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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.

 
Zeroing in on the origins of Earth’s...
Some time in Earth’s early history, the planet took a turn toward habitability when a group of enterprising microbes known as cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis — the ability to turn light and water into energy, releasing oxygen in the process. This evolutionary moment made it possible for oxygen to eventually accumulate in the atmosphere and oceans, setting off a domino effect of diversification and shaping the uniquely habitable planet we know today.   Now, MIT scientists have a precise...

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Citizens emerge from the slums
Do the world’s nearly 1 billion urban poor, who subsist without legal housing, reliable water and sewer infrastructure, and predictable employment, lack political engagement as well? Ying Gao does not buy the claim by many social scientists that social and economic marginalization necessarily means political marginalization. “My results contradict the prevailing wisdom about slums and the political behaviors they are believed to foster,” says Gao, a doctoral student in political science. “I’m discovering that people do not participate less...

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Counting cells may shed light on how...
As tumors grow within an organ, they also release cells that enter the bloodstream. These cells can travel to other organs, seeding new tumors called metastases. MIT engineers have now developed a technique that, for the first time, allows them to measure the generation rate of these circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in mice. Their approach, which also reveals how long CTCs survive once released into the bloodstream, could help scientists learn more about how different types of cancers spread...

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Lindsey Backman: Biochemist, mentor, and advocate
Raised in Tampa, Florida, Lindsey Backman takes pride in her family’s history and its role in the vibrant Cuban American community there. She remembers the weekends she would spend as a kid, getting café con leche with her grandparents and dancing in the studio with her friends. The cultural experiences she shared with friends, family, and  neighbors growing up helped her feel comfortable being herself while growing up, and showed her from an early age how valuable a welcoming...

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Using AI and old reports to understand...
Getting a quick and accurate reading of an X-ray or some other medical images can be vital to a patient’s health and might even save a life. Obtaining such an assessment depends on the availability of a skilled radiologist and, consequently, a rapid response is not always possible. For that reason, says Ruizhi “Ray” Liao, a postdoc and a recent PhD graduate at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), “we want to train machines that are capable...

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Deep learning helps predict new drug combinations...
The existential threat of Covid-19 has highlighted an acute need to develop working therapeutics against emerging health concerns. One of the luxuries deep learning has afforded us is the ability to modify the landscape as it unfolds — so long as we can keep up with the viral threat, and access the right data.  As with all new medical maladies, oftentimes the data need time to catch up, and the virus takes no time to slow down, posing a...

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MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social...
Interim Dean Agustín Rayo and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences recently welcomed the newest members of the MIT SHASS faculty. The six new faculty for Fall 2021 bring an array of research interests and domain knowledge to MIT, including: ethical questions about misinformation and lying; macroeconomics; economic theory; transnational power and civic media; the literature and thought of East Asia; and the politics of trade. Ian Ball joins the Department of Economics as an assistant professor,...

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Glass blowing adapts to Covid-19 protocols
Team-based, hands-on activities at MIT have been seriously challenged by the Covid pandemic. This has certainly been true for the W. David Kingery Ceramics and Glass Lab at MIT, where students work in close proximity learning the ancient craft of glass blowing. Practices long considered normal — like sharing blowpipes — suddenly became off-limits in the context of a highly transmissible and health-threatening virus. In September 2020, the Glass Lab received permission to restart limited operations. No students would...

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Shaping the future of work
If you had told MIT professor Tom Kochan 10 years ago that teaching online courses would forever change his outlook on education, he’d have said, “I don’t think so.” Today, Kochan has come around entirely to the power of thoughtfully constructed online learning experiences after spending six years creating and refining successive iterations of Shaping the Work of the Future, an MITx course that has influenced not only a global audience of tens of thousands of enrollees, but also...

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New bionics center established at MIT with...
A deepening understanding of the brain has created unprecedented opportunities to alleviate the challenges posed by disability. Scientists and engineers are taking design cues from biology itself to create revolutionary technologies that restore the function of bodies affected by injury, aging, or disease — from prosthetic limbs that effortlessly navigate tricky terrain to digital nervous systems that move the body after a spinal cord injury. With the establishment of the new K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, MIT is...

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Sylvester James Gates Jr. ’73, PhD ’77...
Sylvester James Gates Jr. ’73, PhD ’77 has often described progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion as occurring at “blazingly glacial” rates. The reknowned theoretical physicist was the featured speaker for this year’s MIT Compton Lecture, and he spoke on Tuesday to an appreciative audience, gathered and masked, in Kresge Auditorium. During his address, he chronicled his 52-year career in research, teaching, and service. He also noted moments in history when progress toward advancing civil rights simultaneously surged forward...

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Toward a smarter electronic health record
Electronic health records have been widely adopted with the hope they would save time and improve the quality of patient care. But due to fragmented interfaces and tedious data entry procedures, physicians often spend more time navigating these systems than they do interacting with patients. Researchers at MIT and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are combining machine learning and human-computer interaction to create a better electronic health record (EHR). They developed MedKnowts, a system that unifies the processes...

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Making health and motion sensing devices more...
Previous definitions of “well-being,” limited to taking a brisk walk and eating a few more vegetables, feel in many ways like a distant past. Shiny watches and sleek rings now measure how we eat, sleep, and breathe, calling on a combination of motion sensors and microprocessors to crunch bytes and bits.  Even with today’s variety of smart jewelry, clothing, and temporary tattoos that feel equal parts complex and manageable, scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)...

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Professor Emeritus Ronald Probstein, world-renowned expert in...
Ronald Probstein, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering, passed away at the age of 93 on Sept. 19. Probstein, who joined MIT’s faculty in 1962, was a leading expert in fluid mechanics. His research advanced a number of fields including spacecraft design, hypersonic flows, desalination, and the removal of toxic waste from soil. Born and raised in New York City, Probstein worked for the mathematician Richard Courant while studying for his bachelor’s degree at night at New York University. After...

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Institute Professor Paula Hammond named to White...
Paula Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor and head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has been chosen to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the White House announced today. The council advises the president on matters involving science, technology, education, and innovation policy. It also provides the White House with scientific and technical information that is needed to inform public policy relating to the U.S. economy, U.S. workers, and national security. “For me,...

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