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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.

Democrats make it official, nominate Biden to...

NEW YORK (AP) — Democrats formally nominated Joe Biden as their 2020 presidential nominee Tuesday night, as party officials and activists from across the nation gave the former vice president their overwhelming support during his party’s all-virtual national convention. The moment marked a political high point for Biden, who had sought the presidency twice before and is now cemented as the embodiment of Democrats’ desperate desire to defeat President Donald Trump this fall. The roll call of convention delegates…

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Key takeaways from night 2 of the...

Sustaining energy through four days of a political convention is never easy. It’s even more challenging during this, the first virtual convention. On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, party leaders tried to blend its past with its future. Here are key takeaways from night two. DEMOCRATS DISPLAY BIG TENT Joe Biden, who was being formally nominated Tuesday night in a virtual roll call of states, doesn’t shy away from the obvious: He’s a 77-year-old white man…

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‘Pie for a Suffragist’s Doubting Husband’ and...

Alice B. Stockham was a doctor, activist, and champion of causes ranging from women’s suffrage and abandoning corsets to the merits of female masturbation. To those who found her thoughts on women’s rights, comfort, and pleasure difficult to digest, Stockham offered palatable chasers in the form of recipes for custard-filled cake, graham muffins, and rhubarb toast. Stockham’s recipes appear in The Woman’s Suffrage Cookbook, compiled by Hattie Burr and published in 1886. Blending recipes with activism, the culinary guide……

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For student researchers, no pause for the...

In mid-March, when the Covid-19 pandemic darkened MIT classrooms and labs, lights switched on for undergraduate research taking place remotely. Zooming in from time zones often distant from Cambridge, Massachusetts, many students were able to continue undergraduate research opportunities (UROPs) made possible by nuclear science and engineering faculty. Advancing projects begun during January independent activities period or the start of spring semester, students overcame significant obstacles to make their research experiences meaningful while working from home — whether that……

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Rewriting the rules of machine-generated art

Horses don’t normally wear hats, and deep generative models, or GANs, don’t normally follow rules laid out by human programmers. But a new tool developed at MIT lets anyone go into a GAN and tell the model, like a coder, to put hats on the heads of the horses it draws.  In a new study appearing at the European Conference on Computer Vision this month, researchers show that the deep layers of neural networks can be edited, like so many lines of……

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These Protest Photos Document Life in ‘Resurrection...

In May 1968, just a month after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, around 3,000 protesters converged in Washington, D.C., to stage a campaign that the civil rights leader had been planning. Known as the Poor People’s Campaign, or PPC, it represented new directions in both King’s thought and strategy. The PPC was conceived in the belief that racial equality is inextricable from economic equality, that civil rights are insufficient without the security to enjoy them. And in practice,……

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Fostering friendships and films from across the...

What do you do when a pandemic shuts down international travel, and you can’t do your internship in Japan? For MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) students this summer, the answer was the Virtual Language Conversation Exchange with the Tokyo Institute of Technology (also known as Tokyo Tech). MIT Japan’s managing director, Christine Pilcavage, and MIT’s global language senior instructor, Takako Aikawa, collaborated with Professor Eri Ota and Naoko Goto of Center of International Education at Tokyo Tech……

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Meridianen för den Akademiska Kvarten (Meridian for...

One running theme in academic circles is that you are always going to have late students no matter what. One of the “solutions” to remedy this is the academic quarter. This is a tradition found at most universities around the world, but most popular in Europe, where lectures will start 15 minutes after the official time written on the schedule. This gives students time to park, find their classroom, and do other things prior to class. It’s a beloved……

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Mobility Systems Center awards four projects for...

The Mobility Systems Center (MSC), one of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)’s Low-Carbon Energy Centers, will fund four new research projects that will allow for deeper insights into achieving a decarbonized transportation sector. “Based on input from our Mobility Systems Center members, we have selected an excellent and diverse set of projects to initiate this summer,” says Randall Field, the center’s executive director. “The awarded projects will address a variety of pressing topics including the impacts of Covid-19 on urban……

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Bombardment Garden in Whitby, England

Walking along the picturesque cliff edge of Whitby, visitors are treated to beautiful seaside views alongside the many tourists that flock to the town.  However, an unexpected site found just a few feet behind the iconic Captain Cook statue is a recreated house that stands as a reminder to the bombardment of the town during World War I. In 1914, Whitby came under attack just after 9 a.m. on the morning of December 16th when two enemy battle cruisers,……

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Carnforth Railway Station in Lancashire, England

Although the romantic film Brief Encounter was set in London and Surrey, Carnforth Railway Station in Lancashire was chosen as the star location for the film due to the unique qualities of the Northern England station. Today, the railway station truly leans into its notoriety as a filming location for this classic British film.  When choosing a railway station for his film about an extramarital affair, David Lean had a specific criteria. Since they were shooting in 1944, he……

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The Lagom Standard Measure in Lund, Sweden

Lagom is a heavily used word in Sweden. With no direct English counterpart, the closest thing to the saying is “just the right amount.” This not only describes the Swedish mentality of equality, but also their view on everything excessive. Of course, the question is, how much is enough?  This depends on what one is talking about and obviously will vary from person to person, but a group called the Uarda Academy decided to solve this question once and for……

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Hat Maker Statue in Danbury, Connecticut

In the late 18th-century, a man named Zadoc Benedict discovered a process for matting animal furs together to make felt, which he molded into hats. He developed a small hat-making business in the Connecticut town of Danbury and was soon joined by other hatters, who expanded beyond felt to manufacture hats composed of wool and silk. The industry soon blossomed in the city. From the 1850s to the end of World War II, Danbury was known as the “Hat……

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Despite booming consumer demand, VC interest in...

Sector deals have slipped to their lowest ebb since Q1 2019, but what’s to blame? Alex Wilhelm 9 hours Walmart reported earnings this morning. Most of the numbers are immaterial to you and I, having little to nothing to do with the world of private capital and startups, but one metric did leap out: In its quarter ending July 31, Walmart’s U.S. “e-commerce sales” grew by 97% compared to the year-ago quarter, with what the company called “strong results……

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Samsung Pay Card launches in UK, powered...

Samsung Pay Card, a new Mastercard debit card from the mobile handset giant, has launched in the U.K. today. Powered by London-based fintech Curve, it lets you consolidate all of your other existing bank cards into a single card and digital wallet, making it easy to manage your money and, of course, use Samsung Pay more universally. Unsurprisingly, Samsung Pay Card users will also get access to other Curve features. They include a single view of your card spending……

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