Author: Ms. R.

Gitanjali Rao, a rising junior at MIT majoring in biological engineering, has been named the first-ever recipient of the Stephen Hawking Junior Medal for Science Communication. This award, presented by the Starmus Festival, is a new category of the already prestigious award created by the late theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking and the Starmus Festival. “I spend a lot of time in labs,” says Rao, highlighting her Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program project in the Langer Lab. Along……

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Evan Kharasch, professor of anesthesiology and vice chair for innovation at Duke University, has developed two approaches that may aid in fentanyl addiction recovery. After attending MIT’s Substance Use Disorders (SUD) Ventures Bootcamp, he’s committed to bringing them to market. Illicit fentanyl addiction is still a national emergency in the United States, fueled by years of opioid misuse. As opioid prescriptions fell by 50 percent over 15 years, many turned to street drugs. Among those drugs, fentanyl stands out……

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The International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia holds up a mirror to the industry — not only reflecting current priorities and preoccupations, but also projecting an agenda for what might be possible.  Curated by Carlo Ratti, MIT professor of practice of urban technologies and planning, this year’s exhibition (“Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”) proposes a “Circular Economy Manifesto” with the goal to support the “development and production of projects that utilize natural, artificial, and collective intelligence to combat the climate crisis.”  Designers……

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Often when we listen to music, we just instinctually enjoy it. Sometimes, though, it’s worth dissecting a song or other composition to figure out how it’s built. Take the 1953 jazz standard “Satin Doll,” written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, whose subtle structure rewards a close listening. As it happens, MIT Professor Emeritus Samuel Jay Keyser, a distinguished linguist and an avid trombonist on the side, has given the song careful scrutiny. To Keyser, “Satin Doll” is a glittering……

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Using an inexpensive electrode coated with DNA, MIT researchers have designed disposable diagnostics that could be adapted to detect a variety of diseases, including cancer or infectious diseases such as influenza and HIV. These electrochemical sensors make use of a DNA-chopping enzyme found in the CRISPR gene-editing system. When a target such as a cancerous gene is detected by the enzyme, it begins shearing DNA from the electrode nonspecifically, like a lawnmower cutting grass, altering the electrical signal produced…….

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A new imaging technique developed by MIT researchers could enable quality-control robots in a warehouse to peer through a cardboard shipping box and see that the handle of a mug buried under packing peanuts is broken. Their approach leverages millimeter wave (mmWave) signals, the same type of signals used in Wi-Fi, to create accurate 3D reconstructions of objects that are blocked from view. The waves can travel through common obstacles like plastic containers or interior walls, and reflect off……

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Imagine that you want to know the plot of a movie, but you only have access to either the visuals or the sound. With visuals alone, you’ll miss all the dialogue. With sound alone, you will miss the action. Understanding our biology can be similar. Measuring one kind of data — such as which genes are being expressed — can be informative, but it only captures one facet of a multifaceted story. For many biological processes and disease mechanisms,……

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As an electrical engineering student at Stanford University in the late 1970s, L. Rafael Reif was working on not only his PhD but also learning a new language. “I didn’t speak English. And I saw that it was easy to ignore somebody who doesn’t speak English well,” Reif recalled. To him, that meant speaking with conviction. “If you have tremendous technical skills, but you cannot communicate, if you cannot persuade others to embrace that, it’s not going to go……

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