Author: Ms. R.

Neuroscience discoveries ranging from the nature of memory to treatments for disease have depended on reading the minds of mice, so researchers need to truly understand what the rodents’ behavior is telling them during experiments. In a new study that examines learning from reward, MIT researchers deciphered some initially mystifying mouse behavior, yielding new ideas about how mice think and a mathematical tool to aid future research. The task the mice were supposed to master is simple: Turn a……

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Investments in new technologies and infrastucture that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions — everything from electric vehicles to heat pumps — are growing rapidly in the United States. Now, a new database enables these investments to be comprehensively monitored in real-time, thereby helping to assess the efficacy of policies designed to spur clean investments and address climate change. The Clean Investment Monitor (CIM), developed by a team at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) led by……

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It can be a hassle to get to the doctor’s office. And the task can be especially challenging for parents of children with motor disorders such as cerebral palsy, as a clinician must evaluate the child in person on a regular basis, often for an hour at a time. Making it to these frequent evaluations can be expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally taxing. MIT engineers hope to alleviate some of that stress with a new method that remotely evaluates patients’……

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Desirée Plata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, has been named co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC), effective Sept. 1. Plata will serve on the MCSC’s leadership team alongside Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and MCSC chair; Elsa Olivetti, the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering, a professor of materials science and engineering, and associate dean of engineering, and……

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William Pounds, a former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management who was known for his ubiquitous presence around campus and mentorship of junior faculty members, and for advising the broader Institute through the turbulent years of the Vietnam War, died Aug. 23. He was 95. Pounds joined MIT Sloan in 1961 as an assistant professor and became dean in 1966. After stepping down from that role in 1980, Pounds was senior advisor to the Rockefeller family from……

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The classic computer science adage “garbage in, garbage out” lacks nuance when it comes to understanding biased medical data, argue computer science and bioethics professors from MIT, Johns Hopkins University, and the Alan Turing Institute in a new opinion piece published in a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The rising popularity of artificial intelligence has brought increased scrutiny to the matter of biased AI models resulting in algorithmic discrimination, which the White House Office……

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By mining data from X-ray images, researchers at MIT, Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator, and the Toyota Research Institute have made significant new discoveries about the reactivity of lithium iron phosphate, a material used in batteries for electric cars and in other rechargeable batteries. The new technique has revealed several phenomena that were previously impossible to see, including variations in the rate of lithium intercalation reactions in different regions of a lithium iron phosphate nanoparticle. The paper’s most significant……

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