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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.

 
MIT Solve announces 2024 Global Challenges and...
The driving mission of MIT Solve is inviting new voices and proposed solutions to world problems as a way to achieve a more sustainable and equitable future for all. To that end, Solve recently announced the 2024 Global Challenges and the Indigenous Communities Fellowship to help find and scale the best.  Solve invites anyone from anywhere in the world to submit a solution to this year’s Global Challenges by April 18. Solve is seeking solutions that use technology in...

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Smart glove teaches new physical skills
You’ve likely met someone who identifies as a visual or auditory learner, but others absorb knowledge through a different modality: touch. Being able to understand tactile interactions is especially important for tasks such as learning delicate surgeries and playing musical instruments, but unlike video and audio, touch is difficult to record and transfer. To tap into this challenge, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and elsewhere developed an embroidered smart glove that can capture, reproduce,...

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New model identifies drugs that shouldn’t be...
Any drug that is taken orally must pass through the lining of the digestive tract. Transporter proteins found on cells that line the GI tract help with this process, but for many drugs, it’s unknown which of those transporters they use to exit the digestive tract. Identifying the transporters used by specific drugs could help to improve patient treatment because if two drugs rely on the same transporter, they can interfere with each other and should not be prescribed...

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This tiny, tamper-proof ID tag can authenticate...
A few years ago, MIT researchers invented a cryptographic ID tag that is several times smaller and significantly cheaper than the traditional radio frequency tags (RFIDs) that are often affixed to products to verify their authenticity. This tiny tag, which offers improved security over RFIDs, utilizes terahertz waves, which are smaller and travel much faster than radio waves. But this terahertz tag shared a major security vulnerability with traditional RFIDs: A counterfeiter could peel the tag off a genuine...

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Stitch3D is powering a new wave of...
Workers are increasingly using 3D files to do things like assess construction projects, understand damage from natural disasters, map out crime scenes, and more. But as the importance of 3D files has grown, the problems associated with sharing, analyzing, and even viewing them have become more apparent. The issue is that many popular cloud service providers aren’t compatible with 3D files. That means in order to preview a 3D scan, users need to download the files onto a desktop...

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A passion for innovation and education
Imagine you were planning a trek across Death Valley. Would you be better off setting out on foot with just a bottle of water in your hand, or in a vehicle loaded with supplies and a full tank of gas? That’s one of the metaphors Leon Sandler uses to describe the work of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation — giving MIT researchers and aspiring entrepreneurs the tools they need to successfully spin out their technologies and have an impact...

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MIT researchers remotely map crops, field by...
Crop maps help scientists and policymakers track global food supplies and estimate how they might shift with climate change and growing populations. But getting accurate maps of the types of crops that are grown from farm to farm often requires on-the-ground surveys that only a handful of countries have the resources to maintain. Now, MIT engineers have developed a method to quickly and accurately label and map crop types without requiring in-person assessments of every single farm. The team’s...

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3 Questions: Why study theater in a...
Emily Goodling is a lecturer in German in Global Languages at MIT. She teaches class 21G.411 (Conflict, Contest, Controversy: A Literary Investigation of German Politics), a course that she developed with the help of an MIT Global Languages Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (CLTL) Innovation in Language Pedagogy grant in summer 2023. With the support of an Artists in the Classroom grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT, she hosted virtual presentations to her class by...

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Using AI to discover stiff and tough...
Every time you smoothly drive from point A to point B, you’re not just enjoying the convenience of your car, but also the sophisticated engineering that makes it safe and reliable. Beyond its comfort and protective features lies a lesser-known yet crucial aspect: the expertly optimized mechanical performance of microstructured materials. These materials, integral yet often unacknowledged, are what fortify your vehicle, ensuring durability and strength on every journey.  Luckily, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) scientists...

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3 Questions: Paloma Duong on the complexities...
As a state run by a Communist Party, Cuba appears set apart from many of its neighbors in the Americas. One thing lost as a result, to a large extent, is a nuanced understanding of the perspectives of Cuban citizens. MIT’s Paloma Duong, an associate professor in the program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing, has helped fill this void with a new book that closely examines contemporary media — especially online communities and music — to look at what Cubans...

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Robert Langer receives Dr. Paul Janssen Award
MIT Institute Professor Robert S. Langer was recently honored with the 2023 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for his groundbreaking work in designing novel drug delivery systems that can deliver medications continuously, precisely, and at controlled rates over extended periods. Langer’s pioneering research into biomedical compounds for drug delivery and tissue engineering has impacted a wide range of medical technologies, including anticancer therapy, vaccine development (including the Covid-19 vaccine), gene therapy, and more. Given annually by Johnson & Johnson, the...

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For all humankind
Can a government promote morality? How much trust should people place in their government? Such fundamental questions of political philosophy and ethics intrigue Leela Fredlund, a senior majoring in political science and physics. She has parsed these topics in ancient Greek texts, interrogated them in formal classroom recitations, and debated them informally with student friends. But for Fredlund, there is perhaps no better venue for exploring these classic problems than space. “I realized that I could raise very interesting...

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Local journalism is a critical “gate” to...
Last year, Pew Research Center data revealed that only 37 percent of Americans said addressing climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Furthermore, climate change was ranked 17th out of 21 national issues included in a Pew survey.  But in reality, it’s not that Americans don’t care about climate change, says celebrated climate scientist and communicator MIT Professor Katharine Hayhoe. It’s that they don’t know that they already do.  To get Americans to care about...

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Study measures the psychological toll of wildfires
Wildfires in Southeast Asia significantly affect peoples’ moods, especially if the fires originate outside a person’s own country, according to a new study. The study, which measures sentiment by analyzing large amounts of social media data, helps show the psychological toll of wildfires that result in substantial air pollution, at a time when such fires are becoming a high-profile marker of climate change.   “It has a substantial negative impact on people’s subjective well-being,” says Siqi Zheng, an MIT...

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MIT community members elected to the National...
Two MIT faculty, a principal staff member of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and 13 additional alumni are among the 114 new members and 21 international members elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) on Feb. 6. One of the highest professional distinctions for engineers, membership to the NAE is given to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and...

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