Month: January 2020

On Friday, Jan. 10, the newest class of astronauts graduated from basic training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. During the graduation ceremony, Warren “Woody” Hoburg ’08 couldn’t help but reflect on the gratitude towards everyone who supported his dream of becoming an astronaut, including his parents, who were in the audience. “Whether I was skydiving or building 20-foot tall model rockets in their garage, my parents have always given me the freedom to explore my interests,” said…

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In the absence of federal adoption of climate change policy, states and municipalities in the United States have been taking action on their own. In particular, 29 states and the District of Columbia have enacted renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) requiring that a certain fraction of their electricity mix come from renewable power tech­nologies, such as wind or solar. But now some states are rethinking their RPSs. A few are making them more stringent, but many more are relaxing or…

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Organizing the Microsystems Annual Research Conference (MARC) is no small feat. Each January during the MIT Independent Activities Period, more than 200 students, faculty, staff, postdocs, and industry members come together at an off-campus site to explore technical achievements and research ideas at the forefront of microsystems and nanotechnology. The secret to MARC’s success year after year? A student committee that handles every aspect of coordinating and executing the showcase event, to be held this year in late January…

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Mahatma Gandhi, an icon of nonviolent resistance who helped lead India to independence by force of will and strength of mind, rather than physical power, might not seem like a person preoccupied with corporeal matters. In fact, Gandhi endlessly monitored his own blood pressure and had a “preoccupation with blood,” as MIT scholar Dwai Banerjee and co-author Jacob Copeman write in “Hematologies,” a new book about blood and politics in India. Gandhi believed the quality of his own blood…

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Jesse Tordoff makes cells form unusual patterns. “I have the coolest research project ever, which has the big, broad goal of controlling the shapes that cells grow into.” Her signature shape? Polka dots. “The idea is that synthetic, outside of the natural developmental pathways,” she explains. “My project mostly involves giving the cells genetic circuits to express cell-to-cell adhesion molecules differently.” A fifth-year graduate student in the Computational and Systems Biology program, Tordoff is passionate about…

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Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a parasite that chronically infects up to a quarter of the world’s population, causing toxoplasmosis, a disease that can be dangerous, or even deadly, for the immunocompromised and for developing fetuses. One reason that T. gondii is so pervasive is that the parasites are tenacious occupants once they have infected a host. They can transition from an acute infection stage into a quiescent life cycle stage and effectively barricade themselves inside of their host’s…

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Angelique Scarpa, an administrative assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering, adores birds of prey. An avid bird watcher and nature enthusiast, she is awed by soaring hawks, hooting owls, and majestic eagles. Over the past year, Scarpa has been working to share her passion for the natural world with members of her department. She received funding from the MindHandHeart Innovation Fund to launch her “Reasons to Go Outside” project. Consisting of a website and event series, her project…

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French startup Qonto has raised a $115 million Series C funding round led by Tencent and DST Global. Today’s news comes a few days after another French fintech startup Lydia raised some money from Tencent. Existing investors Valar and Alven are also participating in today’s funding round. TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus and Adyen CFO Ingo Uytdehaage are also joining the round. Qonto says that it represents the largest funding round for a French fintech company. Qonto is a challenger…

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In an effort to further enhance the preparedness of MIT’s first responders, MIT Emergency Management and MIT Police will conduct a full-scale emergency exercise on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at Kresge Auditorium (Building W16). Due to the realistic nature of the police training drill, which will include simulated gunfire, the entire building, the Kresge Oval, the Kresge BBQ pits, and the Kresge parking lot will be closed to the public from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on that day.  An email about the emergency exercise was sent today to the MIT community by Chief of Police and…

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It may seem surprising, but theories and formulas derived from physics turn out to be useful tools for understanding the ways democratic elections work, including how these systems break down and how they could be improved. A new physics-based study finds that in the U.S., elections went through a transition in 1970, from a condition in which election results captured reasonably well the greater electorate’s political preferences, to a period of increasing instability, in which very small changes in…

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The most interesting thing I saw online this week was Venkatesh Rao’s “Internet of Beefs” essay. I don’t agree with all of it. I’m not even sure I agree with most of it. But it’s a sharp, perceptive, well-argued piece which offers an explanation for why online public spaces have almost all become battlefields, or, as he puts it: “are now being slowly taken over by beef-only thinkers … Anything that is not an expression of pure, unqualified support…

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