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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.

 
Making computation come alive
As a Martian lander descends toward the Red Planet’s surface, when can its parachute be safely deployed? Open it too early, while the lander is hurtling through the atmosphere, and it might tear off — but open it too late and the lander might not slow down enough to prevent a catastrophic crash landing. There are seemingly endless possibilities in this complex conundrum. One way to solve this puzzle is to use a computer to simulate the Mars landing,...

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Seeing the plasma edge of fusion experiments...
To make fusion energy a viable resource for the world’s energy grid, researchers need to understand the turbulent motion of plasmas: a mix of ions and electrons swirling around in reactor vessels. The plasma particles, following magnetic field lines in toroidal chambers known as tokamaks, must be confined long enough for fusion devices to produce significant gains in net energy, a challenge when the hot edge of the plasma (over 1 million degrees Celsius) is just centimeters away from...

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At MIT, learning about the language, history,...
A recent MIT event put into focus the ways in which the Institute is celebrating and supporting the education of Arabic language, art, and history. On Dec. 9, students had the opportunity to learn about the history and art of Arabic calligraphy from a local expert, Hajj Wafaa. A freelance calligrapher, Wafaa has taught Arabic calligraphy in the Boston area since 2004.  Originally from Kufa, Iraq, Wafaa taught himself calligraphy using paper, ink, and tools of his own making...

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Physicists watch as ultracold atoms form a...
The world we experience is governed by classical physics. How we move, where we are, and how fast we’re going are all determined by the classical assumption that we can only exist in one place at any one moment in time. But in the quantum world, the behavior of individual atoms is governed by the eerie principle that a particle’s location is a probability. An atom, for instance, has a certain chance of being in one location and another...

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Reducing food waste to increase access to...
About a third of the world’s food supply never gets eaten. That means the water, labor, energy, and fertilizer that went into growing, processing, and distributing the food is wasted. On the other end of the supply chain are cash-strapped consumers, who have been further distressed in recent years by factors like the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation. Spoiler Alert, a company founded by two MIT alumni, is helping companies bridge the gap between food waste and food insecurity with...

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Professor Emeritus Jerome Milgram, a leader in...
Jerome Milgram ’61, PhD ’65, professor emeritus of ocean engineering at MIT, passed away at the age of 83 on Dec. 21 with family by his side. Milgram pioneered ship design, hydrodynamics, and applied physical oceanography. Jerome, also known as Jerry, was born in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 23, 1938. His love of sailing began at the very early stages of his life. Milgram received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1961, where he also served as captain...

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Meet the 2021-22 Accenture Fellows
Launched in October of 2020, the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology underscores the ways in which industry and technology come together to spur innovation. The five-year initiative aims to achieve its mission through research, education, and fellowships. To that end, Accenture has once again awarded five annual fellowships to MIT graduate students working on research in industry and technology convergence who are underrepresented, including by race, ethnicity, and gender. This year’s Accenture Fellows work across...

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Kerstin Perez is searching the cosmos for...
Kerstin Perez is searching for imprints of dark matter. The invisible substance embodies 84 percent of the matter in the universe and is thought to be a powerful cosmic glue, keeping whole galaxies from spinning apart. And yet, the particles themselves leave barely a trace on ordinary matter,  thwarting all efforts at detection thus far. Perez, a particle physicist at MIT, is hoping that a high-altitude balloon experiment, to be launched into the Antarctic stratosphere in late 2022, will...

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Scientists build new atlas of ocean’s oxygen-starved...
Life is teeming nearly everywhere in the oceans, except in certain pockets where oxygen naturally plummets and waters become unlivable for most aerobic organisms. These desolate pools are “oxygen-deficient zones,” or ODZs. And though they make up less than 1 percent of the ocean’s total volume, they are a significant source of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Their boundaries can also limit the extent of fisheries and marine ecosystems. Now MIT scientists have generated the most detailed, three-dimensional...

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MIT community in 2021: A year in...
During 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic continued to color much of the year, as MIT saw both the promise of vaccines as well as the rise of troubling new variants. The Institute also made new commitments to climate action, saw the opening of new and renovated spaces, continued in its efforts to support its diverse voices, and celebrated new Nobel laureates and astronaut candidates. Here are some of the top stories in the MIT community this year. Continuing to work...

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A “big push” to lift people out...
A field experiment in India led by MIT antipoverty researchers has produced a striking result: A one-time boost of capital improves the condition of the very poor even a decade later. The experiment, based on a “Targeting the Ultra-Poor” (TUP) program that aids people living in extreme poverty, generated positive effects on consumption, food security, income, and health, which grew fairly steadily for seven years after the start of the program, and then remained intact after 10 years as...

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MIT engineers test an idea for a...
Aerospace engineers at MIT are testing a new concept for a hovering rover that levitates by harnessing the moon’s natural charge. Because they lack an atmosphere, the moon and other airless bodies such as asteroids can build up an electric field through direct exposure to the sun and surrounding plasma. On the moon, this surface charge is strong enough to levitate dust more than 1 meter above the ground, much the way static electricity can cause a person’s hair...

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MIT engineers produce the world’s longest flexible...
Researchers have developed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the form of an ultra-long fiber that could be woven into fabrics. The battery could enable a wide variety of wearable electronic devices, and might even be used to make 3D-printed batteries in virtually any shape. The researchers envision new possibilities for self-powered communications, sensing, and computational devices that could be worn like ordinary clothing, as well as devices whose batteries could also double as structural parts. In a proof of...

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Sensor based on quantum physics could detect...
A novel approach to testing for the presence of the virus that causes Covid-19 may lead to tests that are faster, less expensive, and potentially less prone to erroneous results than existing detection methods. Though the work, based on quantum effects, is still theoretical, these detectors could potentially be adapted to detect virtually any virus, the researchers say. The new approach is described in a paper published Thursday in the journal Nano Letters, by Changhao Li, an MIT doctoral...

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Six humanities and arts faculty receive MIT...
The annual MIT SHASS Research Fund supports research in the Institute’s humanities, arts, and social science fields that shows promise of making an important contribution to the proposed area of activity. Congratulations to the six recipients for 2022:   Dwai Banerjee, associate professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society, will use his award funding for work on the book project, “A Counter History of Computing in India.” Although India supplies cheap technological labor to the rest of the...

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