MIT News: top stories

The LIGO and Virgo observatories have made their first joint detection of gravitational waves, report Ben Guarino and Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. MIT’s David Shoemaker, spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, compared the three-detector network for identifying gravitational waves to a camera tripod that can allow scientists to zoom in on the source of the waves. 

MIT researchers have developed a new test that can identify dengue and the Zika virus quickly and cheaply, reports Sophie Hares for Reuters. “Knowing whether these tests are positive or negative is very important for designing the course of clinical care,” explains Prof. Lee Gehrke. “It simplifies the decision tree and, we believe, leads to improved patient care.”

CSAIL researchers have developed a new shape-shifting robot that can change outfits in order to perform different tasks, reports Timothy Revell for New Scientist. “In the future, we imagine robots like this could become mini surgeons, squished into a pill that you swallow,” explains Prof. Daniela Rus. 

MIT researchers have potentially discovered a way to prevent the flu virus from evolving to resist vaccines and treatment, reports Alyssa Meyers for The Boston Globe. The researchers are also, “testing HIV and other rapidly mutating viruses to see if inhibiting chaperones could prevent those viruses from mutating and becoming treatment-resistant.”