Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

By modeling the conditions of an entire wind farm rather than individual turbines, engineers can squeeze more power out of existing installations. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/wind-farm-optimization-energy-flow-0811

Piction Health, a startup founded by Susan Conover SM '15, lets doctors classify skin conditions with the snap of a picture. Their app uses machine learning to help physicians identify and manage skin diseases. Read the article on MIT News: https://news.mit.edu/2022/piction-health-skin-app-0706

Studying a powerful type of cyberattack, researchers identified a flaw in how it's been analyzed before, then developed new techniques that stop it in its tracks. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/side-channel-attacks-detection-0609

What does a sunset sound like? With the Sonification Toolkit, almost anything can be transformed into sound that is aesthetically satisfying and analytically illuminating. The newly released prototype, a work in progress with cutting-edge capabilities, is a robust exploratory foray into possibilities for sonification. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/sound-sunset-sonification-toolkit-0209

Using a new sonification toolkit, designed but MIT's Digital Humanities Lab, senior Moises Trejo was able to turn a sunrise and a sunset into sound. What the toolkit does is convert the annual times of sunrises and sunsets in a particular location and turns them into a simple soundwork. Depending on the settings it either becomes a two-voice melody (in a strange tuning) or a gradual modification of an evolving sound, or somewhere in between. In this piece the lower tone of the chord is the sunrise time, and the higher tone is the sunset time. The time course of the piece represents the days in the year, as sunrise and sunset gradually move further apart from each other (as the days get longer) and then move towards each other (as the days get shorter). Listen to the article: https://soundcloud.com/mitnewsoffice/audio-article-the-sound-of-a-sunset?si=76714eafe06742f698b283a79d713750&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/sound-sunset-sonification-toolkit-0209

MIT neuroscientists have identified a specific signal that young children and even babies can use to determine whether two people have a strong relationship and a mutual obligation to help each other: whether those two people kiss, share food, or have other interactions that involve sharing saliva. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/babies-relationships-saliva-0120

A machine-learning expert from MIT and a psychology researcher/clinician from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have teamed up to develop tools for mental health care delivery. They hope that their algorithms will eventually equip physicians and patients with useful information about individual disease trajectory and effective treatment. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/deploying-machine-learning-improve-mental-health-rosalind-picard-0126

Spoiler Alert, a company founded by two MIT alumni, is helping companies bridge the gap between food waste and food insecurity with a platform connecting major food and beverage brands with discount grocers, retailers, and nonprofits. The platform helps brands discount or donate excess and short-dated inventory days, weeks, and months before it expires. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/spoiler-alert-food-waste-0105

A team of MIT scientists have generated a detailed, three-dimensional "atlas" of the largest oxygen-deficient zones (ODZ) in the tropical Pacific. And though these ODZs make up less than 1 percent of the ocean's total volume, they are a significant source of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/oxygen-deficient-ocean-map-1227

A novel approach to testing for the presence of the virus that causes Covid-19 may lead to tests that are faster, less expensive, and potentially less prone to erroneous results than existing detection methods. Though the work, based on quantum effects, is still theoretical, these detectors could potentially be adapted to detect virtually any virus, the researchers say. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2021/quantum-sensor-detect-covid-1220

Researchers at MIT have done a detailed analysis and created a set of computational tools to enable architects and engineers to design truss structures in a way that can minimize their embodied carbon while maintaining all needed properties for a given building application. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/truss-structure-carbon-materials-1129

MIT researchers have now incorporated certain social interactions into a framework for robotics, enabling machines to understand what it means to help or hinder one another, and to learn to perform these social behaviors on their own. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/robots-social-skills-1105

Good sleep can be hard to come by. But a new study by researchers at MIT and the University of São Paulo in Brazil finds that if you can make up for lost sleep, even for just a few weekend hours, the extra zzz's could help reduce fatigue-induced clumsiness, at least in how you walk. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/lack-sleep-walk-1026

As climate change brings greater threats to coastal ecosystems, new research can help planners leverage the wave-damping benefits of marsh plants. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/how-marsh-grass-protects-shorelines-1018

Researchers at MIT and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are combining machine learning and human-computer interaction to create a better electronic health record (EHR). They developed MedKnowts, a system that unifies the processes of looking up medical records and documenting patient information into a single, interactive interface. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2021/medknowts-electronic-health-record-0923

