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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.

 
Lessons from Fukushima: Prepare for the unlikely
When a devastating earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the protective systems at the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant complex in Japan in March 2011, it triggered a sequence of events leading to one of the worst releases of radioactive materials in the world to date. Although nuclear energy is having a revival as a low-emissions energy source to mitigate climate change, the Fukushima accident is still cited as a reason for hesitancy in adopting it. A new study synthesizes information...

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MIT announces financial aid and tuition rates...
MIT’s commitment to undergraduate financial aid will remain strong for the 2024-25 academic year, increasing to an estimated budget of $167.3 million. The increase will more than offset a 3.75 percent percent rise in tuition, to $61,990 ($62,396 including fees), and other living expense increases. The estimated average MIT scholarship for students receiving financial aid next year is $63,146. Moreover, for students coming from families with incomes of $75,000 and less, their parents will not be expected to contribute...

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AI generates high-quality images 30 times faster...
In our current age of artificial intelligence, computers can generate their own “art” by way of diffusion models, iteratively adding structure to a noisy initial state until a clear image or video emerges. Diffusion models have suddenly grabbed a seat at everyone’s table: Enter a few words and experience instantaneous, dopamine-spiking dreamscapes at the intersection of reality and fantasy. Behind the scenes, it involves a complex, time-intensive process requiring numerous iterations for the algorithm to perfect the image. MIT...

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Optimizing nuclear fuels for next-generation reactors
In 2010, when Ericmoore Jossou was attending college in northern Nigeria, the lights would flicker in and out all day, sometimes lasting only for a couple of hours at a time. The frustrating experience reaffirmed Jossou’s realization that the country’s sporadic energy supply was a problem. It was the beginning of his path toward nuclear engineering. Because of the energy crisis, “I told myself I was going to find myself in a career that allows me to develop energy technologies that...

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Creative collisions: Crossing the art-science divide
MIT has a rich history of productive collaboration between the arts and the sciences, anchored by the conviction that these two conventionally opposed ways of thinking can form a deeply generative symbiosis that serves to advance and humanize new technologies.  This ethos was made tangible when the Bauhaus artist and educator György Kepes established the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) within the Department of Architecture in 1967. CAVS has since evolved into the Art, Culture, and Technology...

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Visiting scholars from Ukraine kick off Global...
Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago, members of the MIT faculty knew that violence and political pressures in the region endangered the work and well-being of Ukrainian scholars and contemplated how MIT could assist. The start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 was the decisive catalyst — triggering the launch of the MIT-Ukraine Program later that year and eventually spurring creation of the new Global MIT At-Risk Fellows (GMAF) program with an initial focus on...

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3 Questions: Progress on updating MIT’s undergraduate...
In late February, Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education Ian A. Waitz and Faculty Chair Mary Fuller announced the formation and launch of the Task Force on the MIT Undergraduate Academic Program (TFUAP). The effort fulfills a critical recommendation of the Task Force 2021 and Beyond RIC1 (Undergraduate Program) and draws upon several, prior foundational working groups — some focused on the current General Institute Requirements (GIRs) and others on updating recent studies for the purposes of this...

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A protein found in human sweat may...
Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks, affects nearly half a million people in the United States every year. In most cases, antibiotics effectively clear the infection, but for some patients, symptoms linger for months or years. Researchers at MIT and the University of Helsinki have now discovered that human sweat contains a protein that can protect against Lyme disease. They also found that about one-third of the population carries a genetic variant of this protein that is...

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New algorithm unlocks high-resolution insights for computer...
Imagine yourself glancing at a busy street for a few moments, then trying to sketch the scene you saw from memory. Most people could draw the rough positions of the major objects like cars, people, and crosswalks, but almost no one can draw every detail with pixel-perfect accuracy. The same is true for most modern computer vision algorithms: They are fantastic at capturing high-level details of a scene, but they lose fine-grained details as they process information. Now, MIT...

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Unlocking the quantum future
Quantum computing is the next frontier for faster and more powerful computing technologies. It has the potential to better optimize routes for shipping and delivery, speed up battery development for electric vehicles, and more accurately predict trends in financial markets. But to unlock the quantum future, scientists and engineers need to solve outstanding technical challenges while continuing to explore new applications. One place where they’re working towards this future is the MIT Interdisciplinary Quantum Hackathon, or iQuHACK for short...

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Making the clean energy transition work for...
The clean energy transition is already underway, but how do we make sure it happens in a manner that is affordable, sustainable, and fair for everyone? That was the overarching question at this year’s MIT Energy Conference, which took place March 11 and 12 in Boston and was titled “Short and Long: A Balanced Approach to the Energy Transition.” Each year, the student-run conference brings together leaders in the energy sector to discuss the progress and challenges they see...

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3 Questions: What you need to know...
Audio deepfakes have had a recent bout of bad press after an artificial intelligence-generated robocall purporting to be the voice of Joe Biden hit up New Hampshire residents, urging them not to cast ballots. Meanwhile, spear-phishers — phishing campaigns that target a specific person or group, especially using information known to be of interest to the target — go fishing for money, and actors aim to preserve their audio likeness. What receives less press, however, are some of the...

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Study finds lands used for grazing can...
When it comes to global climate change, livestock grazing can be either a blessing or a curse, according to a new study, which offers clues on how to tell the difference. If managed properly, the study shows, grazing can actually increase the amount of carbon from the air that gets stored in the ground and sequestered for the long run. But if there is too much grazing, soil erosion can result, and the net effect is to cause more...

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Envisioning a time when people age without...
The mathematician and computer scientist Richard Hamming once gave a talk about doing great research. “He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important,” Hamming said, emphasizing the importance of open-mindedness and scientific development. William Li came across this quote as a high school student seeking to dedicate himself to research but unsure how to begin. “I think that...

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2024 MacVicar Faculty Fellows named
Four outstanding undergraduate teachers and mentors have been named MacVicar Faculty Fellows: professor of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Karl Berggren, professor of political science Andrea Campbell, associate professor of music Emily Richmond Pollock, and professor of EECS Vinod Vaikuntanathan. For more than 30 years, the MacVicar Faculty Fellows Program has recognized exemplary and sustained contributions to undergraduate education at MIT. The program is named in honor of Margaret MacVicar, MIT’s first dean for undergraduate education and founder...

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