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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 reveals ways in which 40Hz sensory...
Early-stage trials in Alzheimer’s disease patients and studies in mouse models of the disease have suggested positive impacts on pathology and symptoms from exposure to light and sound presented at the “gamma” band frequency of 40 hertz (Hz). A new study zeroes in on how 40Hz sensory stimulation helps to sustain an essential process in which the signal-sending branches of neurons, called axons, are wrapped in a fatty insulation called myelin. Often called the brain’s “white matter,” myelin protects...

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Faculty receive promotions in the School of...
Eleven faculty in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning have been recognized with promotions for their significant contributions to the school, effective July 1. Five faculty promotions are in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning; four are in the Department of Architecture; and two are in the program in Media Arts and Sciences. “Whether architects, urbanists, historians, artists, economists, or aero-astro engineers, they represent our school at its best, in its breadth of inquiry and in its persistence to improve, by...

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Cynthia Griffin Wolff, acclaimed biographer and longtime...
Cynthia Griffin Wolff, a noted scholar of American literature, passed away on July 25. She was 87. Wolff joined the humanities faculty at MIT in 1980 and was named the Class of 1922 Professor of Humanities in 1985. She taught in the Literature Section, and later moved to the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. Her expertise was in the exploration of 19th and 20th century female American writers. She retired from MIT in 2003. Wolff was born in...

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A new approach to fine-tuning quantum materials
Quantum materials — those with electronic properties that are governed by the principles of quantum mechanics, such as correlation and entanglement — can exhibit exotic behaviors under certain conditions, such as the ability to transmit electricity without resistance, known as superconductivity. However, in order to get the best performance out of these materials, they need to be properly tuned, in the same way that race cars require tuning as well. A team led by Mingda Li, an associate professor...

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D-Lab off-grid brooder saves chicks and money...
MIT D-Lab students and instructors are improving the efficacy and economics of a brooder technology for newborn chicks that utilizes a practical, local resource: beeswax. Developed through participatory design with agricultural partners in Cameroon, their Off-Grid Brooder is a solution aimed at improving the profitability of the African nation’s small- and medium-scale poultry farms. Since it is common for smallholders in places with poor electricity supply to tend open fires overnight to keep chicks warm, the invention might also...

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MIT chemists synthesize plant-derived molecules that hold...
MIT chemists have developed a new way to synthesize complex molecules that were originally isolated from plants and could hold potential as antibiotics, analgesics, or cancer drugs. These compounds, known as oligocyclotryptamines, consist of multiple tricyclic substructures called cyclotryptamine, fused together by carbon–carbon bonds. Only small quantities of these compounds are naturally available, and synthesizing them in the lab has proven difficult. The MIT team came up with a way to add tryptamine-derived components to a molecule one at...

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Alex Shalek named director of the Institute...
Alex K. Shalek, the J. W. Kieckhefer Professor in the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences (IMES) and Department of Chemistry, has been named the new director of IMES, effective Aug. 1. “Professor Shalek’s substantial contributions to the scientific community as a researcher and educator have been exemplary. His extensive network across MIT, Harvard, and Mass General Brigham will be a tremendous asset as director of IMES,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of the...

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New tool empowers pavement life-cycle decision-making while...
Roads are the backbone of our society and economy, taking people and goods across distances long and short. They are a staple of the built environment, taking up nearly 2.8 million lane-miles (or 4.6 million lane-kilometers) of the United States’ surface area. These same roads have a considerable life-cycle environmental impact, having been associated with over 75 megatons of greenhouse gases (GHG) each year over the past three decades in the United States. That is equivalent to the emissions...

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With sustainable cement, startup aims to eliminate...
While today’s cement is made through extremely high temperatures in a kiln, ancient Romans didn’t have that option. Still, anyone who’s been to Rome recently will tell you that ancient cement seems to have held up just fine. The startup Sublime Systems thinks the Romans were onto something. The MIT spinout has created a drop-in replacement for today’s most commonly used cement, known as portland cement, that uses electrochemistry to skip the ultrahigh temperatures of conventional production — and...

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3 Questions: Preparing students in MIT’s naval...
Being able to say, “I fly helicopters” — specifically the Seahawk series that boast a maximum cruise elevation of 10,000 feet and 210 miles per hour — must be a great conversation starter. So must saying that you are helping to train a future generation of naval cadets at MIT, Harvard and Tufts universities, and other local schools. U.S. Navy Commander Jennifer A. Huck, executive officer (XO) for the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) consortium, can do both. Called...

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Going Dutch on climate
When MIT senior Rudiba Laiba saw that stores in the Netherlands eschewed plastic bags to save the planet, her first thought was, “that doesn’t happen in Bangladesh.” Laiba is one of eight MIT students who traveled to the Netherlands in June as part of an MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)-sponsored trip to experience first-hand the country’s approach to the energy transition. The Netherlands aims to be carbon neutral by 2050, making it one of the top 10 countries leading the...

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Dimitris Bertsimas named vice provost for open...
Dimitris Bertsimas PhD ’88 has been appointed vice provost for open learning at MIT, effective Sept. 1. In this role, Bertsimas, who is the Boeing Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management at MIT, will work with partners across the Institute to transform teaching and learning on and off MIT’s campus. Provost Cynthia Barnhart announced Bertsimas’s appointment in an email to the MIT community today. “As the vice provost for open learning, Dimitris will work with faculty and staff...

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Tracking emissions to help companies reduce their...
Amidst a global wave of corporate pledges to decarbonize or reach net-zero emissions, a system for verifying actual greenhouse gas reductions has never been more important. Context Labs, founded by former MIT Sloan Fellow and serial entrepreneur Dan Harple SM ’13, is rising to meet that challenge with an analytics platform that brings more transparency to emissions data. The company’s platform adds context to data from sources like equipment sensors and satellites, provides third-party verification, and records all that...

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New substrate material for flexible electronics could...
Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a rapidly growing global problem, and it’s expected to worsen with the production of new kinds of flexible electronics for robotics, wearable devices, health monitors, and other new applications, including single-use devices. A new kind of flexible substrate material developed at MIT, the University of Utah, and Meta has the potential to enable not only the recycling of materials and components at the end of a device’s useful life, but also the scalable manufacture...

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Hamsa Balakrishnan appointed associate dean of engineering
Hamsa Balakrishnan, the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) at MIT, has been appointed associate dean of the MIT School of Engineering effective Aug. 1. As associate dean, Balakrishnan will focus on efforts to attract, retain, and support top talent across all academic levels in the School of Engineering. She will help lead and shape various faculty-focused programs and will help manage many of the school’s student-facing programs and initiatives. Balakrishnan will...

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