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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.

 
How quickly do algorithms improve?
Algorithms are sort of like a parent to a computer. They tell the computer how to make sense of information so they can, in turn, make something useful out of it. The more efficient the algorithm, the less work the computer has to do. For all of the technological progress in computing hardware, and the much debated lifespan of Moore’s Law, computer performance is only one side of the picture. Behind the scenes a second trend is happening: Algorithms...

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RNA-targeting enzyme expands the CRISPR toolkit
Researchers at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research have discovered a bacterial enzyme that they say could expand scientists’ CRISPR toolkit, making it easy to cut and edit RNA with the kind of precision that, until now, has only been available for DNA editing. The enzyme, called Cas7-11, modifies RNA targets without harming cells, suggesting that in addition to being a valuable research tool, it provides a fertile platform for therapeutic applications. “This new enzyme is like the Cas9...

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Crossing disciplines, adding fresh eyes to nuclear...
Sometimes patterns repeat in nature. Spirals appear in sunflowers and hurricanes. Branches occur in veins and lightning. Limiao Zhang, a doctoral student in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, has found another similarity: between street traffic and boiling water, with implications for making the cooling of nuclear reactors more resilient. Growing up in China, Zhang enjoyed watching her father repair things around the house. He couldn’t fulfill his dream of becoming an engineer, instead joining the police force,...

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Researchers find a new way to control...
Most of the magnets we encounter daily are made of “ferromagnetic” materials. The north-south magnetic axes of most atoms in these materials are lined up in the same direction, so their collective force is strong enough to produce significant attraction. These materials form the basis for most of the data storage devices in today’s high-tech world. Less common are magnets based on ferrimagnetic materials, with an “i.” In these, some of the atoms are aligned in one direction, but...

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New views of autocracy emerge from historic...
“There’s a stereotype of dictatorship where one person decides everything, but that’s not always how politics works in an authoritarian regime,” says Emilia Simison, a sixth-year doctoral student in political science. Since 2015, Simison has been able to access and study documents that chronicle the lawmaking machinery of some of the past century’s most notorious dictatorships. Her analysis of these voluminous materials suggests that autocracies do not routinely follow a single “strongman” model, and that some even make room...

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Research collaboration puts climate-resilient crops in sight
Any houseplant owner knows that changes in the amount of water or sunlight a plant receives can put it under immense stress. A dying plant brings certain disappointment to anyone with a green thumb.  But for farmers who make their living by successfully growing plants, and whose crops may nourish hundreds or thousands of people, the devastation of failing flora is that much greater. As climate change is poised to cause increasingly unpredictable weather patterns globally, crops may be...

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The next generation of glowing plants
Using specialized nanoparticles embedded in plant leaves, MIT engineers have created a light-emitting plant that can be charged by an LED. After 10 seconds of charging, plants glow brightly for several minutes, and they can be recharged repeatedly. These plants can produce light that is 10 times brighter than the first generation of glowing plants that the research group reported in 2017. “We wanted to create a light-emitting plant with particles that will absorb light, store some of it,...

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MIT appoints members of new faculty committee...
In May, responding to the world’s accelerating climate crisis, MIT issued an ambitious new plan, “Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade.” The plan outlines a broad array of new and expanded initiatives across campus to build on the Institute’s longstanding climate work. Now, to unite these varied climate efforts, maximize their impact, and identify new ways for MIT to contribute climate solutions, the Institute has appointed more than a dozen faculty members to a new committee...

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What’s the next chapter in Afghanistan?
After nearly 20 years, the U.S. has withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has regained control over the country. In light of those developments, a panel of foreign-policy experts on Tuesday addressed two separate but related questions: Why did the U.S. military action in Afghanistan fall short, and what comes next for the strife-ridden country? The event occurred as observers are still digesting the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed national government in Afghanistan, which could not maintain...

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New programmable gene editing proteins found outside...
Within the last decade, scientists have adapted CRISPR systems from microbes into gene editing technology, a precise and programmable system for modifying DNA. Now, scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a new class of programmable DNA modifying systems called OMEGAs (Obligate Mobile Element Guided Activity), which may naturally be involved in shuffling small bits of DNA throughout bacterial genomes. These ancient DNA-cutting enzymes are guided to their...

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3 Questions: Daniel Cohn on the benefits...
The California Air Resources Board has adopted a regulation that requires truck and engine manufacturers to reduce the nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from new heavy-duty trucks by 90 percent starting in 2027. NOx from heavy-duty trucks is one of the main sources of air pollution, creating smog and threatening respiratory health. This regulation requires the largest air pollution cuts in California in more than a decade. How can manufacturers achieve this aggressive goal efficiently and affordably? Daniel Cohn, a...

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Study: As a population gets older, automation...
You might think robots and other forms of workplace automation gain traction due to intrinsic advances in technology — that innovations naturally find their way into the economy. But a study co-authored by an MIT professor tells a different story: Robots are more widely adopted where populations become notably older, filling the gaps in an aging industrial work force. “Demographic change — aging — is one of the most important factors leading to the adoption of robotics and other...

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At delta v Demo Day, the MIT...
You know things are getting closer to normal at MIT when people gather at Kresge Auditorium to celebrate student entrepreneurs. That was the case Friday at the delta v summer accelerator’s capstone event, Demo Day. None of the students who presented their startup success stories could have predicted the changing pandemic landscape they’d have to work through this summer. But the presentations — each interspersed with enthusiastic cheers from the audience as students announced company milestones — showed they...

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Engineers create 3D-printed objects that sense how...
MIT researchers have developed a new method to 3D print mechanisms that detect how force is being applied to an object. The structures are made from a single piece of material, so they can be rapidly prototyped. A designer could use this method to 3D print “interactive input devices,” like a joystick, switch, or handheld controller, in one go. To accomplish this, the researchers integrated electrodes into structures made from metamaterials, which are materials divided into a grid of...

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Researchers design sensors to rapidly detect plant...
Researchers from the Disruptive and Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP) interdisciplinary research group of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, and their local collaborators from Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), have developed the first-ever nanosensor to enable rapid testing of synthetic auxin plant hormones. The novel nanosensors are safer and less tedious than existing techniques for testing plants’ response to compounds such as herbicide, and can...

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