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.

 
Field campaign assesses vulnerabilities of 5G networks
Fifth-generation, or 5G, mobile network technology is all the hype these days. Compared to 4G, this newest way of connecting wireless devices to cellular networks is designed to provide higher data rates, ultralow latency, improved reliability, expanded configurability, increased network capacity and availability, and connectivity among a larger number of users. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) would like to leverage these commercial advances in their communications systems, but 5G, like its predecessors, lacks sufficiently robust security features. For...

Read More

Wolfgang Ketterle receives Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship
MIT professor of physics Wolfgang Ketterle was named one of 10 recipients of the 2023 Class of Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowships by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Ketterle will use his award of up to $3 million over five years for his research into quantum science with ultracold atoms on a 50-nanometer scale. “With the Vannevar Bush faculty fellowship’s generous and flexible funding, I can explore a new direction of research,” says Ketterle, the John D. MacArthur Professor...

Read More

Using social media to raise awareness of...
The Covid-19 pandemic created a global increase in domestic violence against women. Now, an MIT-led experiment designed with that fact in mind shows that some forms of social media can increase awareness among women about where to find resources and support for addressing domestic violence. In the randomized experiment, set in Egypt, women recruited via Facebook were sent videos via social media as well as reminders to watch television programming from a well-known Egyptian human rights lawyer focused on...

Read More

 
Q&A: Alexey Makarin on why social media...
It’s the height of summer break, and as students decompress from the school year, they also have more time for scrolling social media. What effect do these platforms have on the young people’s mental health? In late May, the U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy published an advisory report on the subject, noting the “unprecedented” challenges faced by today’s youth in navigating social media, and emphasizing the “alarming” effects social media can have on many people. The...

Read More

A cool path to disease deceleration
In 2020, Kathrin “Kat” Kajderowicz’s father passed away from lung cancer. Kajderowicz was in charge of her father’s health care for as long as she can remember. While he suffered from various cardiovascular issues for several years, it wasn’t until the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic that he was diagnosed with late-stage metastatic small-cell lung cancer. Jumping into a primary caregiver position, she closely monitored the treatments he received from doctors to no avail. “I was frustrated with the...

Read More

Study finds a surprising new role for...
A signaling protein known as STING is a critical player in the human immune system, detecting signs of danger within cells and then activating a variety of defense mechanisms. STING is primarily on the lookout for DNA, which can indicate either a foreign invader such as a virus or damage to the host tissue or cell. When STING detects that danger signal, it can turn on at least three different pathways — one leading to interferon production, one to...

Read More

 
Newly discovered bacterial communication system aids antimicrobial...
Researchers have discovered a new stress signaling system that enables bacteria cells to adapt and protect themselves against the immune system and certain antibiotics. An enzyme, RlmN, was observed to directly sense chemical and environmental stresses, and rapidly signal for the production of other proteins that allow the bacteria cell to adapt and survive. This breakthrough discovery of RlmN as a stress sensor has revealed a new mechanism of antimicrobial resistance that can be targeted for drug development. The...

Read More

Sensing and controlling microscopic spin density in...
Electronic devices typically use the charge of electrons, but spin — their other degree of freedom — is starting to be exploited. Spin defects make crystalline materials highly useful for quantum-based devices such as ultrasensitive quantum sensors, quantum memory devices, or systems for simulating the physics of quantum effects. Varying the spin density in semiconductors can lead to new properties in a material — something researchers have long wanted to explore — but this density is usually fleeting and...

Read More

New method simplifies the construction process for...
Engineers are constantly searching for materials with novel, desirable property combinations. For example, an ultra-strong, lightweight material could be used to make airplanes and cars more fuel-efficient, or a material that is porous and biomechanically friendly could be useful for bone implants. Cellular metamaterials — artificial structures composed of units, or cells, that repeat in various patterns — can help achieve these goals. But it is difficult to know which cellular structure will lead to the desired properties. Even...

Read More

 
MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from...
Two of humanity’s most ubiquitous historical materials, cement and carbon black (which resembles very fine charcoal), may form the basis for a novel, low-cost energy storage system, according to a new study. The technology could facilitate the use of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and tidal power by allowing energy networks to remain stable despite fluctuations in renewable energy supply. The two materials, the researchers found, can be combined with water to make a supercapacitor — an...

Read More

Using AI to protect against AI image...
As we enter a new era where technologies powered by artificial intelligence can craft and manipulate images with a precision that blurs the line between reality and fabrication, the specter of misuse looms large. Recently, advanced generative models such as DALL-E and Midjourney, celebrated for their impressive precision and user-friendly interfaces, have made the production of hyper-realistic images relatively effortless. With the barriers of entry lowered, even inexperienced users can generate and manipulate high-quality images from simple text descriptions —...

Read More

A wearable ultrasound scanner could detect breast...
When breast cancer is diagnosed in the earliest stages, the survival rate is nearly 100 percent. However, for tumors detected in later stages, that rate drops to around 25 percent. In hopes of improving the overall survival rate for breast cancer patients, MIT researchers have designed a wearable ultrasound device that could allow people to detect tumors when they are still in early stages. In particular, it could be valuable for patients at high risk of developing breast cancer...

Read More

 
The philosophical side of cinema
What makes a movie sad? Is there even such a thing as a sad movie?  Those are the questions students explored during a meeting of class 24.213 (Philosophy of Film), an MIT course offered this spring by associate professor of philosophy Justin Khoo. On this particular afternoon, the case study was “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” a 2003 film starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in which the characters are able to erase the painful memories of their...

Read More

Making sense of cell fate
Despite the proliferation of novel therapies such as immunotherapy or targeted therapies, radiation and chemotherapy remain the frontline treatment for cancer patients. About half of all patients still receive radiation and 60-80 percent receive chemotherapy. Both radiation and chemotherapy work by damaging DNA, taking advantage of a vulnerability specific to cancer cells. Healthy cells are more likely to survive radiation and chemotherapy since their mechanisms for identifying and repairing DNA damage are intact. In cancer cells, these repair mechanisms...

Read More

How forests can cut carbon, restore ecosystems,...
To limit the frequency and severity of droughts, wildfires, flooding, and other adverse consequences of climate change, nearly 200 countries committed to the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. According to the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, achieving that goal will require both large-scale greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and removal of GHGs from the atmosphere. At present, the most efficient and scalable GHG-removal strategy is the...

Read More