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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.

 
3 Questions: Sanjay Sarma and Bill Bonvillian...
Sanjay Sarma, MIT vice president for MIT Open Learning and the Fred and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and William B. Bonvillian, lecturer in the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society and former director of MIT’s Washington D.C. office, recently produced a new research brief, “Applying New Education Technologies to Meet Workforce Education Needs.” The publication, part of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future’s series of research briefs, asks: What lessons from learning science...

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Every vote counts for this math student
Record voter turnouts are predicted in the U.S. elections this year, but will they arrive at the polls, or the early-voting ballot box, with informed opinions? And are more-informed voters more likely to vote? That’s a problem that math doctoral candidate Ashwin Narayan decided to work on this semester. Narayan had moved home to New Jersey following MIT’s shutdown in the spring, and over the summer he started to look for work in progressive data science. “Because of all...

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Researchers develop a high-power, portable terahertz laser
Researchers at MIT and the University of Waterloo have developed a high-power, portable version of a device called a quantum cascade laser, which can generate terahertz radiation outside of a laboratory setting. The laser could potentially be used in applications such as pinpointing skin cancer and detecting hidden explosives. Until now, generation of terahertz radiation powerful enough to perform real-time imaging and fast spectral measurements required temperatures far below 200 kelvins (-100 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. These temperatures could...

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An underwater navigation system powered by sound
GPS isn’t waterproof. The navigation system depends on radio waves, which break down rapidly in liquids, including seawater. To track undersea objects like drones or whales, researchers rely on acoustic signaling. But devices that generate and send sound usually require batteries — bulky, short-lived batteries that need regular changing. Could we do without them? MIT researchers think so. They’ve built a battery-free pinpointing system dubbed Underwater Backscatter Localization (UBL). Rather than emitting its own acoustic signals, UBL reflects modulated...

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A deep look at how financial markets...
Financial markets are fast-moving, complex, and opaque. Even the U.S. stock market is fragmented into an array of competing exchanges and a set of proprietary “dark pools” run by financial firms. Meanwhile, high-frequency traders zoom around buying and selling stocks at speeds other investors cannot match. Yet stocks represent a relatively transparent investment compared to many types of bonds, derivatives, and commodities. So when the financial sector melted down in 2007-08, it led to a wave of reforms as...

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Activist and scholar Angela Davis addresses racism...
Over 2,000 members of the MIT community tuned in for a live webcast Oct. 21 featuring a Q&A with activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis, whose name, for many, has become synonymous with the struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice. During the conversation, Davis described the United States today as being in another Reconstruction period akin to that after the Civil War, which, she said, “was not only not completed; it was reversed.” “We’re doing work now that...

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Democracy in distress?
When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, it seemed democracy had triumphed among political systems. But more recently, many democracies have run into a common set of troubles, with authoritarian leaders grasping enough power to create illiberal regimes. Understanding how this happens was the focus of MIT’s Oct. 23 Starr Forum, an online event hosted by the Center for International Studies (CIS) in which a series of experts evaluated the condition of democracy around the globe. “Democracies...

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Angelika Amon, cell biologist who pioneered research...
Angelika Amon, professor of biology and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, died on Oct. 29 at age 53, following a two-and-a-half-year battle with ovarian cancer. “Known for her piercing scientific insight and infectious enthusiasm for the deepest questions of science, Professor Amon built an extraordinary career – and in the process, a devoted community of colleagues, students and friends,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif wrote in a letter to the MIT community. “Angelika was...

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3Q: Update on MIT’s Task Force 2021...
MIT’s Task Force 2021 and Beyond, charged by President L. Rafael Reif in May and officially launched in July, has been working steadily since the summer to position MIT for a post-Covid future. The 180-member task force is led by Rick Danheiser, chair of the faculty and Arthur C. Cope Professor of Chemistry, and Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning and Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Danheiser and Sarma spoke with MIT...

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3Q: Evaluating skills, education, and workforce training...
As part of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future’s recent series of research briefs, MIT professors Paul Osterman and Kathleen Thelen highlight the critical role skills, education, and workforce training play in providing pathways to employment for low- and moderate-skilled workers and young adults. The briefs explore the highly fragmented U.S. workforce training system and comparable programs in Europe, in which the private sector is significantly engaged in both the classroom and the workplace.  In...

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Saudi Arabia faces increased heat, humidity, precipitation...
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is at a crossroads. Recent long-term studies of the area indicate that rising temperatures and evaporation rates will likely further deplete scarce water resources critical to meeting the nation’s agricultural, industrial, and domestic needs; more extreme flooding events could endanger lives, economic vitality, and infrastructure; and a combination of increasing heat and humidity levels may ultimately render the kingdom uninhabitable. Facing a foreboding future, how might the nation adapt to changing climatic conditions...

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An interdisciplinary approach to sustainable PPE
“Crisis moments can be the best time for collective trust building,” says Jarrod Goentzel, principal research scientist and lecturer for the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) and director of the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab. “People’s minds are open in unique ways during crisis, so it’s a good time to shape our mindset for moving forward.” Goentzel is referring to the double crisis that struck the United States earlier this year: the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting personal...

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“The Age of Living Machines” honored by...
Balance has always been important to MIT President Emerita Susan Hockfield. Whether navigating the administrative challenges of a world-class research university or championing new models of interdisciplinary research — and often both at the same time — Hockfield has a keen appreciation for bringing disparate elements together for the greater good. Her book, “The Age of Living Machines,” published in April 2019 by W.W. Norton & Company, celebrates the people and science stories behind the “convergence revolution,” which integrated...

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Podcast series from J-PAL North America shares...
The inaugural season of J-PAL Voices: The Impact and Promise of Summer Jobs in the United States highlights the stories behind the impact of a program that has enabled communities across the country to lower violent crime, reduce incarceration, and save lives. Hosted by J-PAL North America’s Senior Research and Policy Manager Rohit Naimpally, the six-episode podcast explores how summer jobs programs fit into the broader goals of fostering mobility from poverty in the United States. Summer youth employment...

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Artificial intelligence model detects asymptomatic Covid-19 infections...
Asymptomatic people who are infected with Covid-19 exhibit, by definition, no discernible physical symptoms of the disease. They are thus less likely to seek out testing for the virus, and could unknowingly spread the infection to others. But it seems those who are asymptomatic may not be entirely free of changes wrought by the virus. MIT researchers have now found that people who are asymptomatic may differ from healthy individuals in the way that they cough. These differences are...

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