School of Architecture and Planning

Prof. Edward Boyden has developed a new imaging technique called expansion-revealing microscopy that can reveal tiny protein structures in tissues, reports The Economist. “Already his team at MIT has used it to reveal detail in synapses, the nanometer-sized junctions between nerve cells, and also to shed light on the mechanisms at play in Alzheimer’s disease, revealing occasional spirals of amyloid-beta protein around axons, which are the threadlike parts of nerve cells that carry electrical impulses.”

Writing for Bloomberg News, Prof. Carlo Ratti and Robert Muggah of the Igarapé Institute make the case that cities should use venture capital strategies to manage risk and spur innovation. “To do so, local governments need to change their approach to procurement,” they write. “If administrators pay more close attention to what venture capital can teach them, then the city — one of the first, greatest ventures in human history — will be able to continue to invest in a shared, prosperous tomorrow.”

A new study by Prof. Albert Saiz has found that Mexican housing must become denser and better planned in order to provide adequate living options to lower-income parts of the population, reports Kylie Madry for Reuters. “According to Saiz, the prevalence of self-built, one-family homes is a bigger problem than growing numbers of ‘digital nomads’ – remote workers living in Mexico but earning disproportionately large salaries from abroad – which have been the focus of criticism since the coronavirus pandemic took many jobs online,” writes Madry.

Researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab have found that academics missed out on forming new connections during Covid-19 lockdowns, hindering academic collaboration, reports Tom Williams for Times Higher Education. “Colleagues associated more with previous collaborators, which could create closed loops of communication, rather than with new potential collaborators, which enables the critical exchange that stimulates research and innovation,” says postdoctoral researcher Daniel Carmody.

Joseph Coughlin, Director of the MIT AgeLab, writes for Forbes about Serena William’s recent retirement announcement and the evolving concept of retirement. “Tennis star Serena Williams announced her ‘retirement’ from tennis this week while challenging the very idea of retirement,” writes Coughlin. “Williams is not alone. Many people, far older than her 41 years, are declaring retirement a dated term best left to past generations and another era.”

The Emerald Tutu, a climate resiliency project in Boston led by Gabriel Cira ’08, is developing a system of floating wetlands designed to reduce coastal flooding by knocking down waves, reports Hannah Chanatry for WBUR. The Emerald Tutu was the winning project at the 2018 MIT Climate Changed Ideas competition. “Fundamentally, it’s like a giant sponge that fits around urban coastlines like we have here in Boston,” said Cira. “It buffers those coastlines from the intense effects of coastal storms.”

Prof. Miho Mazereeuw speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Lindsay Ellis about courses she is teaching at MIT focused on environmental risk and disaster-resilient design. During her course last semester, “students weighed how to build environments that can cope with a changing climate as well as the social inequities that disasters reveal,” writes Ellis.

Prof. Yoel Fink speaks with Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma about the growing field of smart textiles and his work creating fabrics embedded with computational power. Fink and his colleagues “have created fibers with hundreds of silicon microchips to transmit digital signals — essential if clothes are to automatically track things like heart rate or foot swelling. These fibers are small enough to pass through a needle that can be sown into fabric and washed at least 10 times.”

The Economist spotlights how Prof. Carlo Ratti and researchers from the MIT Senseable City Lab are working on revitalizing neglected spaces in Kosovo’s capital. “We wanted to start something that could continue in the long term: small interventions that, little by little, could become part of the city,” says Ratti.

Ezra Haber Glenn, a lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning, writes for Experience Magazine about how companies and technologists are looking to make electric vehicle charging stations destinations themselves. “Still in the conceptual stages, the program envisions replacing gas stations with a variety of ‘new-age community centers,’” writes Glenn.

Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, emphasizes the importance of friendships in retirement. “Comprehensive longevity planning is about living well in later life, not just financial planning,” writes Coughlin. “Without rich social connections, health, even coupled with ample wealth, might still result in unhappiness in older age. It appears that men, in particular, must work harder than most women to invest and build their social portfolio.”

MIT scientists have used custom software and maple plywood to create “The Cosmic Cliffs Infinite Galaxy Puzzle” based on the newfound images from the James Webb Space Telescope, reports Elissaveta M. Brandon for Fast Company. The 264-count puzzle contains “squiggly pieces that can be reconfigured in endless ways” writes Brandon.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniela Hernandez spotlights the work of Media Lab Research Scientist Andreas Mershin in developing sensors that can detect and analyze odors. Mershin “is focusing on medical applications of olfaction technology. Inspired by dogs that have demonstrated an ability to sniff out malignancies in humans, he’s working on an artificial-intelligence odor-detection system to detect prostate cancer.”

Researchers at MIT have created a knit textile containing pressure sensors called 3DKnITS which can be used to predict a person’s movements, reports Charlotte Hu for Popular Science. “Smart textiles that can sense how users are moving could be useful in healthcare, for example, for monitoring gait or movement after an injury,” writes Hu.

Ariel Ekblaw, director of the Space Exploration Initiative and founder of the Aurelia Institute, speaks with Fast Company reporter Rachael Zisk about accessibility needs for human spaceflight and the next generation of space stations. “The goal of democratizing access to space is to allow more people around the world to see themselves in that future,” says Ekblaw.