With skateboarding the sixth fastest-growing sport in the U.S. from 2019 to 2023, Bloomberg reporter Alexandra Lange highlights how Alexis Sablone MA ’16, coach of the 2024 Olympic Women’s U.S. Skateboarding Team, a three-time X-Games gold medalist, and graduate of MIT’s Department of Architecture, recently “designed a set of sculptural skate elements for a former tennis court, formalizing and aestheticizing what had been an informal spot” at a park in Montclair, New Jersey.
MIT researchers have found that “when nudged to review LLM-generated outputs, humans are more likely to discover and fix errors,” reports Carter Busse for Forbes. The findings suggest that, “when given the chance to evaluate results from AI systems, users can greatly improve the quality of the outputs,” explains Busse. “The more information provided about the origins and accuracy of the results, the better the users are at detecting problems.”
Plonts, a plant-based cheese company co-founded by Nathaniel Chu PhD '19, uses microbes to develop “nutritious, inexpensive and sustainable” cheese alternatives, reports Christine Hall for TechCrunch. Chu says “microbes, whether mold, bacteria or yeast, are important to create that flavor. The microbes themselves are tiny sacs of hundreds of different enzymes with many different combinations,” writes Hall.
Writing for Fortune, Prof. Daron Acemoglu explores the estimated scale of AI’s impact on the labor market and productivity. “The problem with the AI bubble isn’t that it is bursting and bringing the market down,” writes Acemoglu. “It’s that the hype will likely go on for a while and do much more damage in the process than experts are anticipating."
Found Energy, co-founded by Peter Godart '15, SM '19, PHD '21, has developed a method for transforming aluminum scrap metal into energy, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “The Found Energy system could replace fossil fuel with aluminum-generate hydrogen, a gas that burns at up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but produces no waste carbon,” writes Bray.
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Washington Post reporter Lizette Ortega about Apophis – an asteroid estimated to fly past Earth in April 2029. “Nature is performing this once-per-several-thousand-years experiment for us,” says Binzel. “We have to figure out how to watch.”
By analyzing isotopes of potassium and rubidium in the lunar soil, Prof. Nicole Nie and her team have demonstrated that micrometeorite impacts are the main cause of the moon’s thin atmosphere, reports Isabel Swafford for National Geographic. “Understanding the space environments of different planetary bodies is essential for planning future missions and exploring the broader context of space weathering,” says Nie.
MIT scientists have solved a decades old mystery by demonstrating impact vaporization is the primary cause of the moon’s thin atmosphere, reports Eric Lagatta for USA Today. The findings, “have implications far beyond determining the moon's atmospheric origins,” writes Lagatta. “In fact, it's not unthinkable that similar processes could potentially be taking place at other celestial bodies in the solar system.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber joins GBH’s All Things Considered to discuss stock market jitters, AI hype and interest rates, urging calm and a long-term view. “No one who’s in the market should be overreacting to one day’s movement,” Gruber says. “These short-run reactions are really overreactions to individual bits of news.”
Writing for Nature, Marinko Sarunic and Cynthia Toth memorialize the life and work of Joseph A. Izatt PhD '91, who “had a special gift, and commitment, to reaching out and working with students and clinicians to create transformative technology." After undergraduate studies at MIT, Izatt focused on applied optics for his graduate work, with his mentors Prof. Michael Feld and Prof. James Fujimoto.
Let’s Get Set, a company founded by Clare Herceg MBA '20 aims to tackle “financial challenges low-and moderate-wage households face,” reports Geri Stengel for Forbes. “Based on extensive user research, the company's innovative savings account allows borrowers to access emergency funds without falling into a debt trap,” writes Stengel. “This approach addresses a critical need highlighted by national data on financial shocks and inadequate savings.”
Prof. Simon Johnson and Prof. David Autor speak with New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg about the anticipated impact of AI on the job market. “We should be concerned about eliminating them,” says Prof. Simon Johnson, of the risks posed by automating jobs. “This is the hollowing out of the middle class.”
Bloomberg’s David Westin talks with Prof. Kristin Forbes at the Aspen Economic Strategy Group meetings focused on monetary and fiscal policy. Despite progress in the inflation fight, "we as economists forget that this price of a basket of goods matters to people. Things are more expensive," she says.
MIT scientists analyzed lunar soil samples and discovered that meteorite impacts likely created the moon’s thin atmosphere, reports Nicola Davis for The Guardian. “Our findings provide a clearer picture of how the moon’s surface and atmosphere interact over long timescales, [and] enhance our understanding of space weathering processes,” explains Prof. Nicole Nie.
Newsweek reporter Jess Thomson spotlights, Prof. Nicole Nie’s research uncovering the origins of the moon’s thin atmosphere. “The researchers described how lunar samples from the Apollo missions revealed that meteorites of varying sizes have constantly hit the moon's surface, vaporizing atoms in the soil and kicking them up into the atmosphere,” writes Thomson. “The constant hitting of the moon replenishes any gases lost to space.”