January 30, 2021
Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
 
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Adaptable Machine Learning
 
A machine-learning system developed by researchers in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory learns on the job, not just during its training phase. By continuously adapting to new data inputs, this “liquid network” could aid decision-making in medical diagnosis and autonomous driving.
Top Headlines
MIT convenes influential industry leaders in the fight against climate change
The MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium launches with 13 company members to work with MIT on innovation in climate and sustainability.
MIT Heat Island
Design progresses for MIT Schwarzman College of Computing building on Vassar Street
The building will create a hub for computing research and education at MIT, including spaces designed to be inviting to members of the campus community and the public.
MIT Heat Island
How to get more electric cars on the road
Study measures which kinds of infrastructure improvements could lead to wider adoption of clean vehicles.
MIT Heat Island
MIT alumni broaden access to student internships
Startup Paragon One’s virtual platform allows hundreds of students to equitably benefit from internship opportunities.
MIT Heat Island
“Cooking with Lynja” turns a retired MIT engineer into an internet celebrity
With her simple recipes and quirky sense of humor, Lynn Yamada Davis ’77 has gained more than 4 million subscribers on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
MIT Heat Island
In praise of IAP 🌶️ 🔧 🤹🏻 🀄
For 50 years, Independent Activities Period has provided MIT community members with a respite from the firehose.
#ThisisMIT
In the Media
Our sense of fairness is beyond politics // The Wall Street Journal
A study co-authored by Professor Rebecca Saxe finds “people of all political stripes have surprisingly similar views about redistribution, at least in the abstract.”
Opinion: Biden and the return of the humanities // New York Daily News
Associate Professor Sandy Alexandre underscores the importance of having a role for the humanities in the White House.
Lab-grown wood could let us grow furniture in a lab instead of in a forest // Fast Company
MIT researchers developed a technique for growing wood-like plant tissues in the lab. The work, they say, is still in its very early stages, but provides a starting point to a new way of producing biomaterials.
Opinion: Why it’s so hard to cut waste in health care // The New York Times
Professor Amy Finkelstein examines the difficulties posed by trying to reduce waste in health care spending. “If something becomes more expensive, people will buy less of it,” she writes. “And the empirical evidence is overwhelming: When patients have to pay more, they use less medical care. The problem is they use less of all types of care.”
From MIT to the NBA
Sonia Raman spent 12 seasons as head coach of the MIT women’s basketball team, transforming the Engineers into a regional power. Then last summer, the NBA called. Now, she’s an assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies, one of a small but increasing number of women coaching in the league. “If you’re really, truly going to find the best people, you have to be open-minded,” Grizzlies Coach Taylor Jenkins says.
“
[I]t was becoming clear that the ability to think critically about maps, data visualizations, statistics, and their interpretation was now a life-or-death skill.
—Lauren Kennedy MCP ’18, on how the Covid-19 pandemic informed her recent gallery exhibit on understanding maps
Mystery MIT
Like many annual activities, this year’s MIT Mystery Hunt was completely virtual for the first time. Participating hunters were tasked with retrieving items sent into a parallel universe and bringing them home. To do this, players wandered around a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in which MIT was rendered into a fantasy world that the organizing team started developing last spring. Says longtime participant Stephanie Howell, “It was amazing luck that ✈ ✈ ✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈ ✈ ✈ were already working on an MMO of the campus before we realized how long social distancing was going to need to remain a policy. I’m honestly not sure if a hunt could have happened if the creating team had to change gears to something completely online. It certainly wouldn’t have been this well put together.”
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