Researchers at MIT have developed an insect-like, flying robot capable of performing acrobatic maneuvers and hovering in the air for up to 15 minutes without failing, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist. “By having a hugely increased [flying] lifetime, we were able to work on the controller parts so that the robot can achieve precise trajectory tracking, plus aggressive maneuvers like somersaults,” says graduate student Suhan Kim.
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that the long-term consumption of “processed red meat, such as hot dogs, sausage, and bacon, is linked to an elevated risk of dementia,” reports Kay Lazar for The Boston Globe. The researchers “found that eating about two servings per week of processed red meat, which includes some cold cuts, correlated with a 13 percent higher risk of dementia compared to those who ate less than roughly three servings a month,” reports Lazar.
USA Today reporter Eric Lagatta writes that a new study by MIT researchers fins that X-ray flashes emanating from a supermassive black hole located 270 million light-years from the Milky Way could be caused by a dead stellar remnant, or white dwarf. The researchers believe that the white dwarf could be “spinning precariously on the edge of the black hole, causing the explosions of high-energy light.”
MIT astronomers have detected X-ray flashes erupting from a supermassive black hole that seem to be caused by a nearby white dwarf, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. “It is probably the closest object we've ever observed orbiting around a supermassive black hole,” says graduate student Megan Masterson. “This is extremely close to the black hole's event horizon.”
Graduate student Aidan Toner-Rodgers speaks with Atlantic reporter Jerusalem Demsas about his research examining the productivity of scientists at an R&D lab following the introduction of AI tools to aid in the discovery of new materials. “I think a big takeaway from economic-growth models is that in the long run, really, productivity is the key driver of improvements in living standards and in health,” Toner-Rodgers explains. “I think all the big improvements in living standards we’ve seen over the last 250 years or so really are driven fundamentally by improvements in productivity. And those come, really, from advances in science and innovation driving new technologies.”
MIT astronomers have witnessed flashes of X-rays shooting out of a black hole and believe that a dead star, or white dwarf, passing close by the black hole could be causing the eruptions, reports Mark Kaufman for Mashable. “The astronomers ran simulations of what could drive these unusual bursts of energy,” writes Kaufman. “The most plausible outcome is this brazen white dwarf (the spent core of a sun-like star), which is about one-tenth the mass of our sun. It's shedding its dense, outer layer and triggering these pulses of X-rays.”
Space.com reporter Robert Lea writes that using the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, MIT astronomers have observed bursts of X-rays erupting with increasing frequency from a supermassive black hole, a behavior they think could be caused by a “dead stellar core, or white dwarf, daringly teetering on the edge of the black hole.” Lea explains that “if the source of these strange episodes is a finely balanced white dwarf, the researchers theorize that it could be detected using ripples in space and time called gravitational waves emitted from the system.”
Quanta Magazine reporter Charlie Wood spotlights how MIT researchers have contributed to the recent discoveries of new superconductive materials. Prof. Long Ju and his research team “placed a five-layer graphene flake on an insulator at a twisted angle and observed a rare electron behavior that normally requires a strong magnetic field to induce,” explains Wood.
Ars Technica reporter Jacek Krywko spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new photonic chip that that can “compute the entire deep neural net, including both linear and non-linear operations, using photons.” Visiting scientist Saumil Bandyopadhyay '17, MEng '18, PhD '23 explains that: “We’re focused on a very specific metric here, which is latency. We aim for applications where what matters the most is how fast you can produce a solution. That’s why we are interested in systems where we’re able to do all the computations optically.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have suggested that “the impact of news that is factually inaccurate — including fake news, misinformation and disinformation — pales in comparison to the impact of news that are factually accurate but misleading,” reports Sandra Matz for Salon. “According to researchers, for example, the impact of slanted news stories encouraging vaccine skepticism during the COVID-19 pandemic was about 46-fold greater than that of content flagged as fake by fact-checkers,” writes Matz.
Prof. David Rand speaks with Wired reporter Brian Barrett about the implications of Meta’s new “community notes” system in addressing bias on social media platforms. “The motivator for all of this changing of Meta’s policies and Musk’s takeover of Twitter is this accusation of social media companies being biased against conservatives,” says Rand. “There’s just not good evidence of that.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found “that investors who use OpenAI’s GPT-4o to summarize earnings calls realize higher returns than those who don’t,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “The researchers recruited investors and had GPT-4o give them AI summaries aligned with their investing expertise,” explains Wiggers. “Sophisticated investors got more technical AI-generated notes, while novices got simpler ones.”
New research by graduate student Aidan Toner-Rodgers looks at “what happened to the productivity of over a thousand scientists at an R&D lab of a large company after they got access to AI,” reports Greg Rosalsky for NPR’s Planet Money. “Toner-Rodgers found that ‘while the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the output of top researchers nearly doubles,’” Rosalsky explains.
A new tabletop exercise, developed by researchers at MIT and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has found that “a further buildup of U.S. nuclear capabilities would have limited effect on whether China might use its own nuclear weapons should a war over Taiwan erupt,” reports Brad Dress and Ellen Mitchell for The Hill. “The first large-scale war game of such an incident,” they write, “found that a U.S. buildup that goes past current modernization plans would not bolster nuclear deterrence in relation to Taiwan.”
Writing for Wired, Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, highlights the future of “physical intelligence, a new form of intelligent machine that can understand dynamic environments, cope with unpredictability, and make decisions in real time.” Rus writes: “Unlike the models used by standard AI, physical intelligence is rooted in physics; in understanding the fundamental principles of the real world, such as cause-and-effect.”