks," explains Jessica Snyder, an MIT postdoc.
MIT researchers are collecting information from sewer systems in an effort to better understand human health, writes Nicola Davis for The Guardian. “The beauty of looking at the sewage is there is a possibility that you can look not only for that pollutant, but some version of that pollutant that’s been modified by the human body,” explains Prof. Eric Alm.
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 used high-speed cameras to examine how sneezes travel, reports Gillian Mohney for ABC News. The researchers found that “instead of a uniform cloud of droplets, a single sneeze would fragment in the air similar to paint being flung onto a canvas.”
Popular Science reporter Alexandra Ossola writes that MIT researchers are examining how drops of fluid from a sneeze travel. Ossola explains that gaining a “better understanding of these drops form and spread could help researchers and engineers stop the spread of disease, especially in enclosed spaces."
MIT researchers have examined how droplets are formed in high-propulsion sneeze clouds, according to CBS Boston. “Droplets are not all already formed and neatly distributed in size at the exit of the mouth, as previously assumed in the literature,” explains Prof. Lydia Bourouiba.
Prof. Lydia Bourouiba has modeled how droplets are formed after a person sneezes, reports Jonathan Webb for BBC News. “The process is important to understand because it determines the various sizes of the final droplets - a critical factor in how a sneeze spreads germs,” writes Webb.
MIT researchers have found that the high-velocity cloud created by the average human sneeze can contaminate a room in minutes, writes Robert Preidt for U.S. News & World Report. Sneeze droplets "undergo a complex cascading breakup that continues after they leave the lungs, pass over the lips and churn through the air," explains Prof. Lydia Bourouiba.