December 19, 2020
Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
 
Want a daily dose of MIT in your inbox? Subscribe to the MIT Daily.
Screening Guidelines
When should mammogram screening start? A study finds healthier women tend to get tested earlier, complicating the debate over age guidelines. “Debates over when to recommend screening are missing a key point,” says professor of economics Amy Finkelstein.
Top Headlines
Explained: Why RNA vaccines for Covid-19 raced to the front of the pack
Many years of research have enabled scientists to quickly synthesize RNA vaccines and deliver them inside cells.
MIT Heat Island
3 Questions: Phillip Sharp on the discoveries that enabled RNA vaccines for Covid-19
Curiosity-driven basic science in the 1970s laid the groundwork for today’s leading vaccines against the novel coronavirus.
MIT Heat Island
Four astronauts with ties to MIT named to NASA’s Artemis team
Raja Chari SM ’01, Jasmin Moghbeli ’05, Warren “Woody” Hoburg ’08, and Kate Rubins are among those selected to be a part of NASA’s Artemis team, which will focus on returning humans to the moon.
MIT Heat Island
How to have productive conversations about race at work
Conversations about race and racism can be uncomfortable, but they’re necessary for an equitable and inclusive workplace.
New type of atomic clock keeps time even more precisely
The design, which uses entangled atoms, could help scientists detect dark matter and study gravity’s effect on time.
MIT Heat Island
#ThisisMIT
In the Media
Eight leading women in the field of AI // Forbes
Professor Daniela Rus, the deputy dean of research for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and director of CSAIL; graduate student Joy Buolamwini; and former postdoc Rana el Kaliouby are highlighted for their work shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
We already have the technology to decarbonize U.S. electricity // Gizmodo
An MIT study finds U.S. electricity demand could be met with currently available carbon-free technologies.
Ten new rules of design // Fast Company
Professor of the practice of community development Ceasar McDowell speaks about the importance of designing for communities and not individuals in order to help create a more equitable future.
China’s power is rising in an unstable world // Financial Times
A report by the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future emphasizes the “importance of education and investment in human resources and warns that in the absence of a strategy, jobs will be lost and divisions in society will widen.”
AI algorithms are slimming down to fit in your fridge // Wired
MIT researchers have developed a technique to squeeze an artificial intelligence vision algorithm onto a low-power computer chip that can run for months on a battery.
Watch This
Scratch, an MIT-developed coding platform for children, has had a major impact on computer science education since it first publicly launched in 2007. This year for Computer Science Education Week, the Scratch team, based at the MIT Media Lab, released a new “Scratcher Stories” video featuring young people who are making their voices heard and speaking out against racism. In it, four Scratchers share why they created projects about Black Lives Matter, and what they learned in the process.
Look Back
Robert T. Coles MArch ’55 was a highly respected architect who battled racial discrimination throughout his career, leading him to commit to “an architecture of social conscience” and making his profession “look more like the society it has to serve.” According to the MIT Black History project, “His continual goal was to create more humane, inspiring urban spaces. His buildings ranged from small, residential structures to major, public, developments. Some, including his home, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, and his MIT master’s thesis, the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center in Buffalo, have been described as gems of mid-century modern architecture. Other commissions ranged from transportation complexes, to schools, to municipal administration buildings.” Coles died at age 90 earlier this year.
Time to Bake
When campus went remote in the spring, sophomore (now junior) Michael Mandanas’s busy world was flipped upside-down. To stay connected, he began making a series of short videos. “Videos of me doing basically anything, from performing original choreography, to singing covers of songs, to making cooking tutorials. It’s only a small replacement for being onstage with the Musical Theatre Group or Ridonkulous, but it’s a chance to feel alive all the same,” he says. “For this video, I wanted to make the widely eaten and widely popular Filipino rice cake, puto. ... On days when you have time on your hands, maybe you might want to give them a try.”
This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by the cat wizard, here for finals once again. 😸

Have feedback to share? Email [email protected].

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

—MIT News Office
Forward This Email Subscribe