Researchers at MIT have developed a vibrating pill that “significantly reduces food consumption by mimicking the feeling of fullness,” reports Arianna Johnson for Forbes. Researchers believe, “the pill can be used as a cheaper, noninvasive option to treat obesity and other weight-related illnesses,” writes Johnson.
A new analysis from MIT researchers has found that preventative screenings such as a colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy can reduce cancer rates more than previous analyses suggested, reports Ernie Mundell for HealthDay. “Prior colon cancer screening studies found that regular colonoscopy/sigmoidoscopy reduced that rate by 25% -- to 0.75%,” explains Mundell. “But the new analysis took into account the number of participants in a colon cancer screening trial who decided, for whatever reason, to skip screening. When these "non-adherent" folks were eliminated from statistical calculations, the actual percentage of people who went on to develop colon cancer over a 10-year span fell to just 0.5%.”
Writing for STAT, Prof. Joseph Doyle addresses new research that suggests food “as medicine can improve health and lower health care costs.” “Researchers, clinicians and policymakers all share a common goal to fight food insecurity and improve population health,” writes Doyle. “Randomized clinical trials are key tools for discerning what works best, for whom and why, information that we should all be hungry for.”
MIT researchers have created “a vibrating pill that stimulates nerve endings in the stomach to tell the brain it’s time to stop eating,” reports Mitch Leslie for Science. “A gel plug in the pill keeps the motor from switching on,” explains Leslie. “But the gel dissolves rapidly when it contacts stomach fluid, allowing the motor to start turning. When that happens, the pill shakes for about 38 minutes, roughly the amount of time it would stay in the stomach. The researchers hypothesized that these vibrations would stimulate the stretch-sensing nerve endings and signal satiety.”
Newsweek reporter Pandora Dewan spotlights MIT researchers and their work developing an ingestible vibrating pill that can mimic the sensation of fullness. "The development of new non-invasive methods for treating obesity is of importance in confronting the multifaceted challenges posed by this global health crisis," says Shriya Srinivasan PhD ’20. "Traditional interventions, such as invasive surgeries, can be associated with significant risks, costs and lifestyle modifications, limiting their applicability and effectiveness.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a vibrating pill that can be swallowed before eating to create a feeling of fullness, reports Nicola Davis for The Guardian. “This approach offers an alternative and potentially synergistic approach to other therapies available today,” says Prof. Giovanni Traverso.
Researchers at MIT have developed “a battery-operated capsule-like device that’s supposed to make you feel full by stretching out your stomach using vibration,” reports Miriam Fauzia for Inverse. “Considering that diet and exercise are hard to maintain, especially for long-term weight loss, and medical interventions like gastric bypass surgery and the newest wave of injectables cost more than a pretty penny, [Shriya] Srinivasan PhD ’20 and her colleagues want their vibrating pill to be an accessible alternative,” writes Fauzia.
Researchers at MIT have used artificial intelligence to uncover, “a new class of antibiotics that can treat infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria,” reports Jeremy Hsu for New Scientist. “Our [AI] models tell us not only which compounds have selective antibiotic activity, but also why, in terms of their chemical structure,” says postdoctoral fellow Felix Wong.
ClimateWire reporter John Fialka writes that MIT engineers have developed a new process to convert carbon dioxide into a powder that can be safely stored for decades. “The MIT process gets closer to an ambitious dream: turning captured CO2 into a feedstock for clean fuel that replaces conventional batteries and stores electricity for months or years,” writes Fialka. “That could fill gaps in the nation's power grids as they transition from fossil fuels to intermittent solar and wind energy.”
MIT researchers are working to uncover new ways to avoid contrails and minimize their impact on global warming, reports Nicolas Rivero for The Washington Post. “Whether [the contrail impact is] exactly 20 percent or 30 percent or 50 percent, I don’t think anybody knows that answer, really,” says research scientist Florian Allroggen “But it also doesn’t really matter. It’s a big contributor and we need to worry about it.”
Researchers from MIT have developed, “nanoelectronics they hope can one day enter the brain and treat conditions like Alzheimer’s by monitoring some of these brain patterns,” reports Elizabeth Hlavinka for Salon. “Their device, which they call Cell Rover, serves as a sort of antenna that can help external devices monitor cells.”
Forbes contributor William Haseltine spotlights how MIT researchers developed a biosensor ingestible capsule that can gather and transmit information on a patient’s condition to a physician. Haseltine notes that “aside from respiratory and heart rate monitoring, future applications for the pill could come from alterations in its design, leading to other avenues of health monitoring. These may include digestive health, blood sugar monitoring and cancer cell detection.”
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights how researchers at MIT have combined cement with carbon black to make concrete that can store energy as one of the climate tech innovations that provide hope “that it’s still possible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.” With this new technology, “the foundation of your future house could eventually store solar power from your roof,” explains Peters.
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have uncovered “a major advancement in the development of ‘error correction,’ the process of fighting the subatomic deterioration that makes most quantum computers today unhelpful for more than research purposes,” reports Derek Robertson for Politico.
Erika Debenedictis PhD '20 speaks with Nature reporter Rachel Pells about her experience building her own tools to use in her scientific research. “Inventions come from going out on a limb,” says Debenedictis. “The first version might be duct-taped together, but then you make another one, and another one, and the hope is that eventually the pay-off is greater than the pain of putting it together.”