Engineers at MIT have developed a new approach to removing lead or other heavy-metal contaminants from water, in a process that they say is far more energy-efficient than any other currently used system, though there are others under development that come close. Ultimately, it might be used to treat lead-contaminated water supplies at the home level, or to treat contaminated water from some chemical or industrial processes. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2021/removing-lead-water-electrodialysis-0922

Would you like to live longer? It turns out that where you live, not just how you live, can make a big difference. That's the finding of an innovative study co-authored by an MIT economist, which examines senior citizens across the U.S. and concludes that some locations enhance longevity more than others, potentially for multiple reasons. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/seniors-relocate-longevity-0901

Electrochemical reactions that are accelerated using catalysts lie at the heart of many processes for making and using fuels, chemicals, and materials — including storing electricity from renewable energy sources in chemical bonds, an important capability for decarbonizing transportation fuels. Now, research at MIT could open the door to ways of making certain catalysts more active, and thus enhancing the efficiency of such processes. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2021/elecrochemical-reaction-catalyst-efficiency-0908

In the face of grave concerns about misinformation, social media networks and news organizations often employ fact-checkers to sort the real from the false. But fact-checkers can only assess a small portion of the stories floating around online. A new study by MIT researchers suggests an alternate approach: Crowdsourced accuracy judgements from groups of normal readers can be virtually as effective as the work of professional fact-checkers. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/crowd-source-fact-checking-0901

Two MIT professors have proposed a new approach to estimating the risks of exposure to Covid-19 under different indoor settings based on the number of people, the size of the space, the kinds of activity, whether masks are worn, and the ventilation and filtration rates. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/covid-19-risks-indoor-0415

MIT Associate Professor Andrews Sevtsuk has developed a model of pedestrian movement that could help planners and developers better grasp the flow of foot traffic in all cities. His work emphasizes the functionality of a neighborhood's elements, above and beyond its physical form, making the model one that could be used from Cambridge to Cape Town. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/counting-pedestrian-traffic-0415

Thousands of different bacterial species live within the human gut. Most are beneficial, while others can be harmful. A new study from an MIT-led team has revealed that these bacterial populations can remake themselves within the lifetime of their host, by passing genes back and forth. They also found for people in industrialized societies this happens at much higher rates. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/microbiome-industrialized-gene-transfer-0331

Stopping the spread of political misinformation on social media may seem like an impossible task. But a new study co-authored by MIT scholars finds that most people who share false news stories online do so unintentionally, and that their sharing habits can be modified through reminders about accuracy. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/social-media-false-news-reminders-0317

The world’s oceans are a vast repository for gases including ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. They absorb these gases from the atmosphere and draw them down to the deep, where they can remain sequestered for centuries and more. Marine CFCs have long been used as tracers to study ocean currents, but their impact on atmospheric concentrations was assumed to be negligible. Now, MIT researchers have found the oceanic fluxes of at least one type of CFC, known as CFC-11, do in fact affect atmospheric concentrations. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/oceans-emitting-cfc-ozone-0315

MIT engineers have spun polyethylene into fibers and yarns designed to wick away moisture. They wove the yarns into silky, lightweight fabrics that absorb and evaporate water more quickly than common textiles such as cotton, nylon, and polyester. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2021/plastic-bags-recycle-fabrics-0315

A new study co-authored by MIT scholars suggests that healthier women are more likely to follow age-based guidelines, leaving room for better-targeted testing. Women who start getting mammograms at age 40 may be healthier than the population of 40-year-old women as a whole — and they have a lower incidence of breast cancer than those who do not start getting tested at that age. Therefore, simply changing age recommendations is not, by itself, an optimal way to make breast-cancer screening policy. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/mammogram-age-guidance-1217

At a time when hostilities between countries increasingly occur online a new paper, co-authored by an MIT professor, suggests why countries that retaliate too much against online attacks make things worse for themselves. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/cybersecurity-deterrence-retaliation-1210

This recording is a product of a glissando of sound waves that a team of MIT physicists sent through a carefully controlled gas of elementary particles known as fermions. The pitches that can be heard are the particular frequencies at which the gas resonates, like a plucked string. The way that sound travels through this fluid can be used to calculate the sound, and “quantum friction,” in neutron stars and other perfect fluids. Read the related story:

