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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
Study urges caution when comparing neural networks...
Neural networks, a type of computing system loosely modeled on the organization of the human brain, form the basis of many artificial intelligence systems for applications such speech recognition, computer vision, and medical image analysis. In the field of neuroscience, researchers often use neural networks to try to model the same kind of tasks that the brain performs, in hopes that the models could suggest new hypotheses regarding how the brain itself performs those tasks. However, a group of...

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Why the 2022 elections might determine the...
Voters need to pay attention to races up and down the ballot — especially to more obscure county-level contests — to protect democracy, panelists said during an Oct. 12 discussion titled “Why the 2022 Elections May Determine the Future of Democracy in the U.S.” While national and congressional races get the most attention, voters may not realize that local and state election officials have the most control over democracy issues, the panelists said. The panel was sponsored by MITvote,...

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Liang Fu and Patrick Lee receive Larkin...
MIT condensed matter theory professors of physics Liang Fu and Patrick A. Lee received the inaugural Larkin Awards in Theoretical Physics, awarded by the William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute at the University of Minnesota. Fu received the 2022 Anatoly Larkin Award for a junior researcher for his work on 3D topological insulators and odd-parity topological superconductors, crystalline topological insulators, and Majorana zero modes, “and for being an intellectual leader of his generation.” Fu is interested in novel topological phases of...

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A better way to tell which species...
Wildfires, floods, pollution, and overfishing are among the many disruptions that can change the balance of ecosystems, sometimes endangering the future of entire species. But evaluating these ecosystems to determine which species are most at risk, in order to focus preservation actions and policies where they are most needed, is a challenging task. Most such efforts assume that ecosystems are essentially in a state of equilibrium, and that external perturbations cause a temporary shift before things eventually return to...

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In nanotube science, is boron nitride the...
Engineers at MIT and the University of Tokyo have produced centimeter-scale structures, large enough for the eye to see, that are packed with hundreds of billions of hollow aligned fibers, or nanotubes, made from hexagonal boron nitride. Hexagonal boron nitride, or hBN, is a single-atom-thin material that has been coined “white graphene” for its transparent appearance and its similarity to carbon-based graphene in molecular structure and strength. It can also withstand higher temperatures than graphene, and is electrically insulating,...

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Angela Koehler takes on the most challenging...
Analyzing the genetic mutations linked with diseases such as cancer has yielded many potential drug targets. However, a significant number of these proteins are considered “undruggable,” mainly because their structure is too floppy for any kind of small-molecule drug to bind to it. Angela Koehler, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT, has made it her mission to find ways to drug these targets. By taking aim at proteins that interact with the undruggable proteins, she can indirectly...

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Pesticide innovation takes top prize at Collegiate...
On Oct. 12, MIT mechanical engineering alumnus Vishnu Jayaprakash SM ’19, PhD ’22 was named the first-place winner in the graduate category of the Collegiate Inventors Competition. The annual competition, which is organized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, celebrates college and university student inventors. Jayaprakash won for his pesticide innovation AgZen-Cloak, which he developed while he was a student in the lab of Kripa Varanasi, a professor of mechanical engineering. Currently, only 2 percent of pesticide spray...

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Frank Sidney Jones, professor emeritus of urban...
Frank Sidney Jones, professor emeritus in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), passed away on Aug. 28 at the age of 93. In 1971, Jones was named Ford Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning, becoming the first African American to be tenured at MIT. He also taught courses in civil engineering. From his appointment in 1968 to his retirement in 1992, he focused on issues of race, poverty, and inequality, using his position to advocate for the...

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3 Questions: How AI image generators could...
AI image generators, which create fantastical sights at the intersection of dreams and reality, bubble up on every corner of the web. Their entertainment value is demonstrated by an ever-expanding treasure trove of whimsical and random images serving as indirect portals to the brains of human designers. A simple text prompt yields a nearly instantaneous image, satisfying our primitive brains, which are hardwired for instant gratification.  Although seemingly nascent, the field of AI-generated art can be traced back as...

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Honoring work to support innovation in aging
On Sept. 13, MIT AgeLab co-hosted a celebration honoring the 10th anniversary of Boston Bridge, a nonprofit professional development organization in the field of aging with a longtime AgeLab association. Since its founding in 2012, AgeLab has been affiliated with Boston Bridge, an interdisciplinary program that works with business, government, and nongovernmental organizations to improve the quality of life of older people and those who care for them. MIT AgeLab researcher Taylor Patskanick is the current president of Boston...

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Coordinating climate and air-quality policies to improve...
As America’s largest investment to fight climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act positions the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. But as it edges the United States closer to achieving its international climate commitment, the legislation is also expected to yield significant — and more immediate — improvements in the nation’s health. If successful in accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy alternatives, the IRA will sharply reduce...

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Two first-year students named Rise Global Winners...
In 2019, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, launched a $1 billion philanthropic commitment to identify global talent. Part of that effort is the Rise initiative, which selects 100 young scholars, ages 15-17, from around the world who show unusual promise and a drive to serve others. This year’s cohort of 100 Rise Global Winners includes two MIT first-year students, Jacqueline Prawira and Safiya Sankari. Rise intentionally targets younger-aged students and focuses on identifying what the...

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Seven with MIT ties receive awards from...
The American Physical Society (APS) recently honored a number of individuals with ties to MIT with prizes and awards for their contributions to physics. They include: Institute Professor Arup Chakraborty; associate professors Ronald Fernando Garcia Ruiz and Lina Necib; Yuan Cao SM ’16 PhD ’20; Alina Kononov ’14; Elliott H. Lieb ’53; Haocun Yu PhD ’20; and several former MIT postdocs. Max Delbruck Prize in Biological Physics Institute Professor Arup Chakraborty, a professor of chemical engineering, physics, and chemistry, received the 2023 Max Delbruck...

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Building with nanoparticles, from the bottom up
Researchers at MIT have developed a technique for precisely controlling the arrangement and placement of nanoparticles on a material, like the silicon used for computer chips, in a way that does not damage or contaminate the surface of the material. The technique, which combines chemistry and directed assembly processes with conventional fabrication techniques, enables the efficient formation of high-resolution, nanoscale features integrated with nanoparticles for devices like sensors, lasers, and LEDs, which could boost their performance. Transistors and other...

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A “door” into the mitochondrial membrane
Mitochondria — the organelles responsible for energy production in human cells — were once free-living organisms that found their way into early eukaryotic cells over a billion years ago. Since then, they have merged seamlessly with their hosts in a classic example of symbiotic evolution, and now rely on many proteins made in their host cell’s nucleus to function properly. Proteins on the outer membrane of mitochondria are especially important; they allow the mitochondria to communicate with the rest of...

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