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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.

 
A material difference
Eesha Khare has always seen a world of matter. The daughter of a hardware engineer and a biologist, she has an insatiable interest in what substances — both synthetic and biological — have in common. Not surprisingly, that perspective led her to the study of materials. “I recognized early on that everything around me is a material,” she says. “How our phones respond to touches, how trees in nature to give us both structural wood and foldable paper, or...

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“To make even the smallest contribution to...
Thailand has become an economic leader in Southeast Asia in recent decades, but while the country has rapidly industrialized, many Thai citizens have been left behind. As a child growing up in Bangkok, Pavarin Bhandtivej would watch the news and wonder why families in the nearby countryside had next to nothing. He aspired to become a policy researcher and create beneficial change. But Bhandtivej knew his goal wouldn’t be easy. He was born with a visual impairment, making it...

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How a sudden stratospheric warming affected the...
Weather is a tricky science — even more so at very high altitudes, with a mix of plasma and neutral particles. In sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) — large meteorological disturbances related to the polar vortex in which the polar stratosphere temperature increases as it is affected by the winds around the pole — the polar vortex is weakened. SSWs also have profound atmospheric effects at great distances, causing changes in the hemisphere opposite from the location of the original...

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Lincoln Laboratory convenes top network scientists for...
As the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, we live in a richly connected world, facilitating not only the efficient spread of a virus but also of information and influence. What can we learn by analyzing these connections? This is a core question of network science, a field of research that models interactions across physical, biological, social, and information systems to solve problems. The 2021 Graph Exploitation Symposium (GraphEx), hosted by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, brought together top network science researchers to...

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Reducing emissions by decarbonizing industry
A critical challenge in meeting the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius is to vastly reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions generated by the most energy-intensive industries. According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency, these industries — cement, iron and steel, chemicals — account for about 20 percent of global CO2 emissions. Emissions from these industries are notoriously difficult to abate because, in addition to emissions...

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Professor Emeritus Justin “Jake” Kerwin, an expert...
Justin “Jake” Kerwin ’53, SM ’54, PhD ’61, professor emeritus of naval architecture, passed away at the age of 90 on May 23. Kerwin, who served on MIT’s ocean engineering faculty for four decades, was an internationally recognized expert in propeller design, ship hydrodynamics, and predicting racing yacht performance. Kerwin had an international upbringing, growing up in the Netherlands, London, and eventually New York. He first arrived at MIT as an undergraduate in 1949. In addition to studying naval...

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Paul Lagacé, professor of aeronautics and astronautics,...
Paul Lagacé, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, died July 16 in his home in Wilmington, Massachusetts. He was 63. A longtime member of the MIT community, Lagacé graduated from Course 16 (aeronautics and astronautics) with his bachelor’s degree in 1978, his master’s in 1979, and his PhD 1982. He joined the faculty in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1982. Lagacé’s research focused on the design and manufacture of composite structures and materials mainly used...

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The environmental toll of disposable masks
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began last year, face masks and other personal protective equipment have become essential for health care workers. Disposable N95 masks have been in especially high demand to help prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. All of those masks carry both financial and environmental costs. The Covid-19 pandemic is estimated to generate up to 7,200 tons of medical waste every day, much of which is disposable masks. And even as the pandemic...

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With the HUMANS project, a message that...
When the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft launched in 1977, they each carried a Golden Record, a special project spearheaded by astrophysicist Carl Sagan, in addition to the scientific instruments necessary for their mission to explore the outer reaches of our solar system. Part time capsule, part symbolic ambassador of goodwill, the Golden Record comprises sounds, images, music, and greetings in 59 languages, providing a snapshot of life on Earth for the edification of any intelligent extraterrestrial beings...

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Enhancing drug delivery with ultrasound
It can be difficult to get drugs to disease sites along the gastrointestinal tract, which spans the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small and large intestine, and anus. Invasive treatments can take hours as patients wait for adequate amounts of drugs to be absorbed at the right location. The same problem is holding back newer treatments like gene-altering therapies. Now the MIT spinout Suono Bio is advancing a new approach that uses ultrasound to deliver drugs, including nucleic acids like DNA...

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Making it through a pandemic senior year...
Miles Johnson graduated this June with degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering and computer science, and a minor in physics. But if he could add another concentration to his degree, then Johnson would add pandemic survival, which he passed with flying colors thanks to solid friendships formed during his time at MIT. At San Francisco University High School, Johnson relied on a support network of teachers, program leaders, and friends that made it easy to push himself. Later, as...

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Contact-aware robot design
Adequate biomimicry in robotics necessitates a delicate balance between design and control, an integral part of making our machines more like us. Advanced dexterity in humans is wrapped up in a long evolutionary tale of how our fists of fury evolved to accomplish complex tasks. With machines, designing a new robotic manipulator could mean long, manual iteration cycles of designing, fabricating, and evaluating guided by human intuition.  Most robotic hands are designed for general purposes, as it’s very tedious...

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MIT.nano receives American Institute of Architects’s Top...
MIT.nano, MIT’s open-access facility for nanoscale science and engineering, has been awarded the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2021 Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top Ten Award for excellence in sustainability and design. The annual award recognizes 10 projects, located anywhere in the world, that meet AIA’s Framework for Design Excellence — 10 principles aimed at creating a zero-carbon, equitable, resilient, and healthy built environment. Projects are evaluated on how well they are designed for integration, equitable communities, ecosystems,...

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MIT Schwarzman College of Computing awards named...
The MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing has awarded two inaugural chaired appointments to Dina Katabi and Aleksander Madry in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). “These distinguished endowed professorships recognize the extraordinary achievements of our faculty and future potential of their academic careers,” says Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “I’m delighted to make these appointments and acknowledge...

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A noninvasive test to detect cancer cells...
Most of the tests that doctors use to diagnose cancer — such as mammography, colonoscopy, and CT scans — are based on imaging. More recently, researchers have also developed molecular diagnostics that can detect specific cancer-associated molecules that circulate in bodily fluids like blood or urine. MIT engineers have now created a new diagnostic nanoparticle that combines both of these features: It can reveal the presence of cancerous proteins through a urine test, and it functions as an imaging...

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