Stories related to: MIT

An MIT student was arrested today at the Boston airport wearing a device that appeared to be a bomb. Police armed with machine guns took her into custody and determined that the circuit board on her chest was harmless. “Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue,” said a police spokesman. More »

The hours and dollars spent on SAT writing preparation might be for naught, the Boston Globe reports, as 56% of four-year colleges don’t even use the newest section of the aptitude test. Skeptics find fuel in a study showing that big words were all it took to achieve near-perfect scores. "These aren't higher-level learning measures," one admissions officer says. More »

The famous but increasingly misnamed “$100 laptop” will actually cost $188—the fourth price increase for the innovative device designed for nonprofit group One Laptop Per Child, reports the AP. While still a bargain, the bump could scare off developing governments fixed on the “fanciful $100-per-child figure,” observers fear. More »

Everyone knows about inches, minutes and grams, but what about smoots, gous and twips? Now hipsters can turn even more esoteric with these odd measurement units from Wired . The 5-foot, 7-inch "smoot" was born one night when MIT pranksters used a fairly short frat pledge to measure the Harvard Bridge. "Pack years" is how you could measure the smoking they did on just such a night. More »

Neuroscientists are experimenting with switching targeted groups of brain cells on and off using remote-controlled lasers, promising hope for treatment of mental disorders, reports the New York Times . The technique, using cells altered with a photo-sensitive protein called channelrhodopsin-2, could one day be used to treat a host of problems from autism to depression. More »

In an interview with John Maeda, NPR correspondent Ira Flatow questions the MIT Media Lab designer about his new book, "The Laws of Simplicity." The 10 laws are: Reduce: Remove functionality Organize: Organization makes a system of many seem fewer Time: Savings in time feel like simplicity Learn: Knowledge makes everything simpler Difference: Simplicity and complexity need each other More »

Intel and the One Laptop per Child initiative are making peace and embracing the notion of synergy. The chip maker and the pioneer of the $100 laptop concept will stop competing for deals with governments in the developing world and team up, the AP reports. The partnership is a big step on the road to the elusive $100 goal. More »

Even as the on-time performance of airlines reaches an all-time low, the reality is worse, the New York Times reports. Since they track how late planes are, not how late passengers are, airline statistics don't reflect a good deal of the waiting time—particularly when a passenger misses a connecting flight or has a flight cancelled. More »

Researchers at MIT are getting ready to pull the power cord on your laptop, with wireless electricity—dubbed WiTricity—that would recharge everything from cell phones to iPods from 15 feet away. The team recently lit a 60-watt bulb from 7 feet off, using a carefully designed magnetic field, the Boston Globe reports.  More »

The latest programming language to come out of MIT's cutting-edge labs has an unusual audience: sixth-graders. “Scratch” replaces the technobabble of Java and C++ with simplified, jigsaw-shaped pieces of code, which budding programmers can arrange into customized sequences. A test group of 12-year-olds in Massachusetts is already at work designing programs in the new language. More »

The dean of admissions at M.I.T. has resigned after revealing she lied on her resume 28 years ago. Marilee Jones, a college-admissions guru and author of a popular book on combating the pressure to be perfect, claimed degrees from three New York colleges; it turns out she doesn't even have a BA. More »