Tag Archives: MIT

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 and software and algorithms

Cambridge, MA – 07 Sep 2017: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and MIT today announced that IBM plans to make a 10-year, $240 million investment to create the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab in partnership with MIT. The lab will carry out fundamental artificial intelligence (AI) research and seek to propel scientific breakthroughs that unlock the potential of AI. The collaboration aims to advance AI hardware, software and algorithms related to deep learning and other areas, increase AI’s impact on industries, such as health care and cybersecurity, and explore the economic and ethical implications of AI on society. IBM’s $240 million investment in the lab will support research by IBM and MIT scientists. (more…)

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Laserstrahl vom Mond bis zur Erde

Rund 400 000 Kilometer hat das Signal zurückgelegt und die Erdatmosphäre durchquert, wenn es von Wissenschaftlern des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) analysiert wird. Das Ergebnis: “Der Einfluss der Atmosphäre ist weniger stark als erwartet, die Qualität des Signals ist sehr gut”, sagt Dr. Dirk Giggenbach vom DLR-Institut für Navigation und  Kommunikation. Gesendet wurde das Signal vom Lunar Lasercomm Space Terminal (LLST) an Bord der NASA-Sonde LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer), die seit Oktober 2013 um den Mond kreist. Damit wurde erstmals ein optischer Link nach seinem langen Weg durch den Weltraum vermessen. In Zukunft könnten beispielsweise Mond- oder planetare Missionen von dieser Art der Datenübertragung profitieren und Rover hochaufgelöste 3D-Aufnahmen in Echtzeit übermitteln. (more…)

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Methane leaks in the US are undercounted, new study shows

ANN ARBOR — About 50 percent more of the greenhouse gas methane has been seeping into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to far-reaching findings that synthesize two decades’ worth of methane studies in North America.

Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas. (more…)

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A Look Back and Ahead at Greenland’s Changing Climate

Over the past two decades, ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet increased four-fold contributing to one-quarter of global sea level rise. However, the chain of events and physical processes that contributed to it has remained elusive. One likely trigger for the speed up and retreat of glaciers that contributed to this ice loss is ocean warming.

A review paper by physical oceanographers Fiamma Straneo at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Patrick Heimbach at MIT published in Nature explains what scientists have learned from their research on and around Greenland over the past 20 years and describes the measurements and technology needed to continue to move the science forward. (more…)

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Clever chemistry and a new class of antibiotics

A new class of molecules called acyldepsipeptides — ADEPs — may provide a new way to attack bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotics. Researchers at Brown and MIT have discovered a way to increase the potency of ADEPs by up to 1,200 times. Their findings appear in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As concerns about bacterial resistance to antibiotics grow, researchers are racing to find new kinds of drugs to replace ones that are no longer effective. One promising new class of molecules called acyldepsipeptides — ADEPs — kills bacteria in a way that no marketed antibacterial drug does — by altering the pathway through which cells rid themselves of harmful proteins. (more…)

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Another Yale Nobel: Robert Shiller

Robert J. Shiller, the Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University, has been awarded a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He shares the award — formally, the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel — with Eugene F. Fama and Lars Peter Hansen from the University of Chicago. According to the Nobel committee, the three were honored “for their empirical analysis of asset prices.”

Shiller, whose name became a household word with the wide use of the Case-Shiller Home Price real estate Index, came to national prominence with the publication in 2000 of “Irrational Exuberance.” The book, which quickly became a bestseller, described speculative bubbles fueled by mass misinformation and herd instinct, and accurately predicted the dot.com implosion. As early as 2003, Shiller warned of the housing market collapse, and later wrote a precept for recovery, “Subprime Solution: How the Global Financial Crisis Happened and What to Do about It.” (more…)

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Moon: It’s the right time to return

Last week, Apollo 15 commander David R. Scott, a visiting professor at Brown and one of 12 men to walk on the Moon, addressed Professor Jim Head’s introductory geology classes. He discussed the scientific returns of the Apollo missions and encouraged students to look to Apollo as a template for future human exploration of planetary bodies.

After the near-disaster of Apollo 13, NASA’s lunar exploration program stood at a crossroads. President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him to Earth had been achieved, and many wondered, given the dangers, if it might be time to scrap Apollo. (more…)

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