Say WOW

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.

 
Boosting faith in the authenticity of open...
Open source software — software that is freely distributed, along with its source code, so that copies, additions, or modifications can be readily made — is “everywhere,” to quote the 2023 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis Report. Ninety-six percent of the computer programs used by major industries include open source software, and 76 percent of those programs consist of open source software. But the percentage of software packages “containing security vulnerabilities remains troublingly high,” the report warned. One...

Read More

MIT Generative AI Week fosters dialogue across...
In late November, faculty, staff, and students from across MIT participated in MIT Generative AI Week. The programming included a flagship full-day symposium as well as four subject-specific symposia, all aimed at fostering a dialogue about the opportunities and potential applications of generative artificial intelligence technologies across a diverse range of disciplines. “These events are one expression of our conviction that MIT has a special responsibility to help society come to grips with the tectonic forces of generative AI —...

Read More

Moungi Bawendi honored during Nobel Week in...
The 2023 Nobel Prize winners received their awards in a grand ceremony yesterday in Stockholm, Sweden. Among those honored was MIT Professor Moungi Bawendi, who shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Louis Brus and Aleksey Yekimov for their work on quantum dots. As part of the annual Nobel Week festivities, Bawendi gave a lecture about his research, participated in a Nobel Banquet, and took part in a conversation with Danish European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, a...

Read More

 
Two from MIT named 2024 Marshall Scholars
Anushree Chaudhuri and Rupert Li have won Marshall Scholarships, a prestigious British government-funded fellowship that offers exceptional American students the opportunity to pursue several years of graduate study in any field at any university in the United Kingdom. Up to 50 scholarships are awarded each year by the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. The students were advised and supported by the distinguished fellowships team, led by Associate Dean Kim Benard in Career Advising and Professional Development. They also received mentorship...

Read More

Scientists 3D print self-heating microfluidic devices
MIT researchers have used 3D printing to produce self-heating microfluidic devices, demonstrating a technique which could someday be used to rapidly create cheap, yet accurate, tools to detect a host of diseases. Microfluidics, miniaturized machines that manipulate fluids and facilitate chemical reactions, can be used to detect disease in tiny samples of blood or fluids. At-home test kits for Covid-19, for example, incorporate a simple type of microfluidic. But many microfluidic applications require chemical reactions that must be performed...

Read More

MIT group releases white papers on governance...
Providing a resource for U.S. policymakers, a committee of MIT leaders and scholars has released a set of policy briefs that outlines a framework for the governance of artificial intelligence. The approach includes extending current regulatory and liability approaches in pursuit of a practical way to oversee AI. The aim of the papers is to help enhance U.S. leadership in the area of artificial intelligence broadly, while limiting harm that could result from the new technologies and encouraging exploration...

Read More

 
Breakerspace illuminates the mysteries of materials
Days before the opening of the Breakerspace, a new laboratory and lounge at MIT, actor and rapper Jaden Smith tried out the facility’s capabilities, putting his bracelet under a digital optical microscope. On the screen in front of him was a 3D rendering of woven threads, each strand made up of smaller strands, with specks of matter dotting the surface. “His eyes just lit up,” says Professor Jeffrey Grossman, the Morton and Claire Goulder and Family Professor in Environmental...

Read More

Miranda McClellan ’18, MEng ’19 awarded 2025...
MIT alumna Miranda McClellan ’18, MEng ’19 has been named a 2025 Schwarzman Scholar. In August 2024, she will join the program’s 150 scholars arriving from 43 countries and 114 universities from around the world. The Class of 2025 Scholars were selected from a pool of over 4,000 applicants. They will attend a one-year fully funded master’s degree program in global affairs at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. McClellan and her fellow Schwarzman Scholars will engage in...

Read More

MIT engineers design a robotic replica of...
MIT engineers have developed a robotic replica of the heart’s right ventricle, which mimics the beating and blood-pumping action of live hearts. The robo-ventricle combines real heart tissue with synthetic, balloon-like artificial muscles that enable scientists to control the ventricle’s contractions while observing how its natural valves and other intricate structures function. The artificial ventricle can be tuned to mimic healthy and diseased states. The team manipulated the model to simulate conditions of right ventricular dysfunction, including pulmonary hypertension...

Read More

 
From MIT to Singapore and back: Delivering...
Both sections of MIT class 15.433 (Financial Markets), taught this fall by visiting associate professor of finance Hong Ru MFin ’10, PhD ’15 at the MIT Sloan School of Management, include over 100 students from the master of finance program. However, when he joined the program’s inaugural class just over a decade ago, this number was much smaller. “I started in the program in 2009 and graduated in 2010, and there were only 26 students then. Not like today,”...

Read More

MIT students win Beth Israel Deaconess Medical...
MIT senior Anna Kwon and sophomore Nicole Doering have been recognized by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) for their work as interns last summer. Both students received Jane Matlaw Environmental Champion Awards, which honor leaders and innovators who have catalyzed changes that align with BIDMC’s sustainability goals and foster a healthier future for staff and patients. The awards, which were established 25 years ago, had previously only been given to individuals and teams within BIDMC. “This year, given...

Read More

Remembering Professor Judy Hoyt, a pioneer in...
Judy Hoyt, a pioneer in semiconductor research and retired MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science, passed away on Aug. 6. She was 65. Hoyt is known well for her groundbreaking research on strained silicon semiconductor materials, work which helped greatly decrease the size of integrated circuits. Her most recognized contribution was the first demonstration of the incorporation of lattice strain as a means to enhance performance in scaled silicon devices, a key concept behind the continuation of...

Read More

 
Accelerated climate action needed to sharply reduce...
Hottest day on record. Hottest month on record. Extreme marine heatwaves. Record-low Antarctic sea-ice. While El Niño is a short-term factor in this year’s record-breaking heat, human-caused climate change is the long-term driver. And as global warming edges closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius — the aspirational upper limit set in the Paris Agreement in 2015 — ushering in more intense and frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and other climate extremes much sooner than many expected, current greenhouse gas emissions-reduction policies...

Read More

President Kornbluth's opening statement for the US...
The following is the opening statement President Sally Kornbluth delivered yesterday before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Scott and Members of the Committee, Thank you for this opportunity to describe how MIT is fighting the scourge of antisemitism. My name is Sally Kornbluth. I have been president of MIT since January of this year. As an American, as a Jew, and as a human being, I abhor antisemitism, and my administration...

Read More

AI accelerates problem-solving in complex scenarios
While Santa Claus may have a magical sleigh and nine plucky reindeer to help him deliver presents, for companies like FedEx, the optimization problem of efficiently routing holiday packages is so complicated that they often employ specialized software to find a solution. This software, called a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) solver, splits a massive optimization problem into smaller pieces and uses generic algorithms to try and find the best solution. However, the solver could take hours — or even...

Read More