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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.

 
Infusing ethics into experiential learning
“Learning about ethics isn’t like a vaccine — where you take one or two philosophy classes and you’re set for life — but more like eating your vegetables every day to stay healthy,” says Kate Trimble, senior associate dean and director of the Office of Experiential Learning. “It’s a muscle that you develop over time, with repeated exposure, in different contexts, and by talking to people who have different perspectives and experiences than you do.” Now, MIT undergraduates have...

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When baby planets melt
Let’s start at the beginning. Before humans, before Earth, before any of the planets existed, there were baby planets — planetesimals. Coalesced from dust exploded outward by the solar nebula, these blobs of material were just a few kilometers in diameter. Soon, they too aggregated due to gravity to form the rocky planets in the innermost part of the solar system, leaving the early details about these planetesimals to the imagination. Their mysterious identity is complicated by the fact...

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In a suddenly remote spring, library support...
While the MIT Libraries’ physical spaces and tangible collections are currently inaccessible, its network of people, services, and resources has mobilized behind the scenes to ensure that Institute learning and research continue despite the disruptions of Covid-19.  Since mid-March, the MIT Libraries have provided only services and resources that can be accessed remotely. Library staff — like many across MIT — had to quickly pivot to a new reality, finding creative solutions to providing the expertise and resources the...

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Optogenetics with SOUL
Optogenetics has revolutionized neurobiology, allowing researchers to use light to activate or deactivate neurons that are genetically modified to express a light-sensitive channel. This ability to manipulate neuron activity has allowed causal testing of the function of specific neurons, and also has therapeutic potential to reduce symptoms in brain disorders. However, activating neurons deep within a given brain, especially a large primate brain but even a small mouse brain, is challenging, and currently requires implanting fibers that could cause...

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Rockin’ the Zoom room
Matt Fulton is not used to “rocking out” alone on his sunporch. The MIT facilities and operations administrator usually sings and plays guitar before a full room at Boston’s Green Dragon on Thursday nights. At least, he did until bars closed and physical distancing increased in response to Covid-19. Recently he found himself playing for a new audience, his Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) colleagues, welcoming them to an end-of-the-week Zoom concert of “pub tunes” with Elton John’s...

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MIT’s second virtual town hall addresses the...
Although many are eager to find out what MIT’s plans will be for reopening the campus, President L. Rafael Reif said Tuesday that those decisions should wait until more information is available about the Covid-19 virus and the effectiveness of various countermeasures or treatments. Speaking at the Institute’s second online “town hall,” he noted that those decisions will likely be announced by late June or early July. Whenever people do return to campus, it will almost certainly be a...

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Design that makes a difference
Her first year on campus, Jierui Fang received an intriguing message from a junior living on her dorm floor who was looking for help on a project to paint augmented reality murals in the tunnels below MIT. “I wavered on applying for about a month, not wanting to overload my already frazzled first-year self,” Fang recalls. “While riding the bus the day of the deadline, however, I decided I had nothing to lose and hurriedly sketched out my thoughts...

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To catch an interstellar visitor, use a...
In 2017, a telescope in Hawaii detected our first celestial visitor from another solar system — a big deal, since we haven’t quite figured out how to visit them ourselves yet. ‘Oumuamua, the cigar-shaped interstellar object (ISO) whose name roughly translates to “first distant messenger” in Hawaiian, will certainly not be the last visitor to pass through. If the story of our universe is written in the stars, even a tiny fragment traveling a long way for a short...

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Kerry Emanuel elected a Royal Society foreign...
Kerry Emanuel, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Atmospheric Science in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), is among 62 exceptional scientists elected as fellows, foreign members, and honorary fellows of the Royal Society this year. The independent academy of learned individuals, located in the United Kingdom, identifies and supports excellence in science, as well as encourages the development and use of research for the betterment of society. This cohort of UK and international members...

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Visualizing the world beyond the frame
Most firetrucks come in red, but it’s not hard to picture one in blue. Computers aren’t nearly as creative. Their understanding of the world is colored, often literally, by the data they’ve trained on. If all they’ve ever seen are pictures of red fire trucks, they have trouble drawing anything else.  To give computer vision models a fuller, more imaginative view of the world, researchers have tried feeding them more varied images. Some have tried shooting objects from odd angles, and...

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3 Questions: Anne McCants on climate change...
MIT faculty, students, and alumni in the humanistic fields have research-informed perspectives that can help the world address the myriad social and ecological impacts of climate change. The following Q&A is the first in a new series of publications that highlight these insights. Anne McCants, an MIT professor of history, is a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, director of the MIT Concourse Program, and president of the International Economic History Association. Her research interests lie in the economic and social...

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Study finds stronger links between automation and...
This is part 3 of a three-part series examining the effects of robots and automation on employment, based on new research from economist and Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu.  Modern technology affects different workers in different ways. In some white-collar jobs — designer, engineer — people become more productive with sophisticated software at their side. In other cases, forms of automation, from robots to phone-answering systems, have simply replaced factory workers, receptionists, and many other kinds of employees. Now a...

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“If we cannot go out, we can...
Speaking at a virtual meeting on April 23, Venerable Miao Guang began her remarks by expressing her regret that she had been unable to travel from Taiwan to join the MIT community in person, but shared her joy that technology enabled us to “meet in heart and mind at such a special time.” She emphasized that this moment in history is not “just a difficult time, but it’s a rather special time for us to start thinking differently and...

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3 Questions: Kyle Filipe on moving MIT...
With the onset of Covid-19 pandemic, MIT Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) rapidly launched new services and enhanced others to meet the expanding needs of a community moving fully into online teaching, learning, and working. Three months ago, Zoom was known in some parts of the Institute as a helpful video conferencing tool, but was completely unknown in others. Since remote classes started on March 30, Zoom usage is up nearly 10,000 percent across the Institute, with an average...

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Siranush Babakhanova and Michal Gala named 2020...
Two MIT seniors, Siranush Babakhanova and Michal Gala, have been awarded Knight-Hennessy Scholarships. The prestigious fellowship attracts thousands of applicants from around the world and provides full funding for graduate studies in any field at Stanford University. Knight-Hennessy scholars also receive leadership development training, mentorship, and experiential learning opportunities. The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program aims to address the world’s challenges through innovation and collaboration by developing a community of emerging leaders equipped to work across disciplines and cultures. Up to...

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