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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.

 
Reasoning skills of large language models are...
When it comes to artificial intelligence, appearances can be deceiving. The mystery surrounding the inner workings of large language models (LLMs) stems from their vast size, complex training methods, hard-to-predict behaviors, and elusive interpretability. MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers recently peered into the proverbial magnifying glass to examine how LLMs fare with variations of different tasks, revealing intriguing insights into the interplay between memorization and reasoning skills. It turns out that their reasoning abilities are...

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MIT SHASS announces appointment of new heads...
The MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) has announced several changes to the leadership of its academic units for the 2024-25 academic year. “I’m confident these outstanding members of the SHASS community will provide exceptional leadership. I’m excited to see each implement their vision for the future of their unit,” says Agustin Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of MIT SHASS. Christine Walley will serve as head of the Anthropology Section. Walley is the SHASS Dean’s Distinguished...

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MIT ARCLab announces winners of inaugural Prize...
Satellite density in Earth’s orbit has increased exponentially in recent years, with lower costs of small satellites allowing governments, researchers, and private companies to launch and operate some 2,877 satellites into orbit in 2023 alone. This includes increased geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite activity, which brings technologies with global-scale impact, from broadband internet to climate surveillance. Along with the manifold benefits of these satellite-enabled technologies, however, come increased safety and security risks, as well as environmental concerns. More accurate...

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Community members receive 2024 MIT Excellence Awards,...
On Wednesday, June 5, 13 individuals and four teams were awarded MIT Excellence Awards — the highest awards for staff at the Institute. Colleagues holding signs, waving pompoms, and cheering gathered in Kresge Auditorium to show their support for the honorees. In addition to the Excellence Awards, staff members were honored with the Collier Medal, the Staff Award for Distinction in Service, and the Gordon Y. Billard Award.  The Collier Medal honors the memory of Officer Sean Collier, who...

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Study finds health risks in switching ships...
As container ships the size of city blocks cross the oceans to deliver cargo, their huge diesel engines emit large quantities of air pollutants that drive climate change and have human health impacts. It has been estimated that maritime shipping accounts for almost 3 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and the industry’s negative impacts on air quality cause about 100,000 premature deaths each year. Decarbonizing shipping to reduce these detrimental effects is a goal of the International Maritime...

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Empowering future innovators through a social impact...
What if testing for Lyme disease were as simple as dropping a tick in a test tube at home, waiting a few minutes, and looking for a change of color? MIT Sloan Fellow and physician Erin Dawicki is making it happen, as part of her aspiration to make Lyme testing accessible, affordable, and widespread. She noticed a troubling increase in undetected Lyme disease in her practice and collaborated with fellow MIT students to found Lyme Alert, a startup that has created...

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A new way to miniaturize cell production...
Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, have developed a novel way to produce clinical doses of viable autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells in a ultra-small automated closed-system microfluidic chip, roughly the size of a pack of cards.  This is the first time that a microbioreactor is used to produce autologous cell therapy products. Specifically, the new method was successfully used to manufacture and expand CAR-T cells that are as...

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Investigating the past to see technology’s future
The MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) recently organized and hosted a two-day symposium, The History of Technology: Past, Present, and Future. The symposium was held June 7-8 at MIT’s Wong Auditorium, and featured scholars from a variety of institutions with expertise in the history of technology. Each presented their ideas about the intersection of science, technology, and society, the field’s needs, and opportunities for its future development. “We’re pleased to provide a venue in which these...

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A new strategy to cope with emotional...
Some people, especially those in public service, perform admirable feats: Think of health-care workers fighting to keep patients alive or first responders arriving at the scene of a car crash. But the emotional weight can become a mental burden. Research has shown that emergency personnel are at elevated risk for mental health challenges like post-traumatic stress disorder. How can people undergo such stressful experiences and also maintain their well-being? A new study from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research...

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“They can see themselves shaping the world...
During the journey from the suburbs to the city, the tree canopy often dwindles down as skyscrapers rise up. A group of New England Innovation Academy students wondered why that is. “Our friend Victoria noticed that where we live in Marlborough there are lots of trees in our own backyards. But if you drive just 30 minutes to Boston, there are almost no trees,” said high school junior Ileana Fournier. “We were struck by that duality.” This inspired Fournier...

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MIT researchers introduce generative AI for databases
A new tool makes it easier for database users to perform complicated statistical analyses of tabular data without the need to know what is going on behind the scenes. GenSQL, a generative AI system for databases, could help users make predictions, detect anomalies, guess missing values, fix errors, or generate synthetic data with just a few keystrokes. For instance, if the system were used to analyze medical data from a patient who has always had high blood pressure, it...

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MIT engineers find a way to protect...
Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. MIT researchers have now developed a new way to make microbes hardy enough to withstand these extreme conditions. Their method involves mixing bacteria with food and drug additives from a list of compounds that the FDA classifies as “generally regarded as safe.” The researchers identified formulations that help to...

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What is language for?
Language is a defining feature of humanity, and for centuries, philosophers and scientists have contemplated its true purpose. We use language to share information and exchange ideas — but is it more than that? Do we use language not just to communicate, but to think? In the June 19 issue of the journal Nature, McGovern Institute for Brain Research neuroscientist Evelina Fedorenko and colleagues argue that we do not. Language, they say, is primarily a tool for communication. Fedorenko...

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Studying astrophysically relevant plasma physics
Thomas Varnish loves his hobbies — knitting, baking, pottery — it’s a long list. His latest interest is analog film photography. A picture with his mother and another with his boyfriend are just a few of Varnish’s favorites. “These moments of human connection are the ones I like,” he says. Varnish’s love of capturing a fleeting moment on film translates to his research when he conducts laser interferometry on plasmas using off-the-shelf cameras. At the Department of Nuclear Science...

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Signal processing: How did we get to...
On May 24, Ford Professor of Engineering Al Oppenheim addressed a standing-room-only audience at MIT to give the talk of a lifetime. Entitled “Signal Processing: How Did We Get to Where We’re Going?”, Oppenheim’s personal account of his involvement in the early years of the digital signal processing field included a photo retrospective — and some handheld historical artifacts — that showed just how far the field has come since its birth at MIT and Lincoln Laboratory. Hosted by...

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