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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.

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Why the Mediterranean is a climate change...

June 17, 2020

Although global climate models vary in many ways, they agree on this: The Mediterranean region will be significantly drier in coming decades, potentially seeing 40 percent less precipitation during the winter rainy season. An analysis by researchers at MIT has now found the underlying mechanisms that explain the anomalous effects in this region, especially in the Middle East and in northwest Africa. The analysis could help refine the models and add certainty to their projections, which have significant implications...

3 questions with James H. Williams, Jr.,...

June 17, 2020

In two new textbooks, Professor of Mechanical Engineering James H. Williams, Jr. shares his engineering knowledge, joy, and teaching style that have inspired generations of MIT students as well as engineers and scientists worldwide. As a mechanical engineering professor, Williams is the first to receive the Everett Moore Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the first to receive the Jacob P. Den Hartog Distinguished Educator Award, and the first to be named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow. He...

Study sheds light on a classic visual...

June 17, 2020

It’s a classic visual illusion: Two gray dots appear on a background that consists of a gradient from light gray to black. Although the two dots are identical, they appear very different based on where they are placed against the background. Scientists who study the brain have been trying to figure out the mechanism behind this illusion, known as simultaneous brightness contrast, for more than 100 years. An MIT-led study now suggests that this phenomenon relies on brightness estimation...

Steady demand for PPE might encourage local...

June 16, 2020

Without a vaccine for Covid-19, health care and other frontline workers must rely on personal protective equipment (PPE) to guard themselves from exposure to the novel coronavirus. Demand for PPE has been substantial in Massachusetts since the outbreak began. What’s unclear is just how great the demand will remain going forward, and if the state is equipped to meet it. To help settle this uncertainty, MIT Lincoln Laboratory conducted a study to estimate demand for PPE in Massachusetts over...

What moves people?

June 16, 2020

It’s easy to think of urban mobility strictly in terms of infrastructure: Does an area have the right rail lines, bus lanes, or bike paths? How much parking is available? How well might autonomous vehicles work? MIT Associate Professor Jinhua Zhao views matters a bit differently, however. To understand urban movement, Zhao believes, we also need to understand people. How does everyone choose to use transport? Why do they move around, and when? How does their self-image influence their...

Study finds path for addressing Alzheimer’s blood-brain...

June 15, 2020

By developing a lab-engineered model of the human blood-brain barrier (BBB), neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have discovered how the most common Alzheimer’s disease risk gene causes amyloid protein plaques to disrupt the brain’s vasculature and showed they could prevent the damage with medications already approved for human use. About 25 percent of people have the APOE4 variant of the APOE gene, which puts them at substantially greater risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Almost everyone with...

Startup with MIT roots develops lightweight solar...

June 15, 2020

Joel Jean PhD ’17 spent two years working on The Future of Solar Energy, a report published by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) in 2015. Today, he is striving to create that future as CEO of Swift Solar, a startup that is developing lightweight solar panels based on perovskite semiconductors. It hasn’t been a straight path, but Jean says his motivation — one he shares with his five co-founders — is the drive to address climate change. “The whole...

From delayed deceleration to Zooming

June 14, 2020

On Nov. 21, 2019, the sun had set just a couple of hours before on an unseasonably warm day, and Jacqueline Thomas PhD ’20 found herself sitting on the edge of her seat in a typical meeting room in the William J. Hughes Technical Center, part of the Federal Aviation Administration, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Thomas, a graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) at MIT, focused intently in front of a small monitor, her...

Capturing stardust

June 12, 2020

Danielle Frostig spent the last Friday in February with the rest of the Astronomical Instrumentation Team at MIT, carefully packing an astronomical instrument bound for Chile. This instrument, a prototype of the larger, complete spectrograph, which will image some of the faintest and oldest stars, will be mounted on the Magellan Telescope in Las Campanas, Chile. “I’ve never thought of shipping crates or tax forms before,” confesses Frostig, a graduate student in the group of Rob Simcoe, director of...

Team 2020 charts a course for MIT

June 12, 2020

In late March, as part of the Institute’s response to the evolving Covid-19 pandemic, the Team 2020 working group was charged with rigorously evaluating options for the upcoming academic year, to inform the final decisions by the senior administration. Co-leads Ian A. Waitz, vice chancellor for undergraduate and graduate education, and Tony P. Sharon, acting deputy executive vice president, dove into the complex task, framing it as “defining all the switches that needed to be turned off (to scale...

Newly observed phenomenon could lead to new...

June 12, 2020

An exotic physical phenomenon known as a Kohn anomaly has been found for the first time in an unexpected type of material by researchers at MIT and elsewhere. They say the finding could provide new insights into certain fundamental processes that help determine why metals and other materials display the complex electronic properties that underlie much of today’s technology. The way electrons interact with phonons — which are essentially vibrations passing through a crystalline material — determines the physical...

State-level R&D tax credits spur growth of...

June 12, 2020

Here’s some good news for U.S. states trying to spur an economic recovery in the years ahead: The R&D tax credit has a significant effect on entrepreneurship, according to a new study led by an MIT professor. Moreover, the study finds a striking contrast between two types of tax credits. While the R&D tax credit fuels high-quality new-firm growth, the state-level investment tax credit, which supports general business needs, actually has a slightly negative economic effect on that kind...

Seven from MIT win 2020 Hertz Fellowships

June 11, 2020

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation announced that it has awarded seven of its 16 graduate fellowships to MIT students this year — six recent graduates and one graduate student. These prestigious awards provide each student with five years of doctoral-level research funding with “the freedom to pursue innovative ideas, wherever they may lead,” as well as lifelong professional support from previous Hertz Fellows recipients. This year’s winners are Alexander Alabugin ’20, Alyssa Dayan ’18, Marisa Gaetz ’20, Isaac...

A layered approach to safety

June 11, 2020

In 2011 the nuclear energy industry faced one of its greatest challenges. The disabling of three Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in the wake of an earthquake-triggered tsunami sparked a global race for solutions to improve nuclear safety — a race focused on accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) to avert future reactor breakdowns. Researchers in the United States rose to the challenge, among them Koroush Shirvan, assistant professor in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. After a series of studies on...

Stiffer roadways could improve truck fuel efficiency

June 11, 2020

Every time you hear a deep rumble and feel your house shake when a big truck roars by, that’s partly because the weight of heavy vehicles causes a slight deflection in the road surface under them. It’s enough of a dip to make a difference to the trucks’ overall fuel efficiency. Now, a theoretical study by MIT researchers suggests that small changes in roadway paving practices could reduce that efficiency loss, potentially eliminating a half-percent of the total greenhouse...

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