MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
February 16, 2018
MIT News: top stories
A weekly digest of the Institute’s research and innovation

Neural networks everywhere

New chip reduces neural networks’ power consumption by up to 95 percent, making them practical for battery-powered devices.

Physicists create new form of light

Newly observed optical state could enable quantum computing with photons.

Back-and-forth exchanges boost children’s brain response to language

Study finds engaging young children in conversation is more important for brain development than “dumping words” on them.

Study finds gender and skin-type bias in commercial artificial-intelligence systems

Examination of facial-analysis software shows error rate of 0.8 percent for light-skinned men, 34.7 percent for dark-skinned women.

Energy-efficient encryption for the internet of things

Special-purpose chip reduces power consumption of public-key encryption by 99.75 percent, increases speed 500-fold.

Researchers advance CRISPR-based tool for diagnosing disease

With SHERLOCK, a strip of paper can now indicate presence of pathogens, tumor DNA, or any genetic signature of interest.

In the Media

Molly Wood at Marketplace speaks with Media Lab graduate student Joy Buolamwini about the findings of her recent research, which examined widespread bias in AI-supported facial recognition programs. “At the end of the day, data reflects our history, and our history has been very biased to date,” Buolamwini said.

New research shows that using volcanic ash in cement mixtures could enable “stronger and more environmentally friendly” construction in future cities, reports Sydney Periera for Newsweek. “There may be a tremendous implication of energy savings at the city scale,” Prof. Oral Büyükoztürk tells Periera.

Professor John Gabrieli and graduate student Rachel Romeo speak with WBUR’s Carey Goldberg about their new research. "What we found is, the more often parents engaged in back-and-forth conversation with their child, the stronger was the brain response in the front of the brain to language," Gabrieli explains.

Prof. Sara Seager speaks to Guy Raz of NPR’s TED Radio Hour about the search for habitable planets outside of our solar system. “We know that there are lots of planets in their star's habitable zones that gives us confidence, but we still need a lot more information,” says Prof. Seager.