Research

Principal Research Scientist Eric Heginbotham writes for Newsweek that in simulations of a possible invasion of Taiwan, he and his colleagues found that “China would lose—so long as the United States continues to invest in maintaining deterrence and chooses to intervene directly and vigorously.” Heginbotham adds: “The United States should ensure that the political relationship with China remains positive in those areas that do not directly compromise America's position and — consistent with U.S. policy for half a century—that avoid promoting de jure independence for Taiwan.”

Researchers at MIT developed SoFi, a soft robotic fish designed to study underwater organisms and their environments, reports Mashable. “The soft robotic fish serves a nice purpose for hopefully minimizing impact on the environments that we’re studying and also helps us study different types of behaviors and also study the actual mechanics of these organisms as well,” says graduate student Levi Cai.

Prof. Emeritus Olivier Blanchard speaks with New York Times opinion writer Peter Coy about the U.S. policy towards federal debt. “Blanchard pointed out in the [his] book that if the interest rate the government pays on its debt is lower than the economy’s growth rate, the existing stock of debt will feel lighter over time because it will shrink as a share of gross domestic product even if the government isn’t running surpluses,” writes Coy.

Forbes reporter Jeff McMahon spotlights visiting scientist Judah Cohen for his research examining the connection between Arctic snow cover and sea ice to cold air intrusions in the United States during the month of February. “December has certainly been warming if you look at the U.S.,” sayscCohen. But “February, going back to 1979—so quite a few years now—we're actually seeing in the center of the U.S. a very distinctive cooling trend.”

Postdoctoral fellow Timur Abbiasov speaks with Guardian reporter Henry Grabar about his research examining the relationship in neighborhoods between local errands and the geography of amenities. Abbiasov and his colleagues found that “the more commerce, parks and services in a neighborhood, the more people travelled locally, whether in the country’s most walkable cities or its least.”

National Geographic reporter Maya Wei-Haas explores how the ancient art of origami is being applied to fields such a robotics, medicine and space exploration. Wei-Haas notes that Prof. Daniela Rus and her team developed a robot that can fold to fit inside a pill capsule, while Prof. Erik Demaine has designed complex, curving fold patterns. “You get these really impressive 3D forms with very simple creasing,” says Demaine.

MIT researchers are developing targeted drug delivery through the use of nanoparticles to aid in cancer treatment, reports Simone Migliori for Boston Magazine. “Designed to circulate through the bloodstream, these small but mighty travelers [nanoparticles] can deliver a chemotherapy drug directly to a target cancer cell without disturbing any healthy cells along the way,” writes Migliori. “In doing so, patients may be able to avoid some of the worst side effects of chemotherapy drugs while still effectively treating their cancer.”

Researchers from MIT and Harvard have found that “Chinese companies lead the world in exporting face recognition,” potentially enabling other governments to perform more surveillance and harming citizens’ human rights, reports Will Knight for Wired. “The fact that China is exporting to these countries may kind of flip them to become more autocratic, when in fact they could become more democratic,” says Prof. Martin Beraja.

A new study by MIT researchers finds that “the energy required to run computers in a future global fleet of autonomous vehicles could produce as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world,” reports Sharon Udasin for The Hill. The researchers found that “1 billion such cars, each driving for an hour daily, would use enough energy to generate the same amount of emissions that data centers do today.”

Principal research scientist Eric Heginbotham and his colleagues speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Tobin Harshaw about their study simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “The project developed a war game with hundreds of tokens that include forces from the US, China, Taiwan and Japan,” Heginbotham and his colleagues explain. “Air and naval operations were played on a 5-by-6 foot map that covers the Western Pacific. Ground operations were played on a separate map that covers Taiwan.”

Xin Liu SM ’17, art curator for the Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative, and Pat Pataranutaporn, a graduate student, speak with Mashable video producer Teodosia Dobriyanova about why sending plastic-eating bacteria to space could aid sustainability efforts. “We envision that in the future when astronauts, as they travel deeper into space, they’ll need to do what we call in-situ resource utilization,” says Pataranutaporn. “So using the materials that already exists there, in this case plastic waste, to upcycle it into new materials.”

Prof. Zachary Cordero and his team are working to develop an in-space manufacturing technique to design a satellite reflector that can monitor storms and precipitation through moisture changes in the atmosphere, reports Ramin Skibba for Wired. “It involves bending a single strand of wire at specific nodes and angles, then adding joints to make a stiff structure,” writes Skibba.

Prof. Steven Barrett speaks with New York Times reporter Paige McClanahan about the pressing need to make air travel more sustainable and his research exploring the impact of contrails on the planet’s temperature. “Eliminating contrails is quite a big lever on mitigating the climate impact of aviation,” said Barrett.

Politico reporter Derek Robertson writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds the computing power required to replace the world’s auto fleet with AVs would produce about the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers currently operating. Robertson writes that the researchers view the experiment “as an important step in getting auto- and policymakers to pay closer attention to the unexpected ways in which the carbon footprint for new tech can increase.”

MIT researchers have discovered that ancient Romans used calcium-rich mineral deposits to build durable infrastructure, reports Daniel Cusick for Scientific American. This “discovery could have implications for reducing carbon emissions and creating modern climate-resilient infrastructure,” writes Cusick.