MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
July 21, 2017
MIT News: top stories
A weekly digest of the Institute’s research and innovation

Bitcoin study: Period of exclusivity encourages early adopters

Delaying access for the tech-savvy can stifle spread of new products, experiment with MIT students shows.

Bringing neural networks to cellphones

Method for modeling neural networks’ power consumption could help make the systems portable.

Microscopy technique could enable more informative biopsies

Expanding tissue samples before imaging offers detailed information about disease.

Felice Frankel: Creating images to explain science concepts

MIT researcher helps scientists and engineers hone their visual imagery.

Engineered liver tissue expands after transplant

Tiny implantable “seeds” of tissue produce fully functional livers.

Artificial intelligence suggests recipes based on food photos

Given a still image of a dish filled with food, CSAIL team's deep-learning algorithm recommends ingredients and recipes.

In the Media

MIT researchers have developed a new way to engineer liver tissue that involves implanting tiny “seeds” of liver tissue, which expand to perform normal liver functions, reports Robert Preidt for U.S. News & World Report. The technique could one day “help reduce long wait lists for liver transplants.”

MIT researchers have found that by 2050 climate change could deplete water basins and reduce crop yields, reports The Boston Globe’s Alyssa Meyers. If no action is taken to combat climate change, “numerous basins used to irrigate crops across the country will either start to experience shortages or see existing shortages ‘severely accentuated.’”

Science reporter Gloria Emeagwali reviews Prof. Clapperton Mavhunga’s new book, which examines how Africans have contributed to science throughout history. “Eurocentric assumptions about the history of science and technology, entrepreneurship, epistemology, and scientific methodology are directly challenged in this scholarly collection of essays that masterfully document the historical and contemporary scientific contributions of Africans.”

Prof. Jonathan Gruber writes for The Washington Post that the Senate’s health care bill could make the opioid epidemic worse by proposing a, “rollback of the Medicaid expansions that had finally slowed the rapid growth of this devastating problem.”