Top MIT Stories from November ‘17

Catch up with MIT’s most popular new stories in November from the MIT News Office, Slice of MIT, and MIT Technology Review:

MIT News Office

Vanu Bose, Software Pioneer And MIT Corporation Member, Dies at 52

CEO of Vanu, Inc. improved wireless networks, encouraged MIT research, and pursued humanitarian efforts.

Physicists Design $100 Handheld Muon Detector

Pocket-sized device detects charged particles in surrounding air.

Stress Can Lead to Risky Decisions

Neuroscientists find chronic stress skews decisions toward higher-risk options.

Slice of MIT

Using Daylight to Make Drones Disappear

The Department of Defense gave an MIT startup a unique request: develop a drone that disappears within four hours of landing or 30 minutes after sunrise. They did it.

MIT Brainpower Highlighted in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Lists

Forbes calls its 2018 30 Under 30 lists an “encyclopedia of creative disruption." So it's no surprise that these lists are heavily populated by MIT alumni.

Making the Body Sing

David Sun Kong ’01, SM ’04, PhD ’08 founded Biota Beats, which takes swabs from different parts of the body, allows the bacteria to incubate on music records, and then uses algorithms to create a literal human symphony.

MIT Technology Review

IBM Raises the Bar with a 50-Qubit Quantum Computer

Researchers have built the most sophisticated quantum computer yet, signaling progress toward a powerful new way of processing information.

Eugenics 2.0: We’re at the Dawn of Choosing Embryos by Health, Height, and More

Will you be among the first to pick your kids’ IQ? As machine learning unlocks predictions from DNA databases, scientists say parents could have choices never before possible.

Quantum Computers Pose Imminent Threat to Bitcoin Security

The massive calculating power of quantum computers will be able to break Bitcoin security within 10 years, say security experts.