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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.

 
Responding to Ukraine’s “ocean of suffering”
Within 72 hours of the first Russian missiles striking Kyiv, Ukraine, in February 2022, Ian Miller SM ’19 boarded a flight for Poland. Later, he’d say he felt motivated by Kyiv’s “tragic ocean of suffering” and Ukrainian President Zelensky’s pleas for help. But he arrived with little notion of what to do. As he’d anticipated, his hotel in Rzeszów turned out to be a hub for aid workers and journalists. Miller was on his laptop, using the lobby Wi-Fi...

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Funding to Daniel Anderson’s lab will advance...
Sanofi will provide $25 million over five years to the lab of MIT Professor Daniel Anderson, to support the lab’s efforts to develop next-generation delivery technology for messenger RNA. Anderson, who is a professor of chemical engineering and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and others in his lab will use the funding to develop delivery technology for RNA vaccines as well as RNA that can be...

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The buzz on keeping bees
Are you wary of bee stings? Maybe you are one of about 7.5 percent of Americans who, according to BeeAware, are severely allergic to insect venom? Even if you are bee-averse, it is important to remember that bees play a vital role in pollinating approximately one-third of our food supply. This includes more than 130 types of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. MIT’s Beekeepers Club, started in 2015, wants to “keep the buzz going” about the importance of bees while...

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3 Questions: Yossi Sheffi on AI and...
Global supply chains are immense feats of technological and organizational sophistication. They are also, as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic showed, vulnerable to unexpected developments. Will that change as artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of supply chains? And what will happen to workers in the process? MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi explores these topics in a new book, “The Magic Conveyor Belt: AI, Supply Chains, and the Future of Work,” published by MIT’s CTL Media. Sheffi, the Elisha...

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Study: Shutting down nuclear power could increase...
Nearly 20 percent of today’s electricity in the United States comes from nuclear power. The U.S. has the largest nuclear fleet in the world, with 92 reactors scattered around the country. Many of these power plants have run for more than half a century and are approaching the end of their expected lifetimes. Policymakers are debating whether to retire the aging reactors or reinforce their structures to continue producing nuclear energy, which many consider a low-carbon alternative to climate-warming...

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Nelson Yuan-sheng Kiang, influential researcher in human...
Nelson Yuan-sheng Kiang, an internationally recognized scientist known for his influential research into speech and hearing, as well as his dedication to enhancing academic exchange between Chinese and American scientists, died March 19 at his home in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. He was 93. Kiang was a principal research scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at MIT, and was a member of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST), which at MIT is...

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An easier way to get bugs out...
Sometime in 2019, MIT PhD student Ajay Brahmakshatriya formulated a simple, though still quite challenging, goal. He wanted to make it possible for people who had expertise in a particular domain — such as climate modeling, bioinformatics, or architecture — to write their own programming languages, so-called domain-specific languages (or DSLs), even if they had little or no experience in creating programming languages. A member of the research group headed by MIT Professor Saman Amarasinghe in the Institute’s Computer...

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Flow batteries for grid-scale energy storage
In the coming decades, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind will increasingly dominate the conventional power grid. This is because those sources only generate electricity when it’s sunny or windy, ensuring a reliable grid — one that can deliver power 24/7 — requires some means of storing electricity when supplies are abundant and delivering it later when they’re not. And because there can be hours and even days with no wind, for example, some energy storage devices...

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Mel King Community Fellowship Program upholds the...
On April 3, community advocates from around the U.S. who work in long-term care gathered with members of the MIT community to discuss ways to increase equity in the industry for care workers, families, and the elderly. With its impassioned attendees and emphasis on workers’ well-being, the meeting felt more like a grassroots strategizing session than an academic event. Such meetings have been taking place in one form or another for more than 50 years through the Mel King...

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Benjamin Mangrum receives the 2023 Levitan Prize...
Benjamin Mangrum, assistant professor of literature at MIT, has been awarded the 2023 Levitan Prize in the Humanities. This award, presented each year by a faculty committee, empowers a member of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) faculty with funding to enable research in their field. With an award of $30,000, this annual prize continues to power substantial projects among the members of the SHASS community. Mangrum will use the award to support research for...

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Blanche Staton: A transformational leader at MIT
Over 25 years at MIT’s Office of the Dean for Graduate Education (OGE), Blanche Staton has advised graduate students, faculty, and administrators; served on numerous Institute committees; provided support to countless graduate students; and created and sponsored programs designed to enhance graduate student life and prepare future alumni for leadership in their careers. Now, the senior associate dean and director of OGE is planning a new act: retiring at the end of the academic year, rounding out a quarter...

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An interdisciplinary approach to fighting climate change...
In early 2021, the U.S. government set an ambitious goal: to decarbonize its power grid, the system that generates and transmits electricity throughout the country, by 2035. It’s an important goal in the fight against climate change, and will require a switch from current, greenhouse-gas producing energy sources (such as coal and natural gas), to predominantly renewable ones (such as wind and solar). Getting the power grid to zero carbon will be a challenging undertaking, as Audun Botterud, a...

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José Maria Neves, president of Cape Verde,...
President José Maria Neves of Cape Verde visited MIT on Tuesday, meeting with the campus community and conducting a public event about e-governance in Africa, which highlighted the ways technology has helped his country. “Technology and information are a mechanism or means to establish links between islands, and between Cape Verde and the diaspora,” Neves said at the public forum. He added that high-tech communications have been “an essential tool to organize the country, and also to accelerate...

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Games with frontiers
The popular board game “Puerto Rico,” dating to 2002, features sophisticated rules and heavily rewards skill, not chance, as players attempt to create 19th-century economic growth on the island. Many people have found it compelling but haven’t delved into its implications. “I played that game without thinking about it too much,” says Mikael Jakobsson, a lecturer in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing Program and research coordinator in the MIT Game Lab. Then Jakobsson started thinking about it a little more....

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Remembering Mel King, adjunct professor emeritus in...
Mel King, an adjunct professor emeritus in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and renowned activist, community leader, and politician, passed away on March 28 at the age of 94. Through his teaching, ideas, and the institutions he created at MIT, King profoundly influenced DUSP and its community members, who showcase the love and admiration for his presence at MIT in the remembrances below. These memories encapsulate King’s insightfulness, courage, spirit, and brilliance, and attest to his...

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