In this Today Show segment, Prof. Earl Miller and Prof. Robert Desimone discuss how the brain reacts to the information overload that comes from using multiple digital tools at once. “The brain has a great deal of difficulty processing multiple bits of data at once,” explains Miller. "We are very, very single minded.”
In an article for The Boston Globe’s special section about the 2015 Bostonians of the Year, Sharon Begley writes about the work of Prof. Feng Zhang. Begley writes that Zhang, "is one of the world’s most creative and influential biological engineers, able to see possibilities where others don’t.”
MIT researchers have identified a link between reduced neurotransmitter activity and the symptoms of autism, reports Carolyn Gregoire for The Huffington Post. The findings “may pave the way for new methods of treating and diagnosing” autism.
Huffington Post reporter Lila Shapiro speaks with Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute, about the use of the CRISPR gene-editing technique to treat neurological diseases. “CRISPR’s impact is potentially across the board,” says Desimone. “It went from nothing just a few years ago to being a tool that’s in everyone’s toolbox.”
BBC News reporter Michelle Roberts writes that MIT researchers have fine-tuned the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system to make it safer and more accurate. This development is "vital if it [CRISPR] is to be used in humans to cure inherited diseases or inborn errors,” explains Roberts.
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about the MRI Prof. Rebecca Saxe’s created of herself and her infant son. “Art does many things, but certainly one of them is to give us images that confront us with shards of the strange experience of being human,” writes Levenson. “Science, an artful craft, can do the same — as it does here.”
Prof. Rebecca Saxe writes for Smithsonian about an MRI she created of herself and her infant son. Saxe writes that while maternal values are "venerated, they are usually viewed in opposition to other values: inquiry and intellect, progress and power. But I am a neuroscientist, and I worked to create this image; and I am also the mother in it.”
Prof. John Gabrieli speaks with WGBH’s Arun Rath about the effectiveness of standardized testing in the U.S. Gabrieli explains that researchers have, “consistently found academic achievement tests of the kind given by states in the United States correlate considerably with other independent measures of cognitive ability.”
STAT reporter Andrew Joseph writes about optogenetics and Prof. Edward Boyden’s work developing this technique for turning neurons on and off. “There are just huge frontiers out there for which optogenetics will be one of our most powerful tools,” said Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute.
Boston Globe reporter Felicia Gans writes that a number of MIT researchers have been honored “by the Breakthrough Prize organization, which honors scientists worldwide for their pioneering research.”
Prof. Edward Boyden has been honored as one of the recipients of the Breakthrough Prize, reports Sarah McBride for Reuters. Boyden is being recognized for his work “developing and implementing optogenetics,” writes McBride, which could open “a new path to treatments for Parkinson’s, depression, Alzheimer’s and blindness.”
Writing for Scientific American, Simon Makin explores the many applications of optogenetics, a tool developed by Prof. Edward Boyden, for which he was recently honored with a Breakthrough Prize. Makin explains that, “researchers have devised ways of broadening optogenetics to enter into a dynamic dialogue with the signals moving about inside functioning brains.”
Tina Casey reports for Popular Science that several MIT researchers have been honored with Breakthrough Prizes. Casey writes that Prof. Edward Boyden was honored for his work creating optogenetics, Prof. Joseph Formaggio and his team were honored for their research on neutrinos, and Profs. Larry Guth and Liang Fu won New Horizons Prizes.
In an article for The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about Prof. Feng Zhang and his work with CRISPR. Specter writes that Zhang was first inspired to pursue a career in science when he attended Saturday morning molecular biology classes as a middle school student. Zhang recalls that the class, “really opened my imagination.”
STAT reporter Sharon Begley profiles Prof. Feng Zhang. Begley writes that Zhang’s “discoveries could finally bring cures for some of the greatest causes of human suffering, from autism and schizophrenia to cancer and blindness.”