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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.

Five from MIT named 2023 Quad Fellows

Four recent MIT alumni — Udochukwu Eze ’22, William Rodriguez ’18, Yotaro Sueoka ’20, and Sreya Vangara ’22 — and Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology doctoral student Jacob White have been selected for the inaugural class of the Quad Fellowship. The new fellowship is a joint initiative of the governments of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and is administered by Schmidt Futures. The Quad Fellowship aims to build the next generation of STEM leaders by recognizing exceptional……

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The AP names its nine Breakthrough Entertainers...

They worked hard, with the rewards coming slowly but surely. Then something came along — often a key role or sometimes a cluster, maybe an album — and it all became next-level, a shift triggering where-did-you-come-from vibes. That describes most of this year’s nine Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of the Year, a class of talent that flowered in 2022. They are Sadie Sink, Stephanie Hsu, Tenoch Huerta, Joaquina Kalukango, Iman Vellani, Daryl McCormack, Tobe Nwigwe, Simone Ashley and Danielle…

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Salisbury House & Gardens in Des Moines,...

While this may seem like a typical historic house museum at first glance, this 1920s estate features architectural elements that date as far back as the 14th century. Inside, visitors will find a mummified rat that died of the bubonic plague, an astounding rock collection that was built into the walls of the home, and six acres of native Iowa woodland.  Constructed in the 1920s, the Salisbury House was built by Carl and Edith Weeks to be a family……

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Podcast: Duke Riley and the Poly S....

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we meet artist Duke Riley, who has turned trash into a medium, like clay or paint, and an indictment. His exhibit DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash will run through April 23, 2023, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll……

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EXPLAINER: Why fusion could be a clean-energy...

The major advance in fusion research announced in Washington on Tuesday was decades in coming, with scientists for the first time able to engineer a reaction that produced more power than was used to ignite it. Using powerful lasers to focus enormous energy on a miniature capsule half the size of a BB, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California started a reaction that produced about 1.5 times more energy than was contained in the light used…

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Tottenham Cake

Topped with garish pink icing and baked in a sheet pan, Tottenham cake is an old-fashioned treat. Slices of this coconut-bedecked cake are sold in bakeries around the United Kingdom. But it has one particular feature that sets it apart from other cakes: its connection to football (or, as it’s known in the USA, soccer) victory. First baked by local Quaker Henry Chalkley in the early 20th century, the cake’s bright pink icing came from mulberries plucked in Tottenham,……

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Will Venezuela's Christmas Roller-Skating Tradition Make a...

Liz Rebecca Alarcón was born in Miami, but grew up between there and Caracas, Venezuela, until the age of 15. Alarcón, founder and executive director of Pulso, a media company dedicated to Latino stories, says she spent summers and holidays with relatives in the country her family came from. Though her visits to Venezuela are more sporadic today, Alarcón still celebrates the holidays in Miami as she did there: late evening dinners with traditional Venezuelan foods such as hallacas……

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Reframing the first-generation academic experience

When Omar Tantawi was growing up in Lebanon, he had one association with the United States: It was somewhere far away. He had no idea that one day he would pursue a doctoral degree at MIT. After high school, he learned about a scholarship for low-income students to the American University of Beirut, and college sparked his interest in North American graduate programs. However, without the knowledge and support to refine his materials, all of his initial applications were……

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Exploring the employee experience

Getting to the crux of his work on the Employee Experience Research Stream at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), Nick van der Meulen poses a rhetorical question: “In general, nothing happens in our organizations without our employees, right?” Groundwork in place, he continues, “So how can organizations create an environment where employees can do their best work?”   For more than a decade, van der Meulen’s research has focused on employees. Originally from the Netherlands, he……

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Small studies of 40-hertz sensory stimulation confirm...

A pair of early-stage clinical studies testing the safety and efficacy of 40-hertz sensory stimulation to treat Alzheimer’s disease has found that the potential therapy was well-tolerated, produced no serious adverse effects, and was associated with some significant neurological and behavioral benefits among a small cohort of participants. “In these clinical studies we were pleased to see that volunteers did not experience any safety issues and used our experimental light and sound devices in their homes consistently,” says Li-Huei……

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The Bakers Transforming New York’s Buildings Into...

Spread across round tables in a dimly lit room in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, New York City lives in sugary miniature. On one table, a Brooklyn brownstone stands with a peppermint trim and snowy frosting; on another sits Queens’ iconic 7 train, complete with a Christmas wreath of green gummy bears. These elaborate confections are entries in “Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off,” a competition that challenged bakers from across the city’s five boroughs to capture their beloved neighborhoods……

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St. Mary’s Monastery in Zvërnec, Albania

About six miles (11 kilometers) northwest of Vlorë is a small peninsula that grants access to Zvërnec Islands. The road cuts through a charming pine forest that is also home to several hiking trails and a couple of bunkers. Pass the tiny village of Zvërnec, the road comes to an end, and this is where the wooden bridge that goes to the island is located. Maps refer to the place as Zvërnec Islands, as there are indeed two islands……

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The Statue of Bajirao Peshwa in Pune,...

As visitors enter the iconic Shaniwar Wada in the heart of Pune, they are greeted by an equestrian statue of a warrior, spear in hand and facing north. The statue is of Shrimant Bajirao Ballal, also known as Baji Rao I or Bajirao Peshwa. He was the 7th Peshwa (Prime Minister) of the Maratha Empire. He is considered to be one of the greatest military generals of his time, along with being an outstanding cavalry leader and an accomplished……

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Koch Institute celebrates inaugural winners of the...

On Nov. 17, the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research hosted the inaugural winners of the Angelika Amon Young Scientist Award, Alejandro Aguilera Castrejón and Melanie de Almeida.  The award was established at the Koch Institute by family and friends of MIT faculty member Angelika Amon, a professor of biology and a member of the Koch Institute who died in 2020 following a two-and-a-half-year battle with ovarian cancer. The award is given annually to two graduate students in the……

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'Catch Me' in Seaford, Australia

“Catch Me” is the name given to this eye-catching and highly amusing sculpture that sits at the Community Centre of Seaford, a southeastern, coastal suburb of Melbourne. It was designed and constructed by Danish artist Keld Moseholm. Born in 1936, Moseholm mastered his skills at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, followed by a period of study at The Academy of Art, Odense.  He has built a reputation for his comical and satirical works of public art and……

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