MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
September 7, 2017
MIT News: top stories
A weekly digest of the Institute’s research and innovation

IBM and MIT to pursue joint research in artificial intelligence, establish new MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab

IBM plans to make a 10-year, $240 million investment in new lab with MIT to advance AI hardware, software, and algorithms.

Firebricks offer low-cost storage for carbon-free energy

Ancient technology could be used to level electricity prices for renewables.

Neighboring exoplanets may hold water, study finds

Observations and modeling suggest TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets may have held onto water, billions of years after their formation.

New way to test antibiotics could lead to better drugs

Study finds bacterial response to drugs varies in different environments.

Team gathers unprecedented data on atmosphere’s organic chemistry

Colorado forest study provides clearest-ever picture of gases released into the atmosphere and how they change.

In the Media

IBM is joining forces with MIT to establish a new lab dedicated to fundamental AI research, reports the AP. The new lab will focus on, “advancing the hardware, software and algorithms used for artificial intelligence. It also will tackle some of the economic and ethical implications of intelligent machines and look at its commercial application.”

In an article for The Boston Globe about the Boston school system’s new dual-language program in Haitian Creole, James Vaznis speaks with Prof. Michel DeGraff, who is assisting Boston with the program. DeGraff says that the program provides Boston with an opportunity to, “produce new material in Haitian Creole that in time can become models for programs in Haiti.”

New Scientist reporter Matt Reynolds writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that can determine how much pain a patient is experiencing. “By examining tiny facial expressions and calibrating the system to each person, it provides a level of objectivity in an area where that’s normally hard to come by,” explains Reynolds.