More than 75 percent of the the quality engineering startup Ultranauts' employees are on the autism spectrum, allowing the company to tap into the unique strengths of each team member as it helps large enterprises and mature startups improve the quality of their data, analytics, and software. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/ultranauts-neurodiversity-1201

A new MIT-developed system called RoboGrammar makes it possible to simulate and determine which robot design, out of thousands of possibilities, will work best based on what parts you have laying around your shop and what terrain it needs to traverse. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/computer-aided-robot-design-1130

Since the coronavirus pandemic began in the spring, many people have only seen their close friends and loved ones during video calls, if at all. A new study from MIT finds that the longings we feel during this kind of social isolation share a neural basis with the food cravings we feel when hungry. Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/hunger-social-cravings-neuroscience-1123

For more information read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/covid-19-cough-cellphone-detection-1029 TRANSCRIPT: [AUDIO RECORDING OF A PERSON COUGHING] NARRATOR: Asymptomatic people who are infected with Covid-19 exhibit, by definition, no discernible physical symptoms of the disease. But it seems those who are asymptomatic may not be entirely free of changes wrought by the virus. The differences between a cough of an asymptomatic patient and a healthy individual are not decipherable to the human ear, but it turns out that they can be picked up by artificial intelligence.  NARRATOR: For example, here is a cough of a healthy individual:[AUDIO RECORDING OF A HEALTHY INDIVIDUAL] NARRATOR: And now here is a cough of an asymptomatic person with Covid-19: [AUDIO RECORDING OF AN ASYMPTOMATIC COVID-19 POSITIVE PATIENT] NARRATOR: To make things even more challenging, listen to a person who has symptoms and is Covid-19 positive: [AUDIO RECORDING OF A COVID-19 POSITIVE PATIENT WITH SYMPTOMS] NARRATOR: It is very hard, frankly almost impossible, for a person to distinguish these three cough’s, even after you’ve listened to them multiple times. But a team of MIT researchers report they have developed an AI model that can distinguish asymptomatic people with Covid-19 from healthy individuals without the disease through forced-cough recordings.  NARRATOR: To develop their model, the researchers used tens of thousands of samples of coughs submitted by people voluntarily though web browsers and devices such as cellphones and laptops. When they fed the model new cough recordings, it accurately identified 98.5 percent of coughs from people who were confirmed to have Covid-19, including 100 percent of coughs from the asymptomatic, who reported they did not have symptoms but had tested positive for the virus. NARRATOR: When the AI model is fed the cough of a Covid asymptomatic person [AUDIO RECORDING OF AN ASYMPTOMATIC COVID-19 PATIENT] they found it was able to pick up patterns in the four biomarkers — vocal cord strength, sentiment, lung and respiratory performance, and muscular degradation — that are specific to Covid-19. NARRATOR: When the model is fed the cough of a covid-positive individual who IS exhibiting symptoms [AUDIO OF A SYMPTOMATIC COVID-19 POSITIVE PATIENT] it is actually harder for artificial intelligence to discriminate. The researchers think it is because there are many conditions that create symptoms, such as the flu or asthma and therefore the results are confounded. For this reason, they stress that their AI model is not meant to diagnose symptomatic people, OR determine whether their symptoms are due to Covid-19 or other conditions. The tool’s strength lies in its ability to discern asymptomatic coughs from healthy ones.   NARRATOR: The team is now working on incorporating the model into a user-friendly app which if FDA-approved and adopted on a large scale could potentially be a free, convenient, noninvasive prescreening tool to identify people who are likely to be asymptomatic for Covid-19. A user could log in daily, cough into their phone and instantly get information on whether they might be infected and therefore should confirm with a formal test.

In elections, every vote counts. Or should count. But a new study by an MIT professor indicates that in the 2016 U.S. general election, 4 percent of all mail-in ballots were not counted — about 1.4 million votes, or 1 percent of all votes cast, signaling a significant problem that could grow in 2020. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/odds-mail-vote-not-count-1019

A study co-authored by MIT political scientist, Charles Stewart, quantifies the "blue shift" effect by state, analyzes its causes, and shows why the 2020 election might indeed be decided after Nov. 3. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/votes-counted-after-election-1015

Scientists at MIT, Cardiff University, and elsewhere have observed what may be signs of life in the clouds of Venus. Read the article:

