Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that tariffs “failed to restore jobs to the American heartland,” reports Paul Wiseman for the Associated Press. The study found that “the tariffs ‘neither raised nor lowered U.S. employment’ where they were supposed to protect jobs,” writes Wiseman.
Shiv Bhakta MBA '24, SM '24 and Richard Swartwout SM '18, PhD '21 co-founded Active Surfaces, a solar tech company that has developed “a new kind of solar collector so thin and flexible it can be attached to anything under the sun,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “The company prints solar cells onto a plastic sheet, using methods not too different from those used to print newspapers,” explains Bray. “The resulting cells can generate electric power nearly as efficiently as today’s heavy, thick silicon panels.”
Writing for The New York Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu makes the case for “a new liberalism that is more faithful to its original values but adapted to our times.” Acemoglu emphasizes that “a renewed liberalism must rediscover its most inspiring roots: an energy coming from opposition to the unfair and unrestrained use of power; a commitment to freedom of thought and celebration of different approaches to our common problems; and a concern for the community as well as the individual as the basis of efforts to improve the opportunities of the disadvantaged.”
To address growing energy needs, tech companies seek to strike deals with power plants to plug in directly instead of connecting through the grid. MITEI Director Bill Green speaks with Associated Press reporter Marc Levy about a recent FERC decision to block a new "behind-the-meter" deal. “The companies, they’re very frustrated because they have a business opportunity now that’s really big,” says Green. “And if they’re delayed five years in the queue, for example — I don’t know if it would be five years, but years anyway — they might completely miss the business opportunity.”
MIT astronomers have analyzed the scintillation – or glistening - produced by a fast radio burst (FRB) to help identify the location of the pulses, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. “We discovered that this FRB exhibits ‘twinkling,’ similar to how stars appear to twinkle in the night sky,” explains postdoc Kenzie Nimmo. “Observing this scintillation indicates that the region where the FRB originated must be incredibly small.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new vaccine that “could be potentially used against a broad array of coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19 and potentially forestall future pandemics,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “The vaccine involves attaching tiny pieces of virus that remain unchanged across related strains to a nanoparticle,” explains Knapp.
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have develop insect-sized robots that could one day be used to help with farming practices like artificial pollination, reports Alice Rizzo for Reuters. "These type of robots will open up a very new type of use case," says graduate student Suhan Kim. "We can start thinking of using our robot, if it works well, for tools like indoor farming."
Writing for The Hill, Prof. Emeritus Henry Jacoby and his colleagues highlight implications of climate change denial on a global scale. “Denying there is a problem stimies efforts to correct the damaged insurance system, organize disaster relief appropriate for changing threats, and properly inform decisions about protective investment,” they write. “Besides the urgent need to protect programs to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and to bring the nation back into the global effort, the federal administration and recalcitrant state leaders must be convinced to pull their heads out of the dirt and face the change that is coming — whether they want to acknowledge it or not.”
Drew Houston '06, founder and CEO of Dropbox, speaks with NBC Boston reporter Ashton Jackson about his work creating and developing the cloud storage platform. "I started Dropbox more out of just personal frustration," says Houston. "It really felt like something only I was super interested in as far as file syncing, and focusing on one customer, which was myself."
In a letter to the editor of The Boston Globe, Vice President for Research Ian Waitz addresses the importance of research staff at the Institute, noting that “research universities educate through research.” Waitz emphasizes: “At MIT, there has been double-digit real growth in our on-campus research enterprise over the past 11 years along with growth in our graduate student body. With that come more people, and while these staff may not be directly involved in student classroom instruction, the research they conduct is crucial to the hands-on education that MIT students receive and to the real-world solutions that originate at the school.”
Graduate student Palak Patel speaks with BBC News reporter Chris Baraniuk about her work designing an “experimental molten regolith electrolysis system, for extracting oxygen and metal from the lunar soil.” Palak explains: “We’re really looking at it from the standpoint of, ‘Let’s try to minimize the number of resupply missions.’”
The Financial Times has honored the MIT Climate Pathways Project and the Aggregate Confusion Project (ACP) in their Responsible Business Education awards for research that “delivers tangible societal and scientific contributions.” The MIT Climate Pathways Project was recognized for efforts to blend “expertise across disciplines to use interactive simulations that help business leaders craft smarter climate policies.” The ACP was recognized for addressing inconsistencies in ESG ratings.
Prof. Mark Jarzombek speaks with NPR reporter Scott Neuman about the reconstruction challenges facing Gaza. “In other words, you can’t get just local civilians [to] … take the stuff apart,” explains Jarzombek. “You need special equipment: You need bulldozers. You need cranes.”
Prof. Giovanni Traverso speaks with the Nature Podcast hosts Benjamin Thompson and Emily Bates about his work developing an ingestible capsule capable of delivering drugs directly into lining of the GI tract. “Part of the work that we did was really defining how much force needs to be applied so that that jet can go through the tissue,” says Traverso. “But not only go through the initial part of the tissue, what we wanted to understand for each part of the GI tract was exactly how much pressure is required to essentially deposit some amount of drug under the surface of the tissue.”
Ministry of Supply, a clothing brand founded by MIT alumni, has developed a machine-washable, heated jacket, reports Rebecca Barker for Fast Company. “The issue with a lot of heated garments is that they want you to know that they’re heated garments,” says co-founder Gihan Amarasiriwardena '11. “The controller is on the outside, for example, they’re often times made out of kind of cheap shell material, so it doesn’t look as high quality. We think of the heating system as a secondary element, because we think the design of the garment can stand on its own.”