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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.

 
A scientist turns to entrepreneurship
Like the atomic particles he studies, Pablo Ducru seems constantly on the move, vibrating with energy. But if he sometimes appears to be headed in an unexpected direction, Ducru, a doctoral candidate in nuclear science and computational engineering, knows exactly where he is going: “My goal is to address climate change as an innovator and creator, whether by pushing the boundaries of science” through research, says Ducru, or pursuing a zero-carbon future as an entrepreneur. It can be hard...

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Six from MIT awarded research funding to...
As the world grapples with the continuing challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, a multi-institutional initiative has been formed to support a broad range of research aimed at addressing the devastation to global public health, including projects by six MIT faculty. Called the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR), and based at Harvard Medical School (HMS), it was conceived to both battle the myriad effects of SARS-CoV-2 and prepare for future health crises. Now, MassCPR has announced more than $16.5...

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SMART researchers receive grant to develop rapid...
Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, has received a grant from the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Covid-19 Research fund for the acceleration of research and development of rapid paper-based serological and diagnostic tests for Covid-19. The one-year grant is part of NMRC’s support for Covid-19 related research, and will focus on developing rapid tests based on protein detection that will overcome challenges and bottlenecks faced by existing diagnostic tests. As governments worldwide...

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Nature-inspired CRISPR enzymes for expansive genome editing
In nature, bacteria use CRISPR as an adaptive immune system to protect themselves against viruses. Over the past decade, scientists have been able to successfully build upon that natural phenomenon with the discovery of CRISPR proteins found in bacteria — the most widely used of which is the Cas9 enzyme. In combination with a guide RNA, Cas9 is able to target, cut, and degrade specific DNA sequences.  With applications ranging from the treatment of genetic diseases to the nutritional...

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MIT student applies her doctoral research to...
Junli Hao was close to earning her MIT doctorate in chemical engineering this year when Covid-19 hit the United States — and forced universities including MIT to quickly de-densify. Hao suddenly found herself applying everything she’d learned to a major problem associated with the pandemic: the short supply of face masks and N95 respirators for medical personnel and other first responders. For the past two months Hao, working closely with her advisor, Professor Gregory Rutledge, has used specialized equipment...

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Marshaling artificial intelligence in the fight against...
Artificial intelligence could play a decisive role in stopping the Covid-19 pandemic. To give the technology a push, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab is funding 10 projects at MIT aimed at advancing AI’s transformative potential for society. The research will target the immediate public health and economic challenges of this moment. But it could have a lasting impact on how we evaluate and respond to risk long after the crisis has passed. The 10 research projects are highlighted below. Early detection of sepsis in Covid-19 patients  Sepsis...

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A Lawmaker Wants Fast Trains to Rev...
Accuse Representative Seth Moulton of loving trains too much at your peril. Yes, the Massachusetts Democrat worked for a time on a high-speed-rail project in Texas, one that is now finally inching toward a groundbreaking ceremony. He’s pressed for a new rail tunnel in Boston. He’s a booster for commuter rail. But ask him why he loves trains, and he’ll correct you, firmly. “It’s not that I just like trains so much,” he says. “We should have a transportation...

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Making an impact through chemical engineering
As a chemical engineer, Hadley Sikes loves studying complex systems such as networks of chemical reactions. But in her work designing practical devices for diagnostics and other applications, she embraces simplicity. Sikes, an associate professor who recently earned tenure in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, devotes much of her lab’s effort to devising inexpensive, highly sensitive tests for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and cancer. Making these tests easy to use is key to their success, she says. “In...

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MIT engineers propose a safer method for...
As more Covid-19 patients experience acute respiratory distress, there has been much debate over the idea of sharing ventilators, which involves splitting air tubes into multiple branches so that two or more patients can be connected to the same machine. Several physicians’ associations have issued a joint statement discouraging this practice. It poses risk to patients, they say, because of the difficulty in ensuring that each patient is receiving the right amount of air. A team of researchers from...

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Helping artisanal miners in Colombia face the...
Informal, small-scale gold miners extract 20 to 30 percent of all gold worldwide, and in Colombia, they produce 60 percent of all gold extracted nationally. As a rule, small-scale miners in remote communities face myriad challenges: Intermediaries demand low prices, there are few alternative ways to earn an income, and serious health problems related to mercury exposure plague miners. Now, with the onset of Covid-19, these problems have compounded: The market for gold has ground to a halt, business...

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What can your microwave tell you about...
For many of us, our microwaves and dishwashers aren’t the first thing that come to mind when trying to glean health information, beyond that we should (maybe) lay off the Hot Pockets and empty the dishes in a timely way. But we may soon be rethinking that, thanks to new research from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). The system, called “Sapple,” analyzes in-home appliance usage to better understand our health patterns, using just radio signals and...

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3 Questions: Energy studies at MIT and...
Students who engage in energy studies at MIT develop an integrative understanding of energy as well as skills required of tomorrow’s energy professionals, leaders, and innovators in research, industry, policy, management, and governance. Two energy alumni recently shared their experiences as part of MIT’s energy community, and how their work connects to energy today. Abigail Ostriker ’16, who majored in applied mathematics, is now pursuing a PhD in economics at MIT, where she is conducting research into whether subsidized...

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Study finds that aging neurons accumulate DNA...
MIT neuroscientists have discovered that an enzyme called HDAC1 is critical for repairing age-related DNA damage to genes involved in memory and other cognitive functions. This enzyme is often diminished in both Alzheimer’s patients and normally aging adults. In a study of mice, the researchers showed that when HDAC1 is lost, a specific type of DNA damage builds up as the mice age. They also showed that they could reverse this damage and improve cognitive function with a drug...

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The changing world of work
With 20.5 million jobs slashed from U.S. payrolls in April and a 14.7 percent unemployment rate, the Covid-19 pandemic has created workforce problems unseen since the Great Depression. These dynamics are being closely observed by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future, which released a high-profile interim report last September, with a nuanced set of findings: Automation is unlikely to eliminate millions of U.S. jobs soon, but improved policies are needed to support many workers, who have...

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Melting glaciers cool the Southern Ocean
Tucked away at the very bottom of the globe surrounding Antarctica, the Southern Ocean has never been easy to study. Its challenging conditions have placed it out of reach to all but the most intrepid explorers. For climate modelers, however, the surface waters of the Southern Ocean provide a different kind of challenge: It doesn’t behave the way they predict it would. “It is colder and fresher than the models expected,” says Craig Rye, a postdoc in the group...

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