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In this episode, MIT President Sally Kornbluth sits down with associate professor of political science and faculty co-director of MIT-Africa, Mai Hassan. Her work looks at bureaucracy, public administration, and the state in Africa, and more recently, how people mobilize against repressive dictatorships.Show notes and transcript:https://news.mit.edu/podcast/bureaucracies-dictatorships-and-power-africas-people-mai-hassan (https://news.mit.edu/podcast/bureaucracies-dictatorships-and-power-africas-people-mai-hassan)The Curiosity Unbounded (https://news.mit.edu/podcasts/curiosity-unbounded) podcast brings you behind the scenes at MIT through conversations between MIT President Sally Kornbluth and the people working in its labs and in the field. Along the way, Sally and her guests discuss pressing issues, as well as what inspires the people running at the world’s toughest challenges at one of the most innovative institutions on the planet.

In this episode, MIT President Sally Kornbluth sits down with newly tenured associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Desirée Plata. Her work focuses on making industrial processes more environmentally friendly, and removing methane (a key factor in global warming) from the air.Show notes and transcript:https://news.mit.edu/podcast/how-free-range-kid-maine-helping-green-industrial-practices-desiree-plata (https://news.mit.edu/podcast/how-free-range-kid-maine-helping-green-industrial-practices-desiree-plata)The Curiosity Unbounded (https://news.mit.edu/podcasts/curiosity-unbounded) podcast brings you behind the scenes at MIT through conversations between MIT President Sally Kornbluth and the people working in its labs and in the field. Along the way, Sally and her guests discuss pressing issues, as well as what inspires the people running at the world’s toughest challenges at one of the most innovative institutions on the planet.

MIT researchers have made an open-source version of the “City Scanner” mobile pollution detector that lets people check air quality anywhere, cheaply. Pictured are some examples of the latest version of the device, called Flatburn, as well as a researcher attaching a prototype to a car.

Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2023/low-cost-device-can-measure-air-pollution-anywhere-0316

In a new study, MIT researchers have developed strategies for beneficial electric vehicle charging to reduce peak electricity demand and store solar energy.

Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2023/minimizing-electric-vehicles-impact-grid-0315

Predicting what it takes to push through sand, gravel, or other soft media can help engineers drive a rover over Martian soil, anchor a ship in rough seas, and walk a robot through sand and mud. But modeling the forces involved in such processes is a huge computational challenge that often takes days to weeks to solve.

Now, engineers at MIT and Georgia Tech have found a faster and simpler way to model intrusion through any soft, flowable material. Their new method quickly maps the forces it would take to push, wiggle, and drill an object through granular material in real-time. The method can apply to objects and grains of any size and shape, and does not require complex computational tools as other methods do.

Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2023/soft-push-granular-intrusion-0119

By modeling the conditions of an entire wind farm rather than individual turbines, engineers can squeeze more power out of existing installations.

Read the article: https://news.mit.edu/2022/wind-farm-optimization-energy-flow-0811