As the Covid-19 shutdowns and stay- at- home orders brought much of the world’s travel and commerce to a standstill, people around the world started noticing clearer skies as a result of lower levels of air pollution. Now, researchers have been able to demonstrate that those clearer skies had a measurable impact on the output from solar photovoltaic panels, leading to a more than 8 percent increase in the power output from installations in Delhi. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/covid-19-solar-output-smog-0722

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed a new face mask that they believe could stop viral particles as effectively as N95 masks. Unlike N95 masks, the new masks were designed to be easily sterilized and used many times. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/reusable-silicone-rubber-face-mask-0709

A study co-authored by MIT scholars finds social media sharing affects news judgment, but a quick exercise reduces the problem. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/share-covid-19-misinformation-0709

Darien Alexander Williams is a PhD student in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. His academic research, which focuses on disaster recovery, community organizing, and marginalized populations has taken him to study in locations and with communities across the country and the world. Here he discusses the connections between his work and the current social unrest surrounding police brutality and Black Lives Matter. Audio transcript: https://news.mit.edu/2020/-transcript-darien-williams-0624

Like this year’s seniors, the Class of 1970 had its final semester disrupted: Fifty years ago, growing unrest over the Vietnam War led to the cancellation of MIT classes. In this podcast, Karen Arenson ’70 and senior Bahrudin Trbalic share their experiences. Written, directed and produced by: Melanie Gonick/MIT Co-producer: Christine Daniloff/MIT Audio news clips courtesy of: CBS Evening News, CNBC Make It, NBC Nightly News Music featured: "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young MIT does not own the rights to any audio featured. Read the transcript: http://news.mit.edu/2020/transcript-tale-two-classes-50-years-0528

A paper co-authored by an MIT economist proposes a new way to handle medical shortages during the COVID-19 crisis. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/ventilator-priority-system-covid-19-0514

Samantha Farrell is the assistant to Vladimir Bulović, the director of MIT.nano, as well as a professional musician. Here, she talks about how music is keeping her focused, productive, and sane and how in times like these, “. . . the arts really shine, people’s humanity can really shine, and musicians and filmmakers and artists are needed more than ever.” Watch Split-Screen Quarantine on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2zbot5pUYtuRPooilUIPfg Featured music in podcast (in order): “Circles” Written and performed by Samantha Farrell “Nocturne” Written and performed by Samantha Farrell “Mad About You” Written by Son Little Matthew Pezone - electric guitar Samantha Farrell - vocals “I Don’t Know What’s Coming” Written and performed by Samantha Farrell “Your Heart is as Black as Night” Written by Melody Gardot Michael Valdez – piano, upright bass, drums, Wurlitzer Samantha Farrell - vocals “I’d Die Without You” Written by P.M. Dawn Cameron McLaughlin – bass Samantha Farrell – vocals Written and produced by: Melanie Gonick/MIT Featuring: Samantha Farrell Audio transcript: https://news.mit.edu/2020/podcast-musician-samantha-farrell-0504

One of the most pressing shortages facing hospitals during the Covid-19 emergency is a lack of ventilators. These machines can keep patients breathing when they no longer can on their own, and they can cost around $30,000 each. Now, a rapidly assembled volunteer team of engineers, physicians, computer scientists, and others, centered at MIT, is working to implement a safe, inexpensive alternative for emergency use, which could be built quickly around the world. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/ventilator-covid-deployment-open-source-low-cost-0326

As the world grapples with the public health crises and myriad disruptions brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, many efforts to address its impact are underway. Several of those initiatives are being led by companies that were founded by MIT alumni, professors, students, and researchers. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-companies-covid-19-0326

