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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.

 
Performance art and science collide as students...
On a blustery December afternoon, with final exams and winter break on the horizon, the 500 undergraduate students enrolled in Professor Bradley Pentelute’s Course 5.111 (Principles of Chemical Science) class were treated to an afternoon at the theater — a performance of “Blue Man Group” at Boston’s Charles Playhouse — courtesy of Pentelute and the MIT Office of the First Year. Theatrical thrills aside, it was Blue Man Group’s practical application of chemical principles that inspired Pentelute to initiate...

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Researchers demonstrate rapid 3D printing with liquid...
MIT researchers have developed an additive manufacturing technique that can print rapidly with liquid metal, producing large-scale parts like table legs and chair frames in a matter of minutes. Their technique, called liquid metal printing (LMP), involves depositing molten aluminum along a predefined path into a bed of tiny glass beads. The aluminum quickly hardens into a 3D structure. Play video The researchers say LMP is at least 10 times faster than a comparable metal additive manufacturing process, and...

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MIT Faculty Founder Initiative announces finalists for...
The MIT Faculty Founder Initiative has announced 12 finalists for the 2023-24 MIT-Royalty Pharma Prize Competition. The competition, which is supported by Royalty Pharma, aims to support female faculty entrepreneurs in biotechnology and provide them with resources to help take their ideas to commercialization.  “We are building a playbook to get inventions out of the lab towards impacting patients by connecting female faculty to the innovation ecosystem and creating a community of peers,” says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John J....

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Q&A: What sets the recent Japan earthquake...
On Jan. 1, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the western side of Japan on the Noto Peninsula, killing over 200 people. Japan is prone to earthquakes, including a magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2011 that triggered a tsunami and killed almost 20,000 people. William Frank, the Victor P. Starr Career Development Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, has been studying an earthquake swarm in the region where the most recent earthquake occurred. He explains...

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Generating the policy of tomorrow
As first-year students in the Social and Engineering Systems (SES) doctoral program within the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), Eric Liu and Ashely Peake share an interest in investigating housing inequality issues. They also share a desire to dive head-first into their research. “In the first year of your PhD, you’re taking classes and still getting adjusted, but we came in very eager to start doing research,” Liu says. Liu, Peake, and many others found an...

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Faculty, staff, students to evaluate ways to...
With a goal to decarbonize the MIT campus by 2050, the Institute must look at “new ideas, transformed into practical solutions, in record time,” as stated in “Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade.” This charge calls on the MIT community to explore game-changing and evolving technologies with the potential to move campuses like MIT away from carbon emissions-based energy systems. To help meet this tremendous challenge, the Decarbonization Working Group — a new subset of the...

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Q&A: A blueprint for sustainable innovation
Atacama Biomaterials is a startup combining architecture, machine learning, and chemical engineering to create eco-friendly materials with multiple applications. Passionate about sustainable innovation, its co-founder Paloma Gonzalez-Rojas SM ’15, PhD ’21 highlights here how MIT has supported the project through several of its entrepreneurship initiatives, and reflects on the role of design in building a holistic vision for an expanding business. Q: What role do you see your startup playing in the sustainable materials space? A: Atacama Biomaterials is a...

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New tool predicts flood risk from hurricanes...
Coastal cities and communities will face more frequent major hurricanes with climate change in the coming years. To help prepare coastal cities against future storms, MIT scientists have developed a method to predict how much flooding a coastal community is likely to experience as hurricanes evolve over the next decades. When hurricanes make landfall, strong winds whip up salty ocean waters that generate storm surge in coastal regions. As the storms move over land, torrential rainfall can induce further...

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What to do about AI in health?
Before a drug is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it must demonstrate both safety and efficacy. However, the FDA does not require an understanding a drug’s mechanism of action for approval. This acceptance of results without explanation raises the question of whether the “black box” decision-making process of a safe and effective artificial intelligence model must be fully explained in order to secure FDA approval.   This topic was one of many discussion points addressed...

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Rowing in the right direction
For a college student, senior Tatum Wilhelm wakes up painfully early — at 5:15 a.m., to be exact. Five days per week, by 6:20 a.m. sharp, she is already rowing on the Charles River, bursting through the early morning fog.  Between majoring in chemical engineering, minoring in anthropology, and working as an undergraduate student researcher at the Furst Lab, Wilhelm’s days are packed. But she says it’s her role on MIT Crew that gives her perspective on her goals...

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Professor Emeritus Peter Schiller, a pioneer researcher...
Peter Schiller, professor emeritus in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a member of the MIT faculty since 1964, died on Dec. 23, 2023. He was 92. Born in Berlin to Hungarian parents in 1931, Schiller and his family returned to Budapest in 1934, where they endured World War II; in 1947 he moved to the United States with his father and stepmother. Schiller attended college at Duke University, where he was on the soccer and tennis...

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Award shines a spotlight on local science...
Local reporting is a critical tool in the battle against disinformation and misinformation. It can also provide valuable data about everything from environmental damage derived from questionable agribusiness practices to the long-term effects of logging on communities.  Reporting like this requires more than just journalistic chops. It needs a network that can share these important stories, access to readers, and financial support. That’s why organizations like the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT and its Victor K. McElheny Award...

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Remembering Elise O’Hara, Media Lab staff member
Elise O’Hara, a cherished member of the Media Lab community, died on Dec. 12, 2023, as a result of complications following the birth of a healthy child. As an administrative assistant for multiple research groups and initiatives — most recently, the Space Exploration Initiative and Tangible Media Group — O’Hara managed a variety of complex, high-priority projects with skill, patience, and good humor. In her time at the Media Lab, O’Hara was perhaps best known for her warmth and...

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Solving complex problems with technology and varied...
Something new, large, and round has dominated the Las Vegas skyline since July: Sphere. After debuting this summer, the state-of-the-art entertainment venue became instantly recognizable thanks to pictures and videos on social media and Reddit. Some of the most viral posts depict the 580,000-square-foot, fully programmable LED Exosphere projecting a giant yellow emoji that smiles, sleeps, and follows airplanes flying overhead with a look of wonder. According to Jared Miller ’98, MBA ’03, SM ’03, Sphere’s growing popularity even...

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Getfit, MIT Health’s winter exercise challenge, turns...
“Getfit” isn’t a command, but rather a friendly challenge from MIT Health (formerly MIT Medical) to spend the cold months exercising with a group of people you choose in any way you choose. This year, the popular winter fitness program is celebrating its 20th year. What began as a goal-oriented exercise incentive for MIT Health staff in its pilot year, and expanded in 2005 to the entire MIT community, has now become a cherished tradition for many. Tom Goodwin,...

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