Research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva speaks with Wired reporter Abigail Beall about phosphine, a molecule that she has spent the past decade investigating. “Phosphine is a horrific molecule, it’s foul in every way,” she says. “It’s almost immoral, if a molecule can be.”
Writing for Science, Charlie Greenwood spotlights how MIT researchers are building upon their pioneering work twisting sheets of graphene together to create superconductors by using twisted graphene to develop working devices. “Many researchers are excited by the promise of exploring electronic devices without worrying about the constraints of chemistry,” writes Greenwood.
Axios reporter Bryan Walsh writes that a new report by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future makes policy recommendations for ensuring American workers are able to secure good jobs. “If we deploy automation in the same labor market system we have now," says Prof. David Mindell, "we're going to end up with the same results.”
Three years after President L. Rafael Reif delivered an “intellectual call to arms” to examine the impact of technology on jobs, the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future has published its final set of recommendations. “In an extraordinarily comprehensive effort, they included labor market analysis, field studies and policy suggestions for changes in skills-training programs, the tax code, labor laws and minimum-wage rates,” writes Steve Lohr for The New York Times.
Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with New York Times reporter Veronica Perrey about the impact of climate change on hurricanes. “Potential intensity is going up,” says Emanuel. “We predicted it would go up 30 years ago, and the observations show it going up.”
A team of astronomers, including MIT researchers, have identified fast radio burst emanating from a magnetar in our galaxy, reports Doyle Rice for USA Today. “The radio pulses are the closest ones detected to date, and their proximity has allowed the team to pinpoint their source.”
Prof. Kiyoshi Masui speaks with Verge reporter Loren Grush about how astronomers have detected fast radio bursts coming from a magnetar within our own galaxy. “This is the missing link,” Masui says. “Now we’ve seen a fast radio burst coming from a magnetar, so it proves that at least some fraction of fast radio bursts we see in the universe come from magnetars.”
Writing for The Conversation, graduate student Craig Robert Martin delves into his research exploring how the Himalayas were created. “By decoding the magnetic records preserved inside them, we hoped to reconstruct the geography of ancient landmasses – and revise the story of the creation of the Himalayas,” writes Martin.
Boston Globe reporter Corrie Pikul spotlights Prof. Li-Huei Tsai’s work finding that exposure to a specific pattern of rhythmic lights and sound bursts could potentially serve as a non-invasive treatment for Alzheimer’s. “These are really surprising findings,” says Tsai. “We are seeing multiple different cellular responses that are consistent with increased brain health.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Scott Sheffield argues that “circuit breakers” – strict closures for limited periods of time - could be used to help reduce Covid-19 infections. Sheffield and his co-authors explain that circuit breakers could “interrupt viral spread and bring case counts down without the long-lasting social and economic pain of extended lockdowns.”
CNBC reporter Charlie Wood features tProf. Connor Coley's work developing a new system that could be used to help automate molecule manufacturing. “It tries to understand, based on those patterns, what kind of transformations should work for new molecules it’s never seen before,” says Coley.
Graduate student David Berardo has demonstrated how science enthusiasts can measure the speed of light at home using a bar of chocolate and the microwave, reports Caroline Delbert for Popular Mechanics. After microwaving the chocolate for about 20 seconds, “what you’ll see is a specific pattern of melting that shows the wavelength of the microwaves that power your oven.”
STAT reporter Elizabeth Cooney spotlights a new working paper by Profs. Martin Bazant and John Bush that explores the risk of airborne transmission of Covid-19. “Depending on ventilation, mask use, air filtration, and other variables, any indoor space may carry either low or high risk of transmission,” Bazant explains.
CBS Boston reporter Juli McDonald spotlights how NASA's ORISIS-Rex spacecraft carried a key imagine instrument, designed and built by students from MIT and Harvard, on its mission to sample the surface of the asteroid Bennu. Prof. Richard Binzel, co-investigator for the mission, explains that, the device was developed to “measure the asteroid in X-ray light, which is part of the process of figuring out what the asteroid is made out of.”
When NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft touched down on the asteroid Bennu, onboard was the REgolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS), a device built by students from MIT and Harvard, write Breanne Kovatch and Andrew Stanton for The Boston Globe. “We as scientists feel the drive of curiosity and the thrill of exploration and it’s humbling and satisfying to think that we can share that sense of exploration with the world,” explains Prof. Richard Binzel, a co-investigator for the mission.