The thick summer air of Marion, Indiana, was still on that awful night in 1930. A 16-year-old boy, weak and beaten, stood between the bodies of his two friends. The other Black teenagers had just been lynched, and a mob of townspeople jeered and chanted as a noose was placed around his neck and tightened. He closed his eyes and started to pray. The shouting swelled to a roar. Then a lone voice stood out amid the din. A……
The Festival of Learning is an annual event for MIT faculty, students, and staff, co-sponsored by MIT Open Learning and the Office of the Vice Chancellor to examine excellent learning practices and research. After a hiatus in 2021, the Festival of Learning resumed this January with a virtual format to explore how education at MIT has been transformed by world events, digital innovations, and renewed commitment to better serve its diverse student population. In Chancellor Melissa Nobles’ opening remarks,……
As part of a special series for 2022, we’re doing a deep visual dive into fascinating Carnival traditions around the world. If spring is nigh, and hordes of people are roaming around in sheep costumes making lots of noise, it’s a safe bet you’ve found yourself at Kurentovanje in Ptuj, in northeastern Slovenia. This annual rite of spring carnival begins 11 days before Ash Wednesday—and if you’re in the area, you’ll know. The core of the carnival consists of……
When Richard Boothe laid the foundation for his farmhouse in 1663, he could have never predicted what would become of his property in the 20th century. The 34-acre homestead in Stratford, Connecticut is now home to an unexpected collection of 28 buildings, including a 44-sided blacksmith shop, a miniature lighthouse, and the state’s last remaining highway tollbooth. These curious structures were built by two of Richard’s descendants: brothers David Beach Boothe, born in 1867, and Stephen Nichols Boothe, born……
When it comes to treatment strategies for critically ill patients, clinicians want to be able to consider all their options and timing of administration, and make the optimal decision for their patients. While clinician experience and study has helped them to be successful in this effort, not all patients are the same, and treatment decisions at this crucial time could mean the difference between patient improvement and quick deterioration. Therefore, it would be helpful for doctors to be able……
After World War II, fearing a Soviet invasion from East Germany, American forces converted a once-quaint airfield outside of Frankfurt into a U.S. military heliport. The complex was built for an Infantry Division stationed in nearby barracks who manned a great number of different helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft stationed in Bonames. Of course, the invasion never came to pass, and after the closure of the airfield in 1992, its use became fragmented. The hangars and tower buildings were used……
Chemists at MIT have developed a novel way to synthesize himastatin, a natural compound that has shown potential as an antibiotic. Using their new synthesis, the researchers were able not only to produce himastatin but also to generate variants of the molecule, some of which also showed antimicrobial activity. They also discovered that the compound appears to kill bacteria by disrupting their cell membranes. The researchers now hope to design other molecules that could have even stronger antibiotic activity…….
Scintillators are materials that emit light when bombarded with high-energy particles or X-rays. In medical or dental X-ray systems, they convert incoming X-ray radiation into visible light that can then be captured using film or photosensors. They’re also used for night-vision systems and for research, such as in particle detectors or electron microscopes. Researchers at MIT have now shown how one could improve the efficiency of scintillators by at least tenfold, and perhaps even a hundredfold, by changing the……
Five granite pillars stand in a brick plaza in Annapolis, Maryland, as a memorial to five employees of the Capital Gazette newspaper who were killed in 2018. It honors Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, and Wendi Winters, who have been memorialized as protectors of free speech and guardians of the first amendment. On the afternoon of June 28, 2018, a man appeared at the Capital Gazette offices wielding a pump-action shotgun. After shooting out the glass door, the gunman……
In southwestern Pennsylvania, the 4,541-foot-long (1,384-meter) tunnel that runs underneath Laurel Ridge has had many uses since it was first carved out in the late 19th century. Originally the structure had been built for a planned South Pennsylvania Railroad, but after that project fell through, the structure was incorporated into a new high-speed roadway, the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When it first opened in 1940, the turnpike was hailed as the newest, fastest way to travel across the state. But the……
If you want to know what you can find at this site, it’s a 6.3-meter (21 ft) statue of a human figure with the head of a deer, holding a surfboard. But if you want to know how exactly this enigmatic statue came about, it’s a long story that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. In the fourth century, a Greek monk by the name of Ciriaco “rescued” a statuette called Our Lady of Nazareth that was believed……
Not far from the center of Nuremberg stands a grand old building in the Renaissance Revival style. In 1945, this was the backdrop to one of the most historically and legally significant cases of international law, the Nuremberg Trials, in which the surviving leaders of Nazi Germany were tried for their crimes. After the end of World War II, the Allied powers sought to bring to justice the people responsible for the Holocaust and war crimes committed by the Third……
Perhaps fittingly, the gigantic boulders strewn about this mountain range in central France are a result of granitic chaos—a natural phenomenon caused by erosion. The granite weathers heavily in cooler, rainy climates, allowing particles to collect between individual granite lumps. These deposits are then washed away by water or blown away by wind, leaving the granite rocks stacked atop one another in unusual formations. This phenomenon is unusual in Burgundy and within France. The “Rochers du Carnaval” is one……
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine on Thursday, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee. Ukraine’s government said Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war” that could rewrite the geopolitical order and whose fallout already reverberated around the world. In unleashing Moscow’s most aggressive action since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, President Vladimir Putin deflected global condemnation…
The latest on the Russia-Ukraine crisis: —— KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are trying to seize the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The plant was the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident when a nuclear reactor exploded in April 1986, spewing radioactive waste across Europe. The plant lies 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the capital of Kyiv. The exploded reactor has been covered by a protective shelter to prevent radiation leak and the entire…