Keeping our distance from each other for an extended period of time is the most effective way to reduce COVID-19’s spread. But the prospect of prolonged social isolation is uncharted territory for many of us. To get some insight on how we might navigate this period of social separation, MIT News checked in with MIT alumna and former astronaut Cady Coleman, who perhaps had the ultimate isolation experience. Cady spent months at a time on the International Space Station (ISS). While orbiting some 250 miles above Earth, Cady with other astronauts lived and worked in quarters that are about the size of a six-bedroom house, with only occasional opportunities to step outside on spacewalks to repair or maintain the station. Despite being physically isolated from the rest of the world for months at a time, the astronauts found ways to bridge the distance with family and friends by talking on the phone, or through video chats. But just as importantly, they also made sure to find time for themselves, and embrace their isolation. Cady Coleman flew on the space shuttle twice and served a long-duration mission for six months aboard the Space Station as a NASA astronaut. Here, Cady shares with us some of the lessons she learned from living in space, and how we can all commit to a mission to live, at least for now, at a distance. CADY COLEMAN: I think what makes everything work is the mission. As an astronaut, I was on the forward edge of exploration, representing the many people who make the ISS mission and experiments happen. Right now our mission is to keep each other safe here on Earth. I think keeping that mission in mind makes it easier to wash your hands that one more time when you really don’t feel like it, and to tell friends who are more casual about social distancing, things like, “No, I really don’t think it’s safe to do that together for now." NARRATOR: The challenging times of isolation in space is something only a select few may experience during their lifetime, but feelings of isolation can be felt here on Earth right now. Currently, people across the globe are facing the challenge of forced isolation that, with the overall anxiety surrounding this novel virus have many finding it harder to cope than anticipated. Colman remembers the more challenging moments she had to work through during their time on ISS, and share some advice on how to get through and even embrace this social-distancing period. CADY COLEMAN: We had one crew member whose mom passed away fairly unexpectedly while we were in space. We established we’d have our own memorial service at the same time as the funeral back home. And I looked at the world map and realized we were going to be passing over his hometown at the time of the funeral. So the six of us were there in the cupola together, and we had a few moments of silence, and I really felt we were together with all the family on the ground. There are a lot of things we can’t control now. What are the things we can? We can control the things we learn. And I’m thinking I may take some Skype lessons for playing the flute, and learning Chinese has always been on my list, as well as practicing my Russian. There are projects I have on my list, from finishing my website to cleaning out my attic, and right now it feels like I may, in a joyful and not so joyful way, get them all done. CADY COLEMAN: I think about the things I wish I did when I was up on the space station. One is get enough sleep. Probably my whole life I’ve never gotten enough sleep, especially at MIT, right? So taking care of yourself is a really good thing — prioritize that. And also, some kind of journaling or recording: Jot a few notes, capture this time for yourself, whether you plan to share it with anyone or not. Take pictures that help people realize what it was like for you. Because your experiences may be valuable to others in the future. When the mission you've chosen forces you to be isolated, you find a way to be the best you can.

Frontline health workers represent the lifeblood of many health care systems in low- and middle-income countries around the world. These workers operate outside hospital settings to meet the community's poorest people where they live and work, ensuring health care initiatives impact the families that need them most. CommCare, a product developed by the MIT spinout, Dimagi, allows frontline health workers to build useful tools that can be accessed even offline by cell phones of all types. *Edited to reflect Dimagi’s response to COVID-19. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/dimagi-commcare-health-0309

MIT researchers report that more than half of all air-quality-related early deaths in the United States are a result of emissions originating outside of the state in which those deaths occur. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/half-us-deaths-air-pollution-out-state-0212

A new study estimates that improving the rates of handwashing by travelers passing through just 10 of the world’s leading airports could significantly reduce the spread of many infectious diseases. The findings, which deal with infectious diseases in general including the flu, were published in late December, just before the recent coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, but the study’s authors say that its results would apply to any such disease and are relevant to the current outbreak. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/slow-epidemic-airport-handwashing-0206

The areas of Indonesia where Dutch colonial rulers built a huge sugar-producing industry in the 1800s remain more economically productive today than other parts of the country, according to a study co-authored by an MIT economist. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2020/sugar-factories-colonial-indonesia-olken-dell-0206

We've asked graduate student Rachel Smith to explain what bioprinting is, and what biohybrid materials are, and give us some idea of where these fields of study are going. 3D printing is everywhere. From bike parts, to fashion, to novelty key chains, to tools and light fixtures. We often see it employed to accelerate production processes and prototyping but what about the biological potential of printing? Audio Explainer transcript: http://news.mit.edu/2020/audio-explainer-bioprinting-biohybrid-materials-0123

While the process by which volcanic islands from is similar from chain to chain, the time that any island spends above sea level can very widely, from a few million years in the case of the Galapagos to over 20 million for the Canary Islands. And yet the mechanisms that set an island's lifespan are largely unknown. Read the article: http://news.mit.edu/2019/how-long-will-volcanic-island-live-0101