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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.

 
“Lean lab” approach enables quick research ramp...
When MIT announced in March that most research labs on campus would need to ramp down to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, Canan Dagdeviren’s lab was ready. For the past two years, Dagdeviren and her lab manager, David Sadat, have run the Conformable Decoders Group using “lean lab” management principles, working closely with MIT’s Environment, Health and Safety Office (EHS). Every item in their lab has an assigned function and location, and there are strict procedures in place...

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Susan Solomon earns Killian Award, MIT’s highest...
Atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon, whose pioneering scientific and environmental policy work has helped to shape international agreements for healing the ozone layer and mitigating climate change, has been named the recipient of the 2020-2021 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award. The Killian Award is the highest honor the MIT faculty can give to one of its members, to recognize “outstanding contributions to their fields, to MIT, and to society.” “I am truly very, very touched,” Solomon says. “I...

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Testing whether uncertified N95 masks are effective
Ever since Covid-19 began spreading in the U.S., state governments have been scrambling to find and secure N95 respirator masks, the kind that seal against the face and filter out infectious particles, protecting frontline workers from inhaling the coronavirus. A national shortage has led states to buy these masks from uncertified foreign producers or from producers that sell foreign-certified products.  “Every state has had to go and buy whatever they can find,” says William Herzog, an assistant leader of...

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SMART researchers uncover new anti-phage defense mechanisms
Researchers from Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, have discovered a new anti-phage defense mechanism found in some bacteria, which use previously unknown features to protect their DNA. The groundbreaking discovery enables scientists to overcome existing challenges in bacterial resistance to antibiotics. The growing antimicrobial resistance is a major concern for the global health community, and phage therapy is an important pillar in combating bacterial infections. Bacteriophages, an effective alternative to fight bacteria...

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Virtual hackathon unites international community to tackle...
A team of competitors cluster around a laptop screen; their table is decorated with snacks, caffeinated drinks, and scribbled Post-it notes. Stationed inside a large room with 100 other participants for 48 hours, they battle it out at HealthHACK. The place is buzzing and the energy is intense. This was the scene last year at MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node’s annual hackathon. This year, the event took a virtual pivot when the Covid-19 outbreak went into full swing. Undaunted...

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Informing Covid-19 preparedness in Sierra Leone
As Covid-19 continues to spread, governments in West Africa have been working to meet the virus head-on. In Sierra Leone, the government took measures back in December 2019 to quarantine all travelers from countries reporting Covid-19 cases and travelers with high temperatures. With limited public health infrastructure, slowing the spread has been critical to protecting their population of nearly 8 million. In late March, Sierra Leone confirmed the first case in-country, put in place a temporary lockdown, and convened...

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Study finds “volume dial” for turning neural...
Neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have found that a protein acts like a volume dial for the release of neurotransmitters, the chemicals that neurons release across connections called synapses to stimulate muscles or communicate with other neurons in brain circuits. The findings help explain how synapses work and could better inform understanding of some neurological disorders. Working in the model of fruit flies, the team determined that the protein Synaptotagmin 7 (SYT7), which is also...

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Art connects a community in quarantine
Below the concrete sidewalks and pathways between MIT Buildings 66 and E17 lies a labyrinth of tunnels and The Borderline Mural Project, a 200-foot-long installment of more than 60 murals painted by MIT-affiliated artists. What once was one of MIT’s busiest underground corridors and destinations is now quietly abandoned in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Inspired by the Corona Maison art project, MIT students from The Borderline club developed a virtual tunnel called Tunnel66 to reconnect the MIT...

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Protecting seafarers and the global supply chain...
The offshore and shipping industries are grappling with unique challenges in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. The virus’ rapid spread on ships like the Diamond Princess and USS Theodore Roosevelt highlighted the health risks that the 1.2 million workers currently at sea face. Travel restrictions and closed borders offer an additional challenge by not only disrupting the global supply chain, but preventing scheduled crew changeovers from taking place. To address these issues, the UN Global Compact Action Platform...

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Climate knowledge for everyone
MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel has made it a personal mission to speak publicly about climate change. He felt a new and surprising duty to speak up after the scientific issue became politicized in the United States. In fact, political identity is the number one indicator of whether or not an American agrees with the irrefutable science of climate change. “The only remedy I can see is for scientists to make more effort to inform the public with hard evidence,...

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Elon Musk Defies Lockdown Orders and Reopens...
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has restarted the company’s California assembly plant, in defiance of local government orders, and offered to be arrested as part of an extraordinary showdown. He even told law enforcement where to find him. “Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules,” Musk tweeted Monday afternoon. “I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.” X content This content can also be viewed on...

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In light of the pandemic, a virtual...
Every spring, Campus Preview Weekend (CPW) provides a living snapshot of undergraduate life at MIT — even, it turns out, during a pandemic. The traditional campus event follows a tried-and-true formula: academic departments, student services offices, residences, student groups, and many other teams offer hundreds of events — some serious (Academic Expo) and some not (liquid nitrogen ice cream making) — to showcase the magic of MIT to admitted students and their families. This year’s program was no different...

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Yukio Okamoto, Japanese diplomat and MIT research...
Yukio Okamoto, a Japanese diplomat and fellow at MIT, died from Covid-19 on April 24 at the age of 74. The former special advisor to two prime ministers of Japan joined the Center for International Studies (CIS) in 2012 as a Robert E. Wilhelm fellow and served as a distinguished research fellow at CIS until his death.   “Yukio brought to MIT an unparalleled set of experiences on the world stage. A great loss of a great man — and friend...

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HIV genome bends over backwards to help...
The virus HIV-1 has a tiny genome. All of its nine genes fit on one single RNA molecule, and the organism’s entire library of genetic material consists of only 10 kilobases (for context, the human genome is around 3 million kilobases). But despite the virus’ small pool of genes, it is able to use a method called alternative splicing to produce many various proteins with different purposes. The RNA transcripts for these proteins are like individual words hidden in...

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Exploring new paths to future quantum electronics
When ultrathin layered materials are coupled with other quantum materials having different properties, the resulting interface could produce a new quantum phenomenon — and new properties of the hybrid system could be unprecedented. This rich interface phenomenon is the topic of new investigation by Jagadeesh Moodera and his group at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “Surface and interface play pivotal roles in many of the recently discovered quantum phenomena in condensed matter physics,” Moodera points out. “Investigating the complex interface...

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