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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.

 
A better way to match 3D volumes
In computer graphics and computer-aided design (CAD), 3D objects are often represented by the contours of their outer surfaces. Computers store these shapes as “thin shells,” which model the contours of the skin of an animated character but not the flesh underneath. This modeling decision makes it efficient to store and manipulate 3D shapes, but it can lead to unexpected artifacts. An animated character’s hand, for example, might crumple when bending its fingers — a motion that resembles how...

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A better way to match 3D volumes
In computer graphics and computer-aided design (CAD), 3D objects are often represented by the contours of their outer surfaces. Computers store these shapes as “thin shells,” which model the contours of the skin of an animated character but not the flesh underneath. This modeling decision makes it efficient to store and manipulate 3D shapes, but it can lead to unexpected artifacts. An animated character’s hand, for example, might crumple when bending its fingers — a motion that resembles how...

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Tiny diamond rotor could improve protein studies
Many of the biological materials that researchers are most interested in studying, including those associated with major diseases, don’t lend themselves to the conventional methods that researchers typically use to probe a material’s structure and chemistry. One technique, called magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, or MAS-NMR, has proven highly successful as a way of determining the properties of complex molecules such as some proteins. But the resolution achievable with such systems depends on the spinning frequency of tiny rotors,...

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Tiny diamond rotor could improve protein studies
Many of the biological materials that researchers are most interested in studying, including those associated with major diseases, don’t lend themselves to the conventional methods that researchers typically use to probe a material’s structure and chemistry. One technique, called magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, or MAS-NMR, has proven highly successful as a way of determining the properties of complex molecules such as some proteins. But the resolution achievable with such systems depends on the spinning frequency of tiny rotors,...

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Q&A: How studying Portuguese helps to look...
Theo St. Francis is an MIT senior majoring in aeronautics and astronautics. He is graduating this month with a concentration in Portuguese, and has visited Brazil with the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives’ Global Teaching Labs. This year, St. Francis was the recipient of the Global Languages Margarita Ribas Groeger Distinguished Scholar award. In this Q&A, he describes how studying Portuguese fit into his undergraduate experience, and how it has broadened his world view. Q: What attracted you...

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Q&A: How studying Portuguese helps to look...
Theo St. Francis is an MIT senior majoring in aeronautics and astronautics. He is graduating this month with a concentration in Portuguese, and has visited Brazil with the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives’ Global Teaching Labs. This year, St. Francis was the recipient of the Global Languages Margarita Ribas Groeger Distinguished Scholar award. In this Q&A, he describes how studying Portuguese fit into his undergraduate experience, and how it has broadened his world view. Q: What attracted you...

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Exploring new methods for increasing safety and...
When we think of getting on the road in our cars, our first thoughts may not be that fellow drivers are particularly safe or careful — but human drivers are more reliable than one may expect. For each fatal car crash in the United States, motor vehicles log a whopping hundred million miles on the road. Human reliability also plays a role in how autonomous vehicles are integrated in the traffic system, especially around safety considerations. Human drivers continue...

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Exploring new methods for increasing safety and...
When we think of getting on the road in our cars, our first thoughts may not be that fellow drivers are particularly safe or careful — but human drivers are more reliable than one may expect. For each fatal car crash in the United States, motor vehicles log a whopping hundred million miles on the road. Human reliability also plays a role in how autonomous vehicles are integrated in the traffic system, especially around safety considerations. Human drivers continue...

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Researchers use AI to identify similar materials...
A robot manipulating objects while, say, working in a kitchen, will benefit from understanding which items are composed of the same materials. With this knowledge, the robot would know to exert a similar amount of force whether it picks up a small pat of butter from a shadowy corner of the counter or an entire stick from inside the brightly lit fridge. Identifying objects in a scene that are composed of the same material, known as material selection, is...

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MIT junior Anushree Chaudhuri named 2023 Udall...
MIT junior Anushree Chaudhuri has been selected as a 2023 Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation Scholar. She is only the second MIT student to win this award and the first winner since 2008. The Udall Scholarship honors students who have demonstrated a commitment to the environment, Native American health care, or tribal public policy. Chaudhuri is one of 55 Udall Scholars selected nationally out of 384 nominated applicants. Chaudhuri, who hails from San Diego, studies urban...

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Daniel Anderson receives 2023 Wilhelm Exner Medal
Professor Daniel Anderson has won the 2023 Wilhelm Exner Medal, awarded by the Austrian Industry Association, for excellence in research and science since 1921. Anderson will receive the award during the Wilhelm Exner Medal Foundation’s Exner Lectures, May 22-23 in Vienna, Austria. “Professor Anderson has changed our world,” says Elazer R. Edelman, Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science, and the director of the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). “The devices, and indeed concepts,...

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From molecular to whole-brain scale in a...
Because serotonin is one of the primary chemicals the brain uses to influence mood and behavior, it is also the most common target of psychiatric drugs. To improve those drugs and to invent better ones, scientists need to know much more about how the molecule affects brain cells and circuits both in health and amid disease. In a new study, researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT working in a simple animal model present a...

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Six ways MIT is taking action on...
From reuse and recycling to new carbon markets, events during Earth Month at MIT spanned an astonishing range of ideas and approaches to tackling the climate crisis. The MIT Climate Nucleus offered funding to departments and student organizations to develop programming that would showcase the countless initiatives underway to make a better world. Here are six — just six of many — ways the MIT community is making a difference on climate right now. 1. Exchanging knowledge with policymakers to meet...

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Will the charging networks arrive in time?
For many owners of electric vehicles (EVs), or for prospective EV owners, a thorny problem is where to charge them. Even as legacy automakers increasingly invest in manufacturing more all-electric cars and trucks, there is not a dense network of charging stations serving many types of vehicles, which would make EVs more convenient to use. “We’re going to have the ability to produce and deliver millions of EVs,” said MIT Professor Charles Fine at the final session this semester...

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Bringing safe surgery to patients everywhere
In March, two vans filled with doctors and medical supplies crossed the Polish border into Ukraine and made their way to Kyiv as part of a humanitarian mission. Both vans were packed with traditional medical supplies the country is in desperate need of, such as tourniquets, bandages, and suture kits. But one van also carried about 50 units of an entirely new system that makes it possible to perform surgery safely in places without sterile operating rooms. The systems...

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