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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.

 
Masks mandates have major impact, study finds
The research described in this article has been published as a working paper but has not yet been peer-reviewed by experts in the field. Masks reduce the spread of Covid-19. But just how much of an effect do they have? A study co-authored by an MIT professor finds that if the U.S. had introduced a uniform national mask mandate for employees of public-facing businesses on April 1, the number of deaths in the U.S. would likely have been 40...

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Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT announces...
The Knight Science Journalism Program (KSJ) at MIT announced the selection of 18 distinguished American science journalists to receive its pioneering remote project fellowships during the 2020-21 academic year. The fellowships will support the pursuit of a diverse range of reporting projects related to science, health, technology, and the environment. KSJ established the project fellowships in response to the unique logistical and safety challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. (The program’s traditional residential fellowships have been deferred until the...

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3 Questions: John Leonard on the future...
As part of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future’s new series of research briefs, Professor John Leonard teamed with professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of history David Mindell and with doctoral candidate Erik Stayton to explore the future of autonomous vehicles (AV) — an area that could arguably be called the touchstone for the discussion of jobs of the future in recent years. Leonard is the Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean...

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Key brain region was “recycled” as humans...
Humans began to develop systems of reading and writing only within the past few thousand years. Our reading abilities set us apart from other animal species, but a few thousand years is much too short a timeframe for our brains to have evolved new areas specifically devoted to reading. To account for the development of this skill, some scientists have hypothesized that parts of the brain that originally evolved for other purposes have been “recycled” for reading. As one...

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Lava oceans may not explain the brightness...
Arguably some of the weirdest, most extreme planets among the more than 4,000 exoplanets discovered to date are the hot super-Earths — rocky, flaming-hot worlds that zing so precariously close to their host stars that some of their surfaces are likely melted seas of molten lava. These fiery worlds, about the size of Earth, are known more evocatively as “lava-ocean planets,” and scientists have observed that a handful of these hot super-Earths are unusually bright, and in fact brighter...

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New US postage stamp highlights MIT research
Letter writers across the country will soon have a fun and beautiful new Forever stamp to choose from, featuring novel research from the Media Lab’s Biomechatronics research group.  The stamp is part of a new U.S. Postal Service (USPS) series on innovation, representing computing, biomedicine, genome sequencing, robotics, and solar technology. For the robotics category, the USPS chose the bionic prosthesis designed and built by Matt Carney PhD ’20 and members of the Biomechatronics group, led by Professor Hugh Herr....

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Blueprint for fall 2020 at MIT
How are instructors planning for remote learning in the fall? Why do on-campus students have to be on a meal plan? What will happen if there is a Covid-19 breakout in a residence hall? These and many other questions were on the minds of undergraduate students and their families at the Fall Reopening Virtual Town Hall sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor and the MIT Parents Association. Thousands of participants tuned in on July 15 as 16 members...

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Edward Allen, professor of architecture, dies at...
Edward Allen, longtime professor of architecture, passed away from complications of Parkinson’s disease on July 7 in Wayland, Massachusetts. He was 81 years old. An architect by training, Allen was the author of bestselling books for architecture students and practitioners. A faculty member in the MIT Department of Architecture from 1968 to 1983, his research and teaching focused on building materials and construction, as well as structural design. Allen was particularly known for embracing technical constraints in architectural design,...

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MIT-Wits Program continues to thrive
Now in its seventh year, the MIT-Wits Program is one of MIT’s most active in Africa. Whether through MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI)-organized student opportunities and faculty seed funds, visiting professors, or its array of edX courses, the relationship is as strong as ever. Known fondly known as Wits (and pronounced “Vits”), the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg is one of South Africa’s oldest and most celebrated universities. Much like MIT, Wits has evolved alongside society...

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MindHandHeart announces a record 24 Community Innovation...
The MindHandHeart Innovation Fund has awarded a record 24 projects and has a new name. The newly titled MindHandHeart Community Innovation Fund seeks to leverage the creativity and problem-solving skills of MIT students, staff, and faculty to increase awareness about mental health, build communities of support, promote life skills, foster resiliency, and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice at MIT. Sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor, the fund has supported 162 projects to date. “The MindHandHeart Community...

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An automated health care system that understands...
In recent years, entire industries have popped up that rely on the delicate interplay between human workers and automated software. Companies like Facebook work to keep hateful and violent content off their platforms using a combination of automated filtering and human moderators. In the medical field, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have used machine learning to help radiologists better detect different forms of cancer.  What can be tricky about these hybrid approaches is understanding when to rely on the expertise of...

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New design principle could prevent catheter failure...
For medical professionals treating hydrocephalus — a chronic neurological condition caused by an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), resulting in pressure on the brain — there have been a limited range of treatment options. The most common is the surgical placement of a medical device called a shunt, a sort of flexible tube, which is placed in the ventricular system of the brain, diverting the flow of CSF from the brain to elsewhere in the body. While effective,...

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Q&A: Peter Fisher discusses JASON report on...
What will it take for research universities across the U.S. to safely open their labs? That’s the subject of a recently released report by JASON, an independent group of scientists who advise the U.S. government about science and technology, in association with the MITRE Corporation. The report was led by Peter Fisher, professor and head of MIT’s Department of Physics, who is a JASON member. (MIT has separately examined the question, and began a phased ramp-up of lab research...

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Rapid antibody development yields possible treatment for...
Yellow fever, a hemorrhagic disease that is common in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, infects about 200,000 people per year and causes an estimated 30,000 deaths. While there is a vaccine for yellow fever, it can’t be given to some people because of the risk of side effects, and there are no approved treatments for the disease.  An international team of researchers, led by MIT Professor Ram Sasisekharan, has now developed a potential treatment for yellow fever. Their drug,...

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3 Questions: Jonathan King on the future...
In an open letter published on July 16 in Science, four MIT professors and nearly 70 additional scientific leaders called upon fellow researchers to urge U.S. government officials to halt plans to restart nuclear weapons testing. Corresponding author and professor of biology Jonathan King sat down to discuss the history of nuclear testing, his personal ties to the issue, and his responsibilities as a scientist. He also co-chairs the Nuclear Disarmament Working Group of Massachusetts Peace Action, MIT’s annual...

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