| Meeting the Moment | | | | | The 2021 Venice Biennale, curated by Hashim Sarkis, dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, asks how we can best live together in a time of uncertainty and crisis. “Every generation asks this question, and every generation deserves to come up with its unique answers,” he says. |
| SMART researchers develop a method for rapid, accurate virus detection Four times faster than conventional PCR methods, new RADICA approach is highly specific, sensitive, and resistant to inhibitors. |  |
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| Physicists observationally confirm Hawking’s black hole theorem for the first time A new study offers evidence, based on gravitational waves, showing that the total area of a black hole’s event horizon can never decrease. |  |
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| Designing exploratory robots that collect data for marine scientists “This is a really exciting time to be a roboticist who also cares about the environment,” says PhD student Victoria Preston. |  |
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| Engineered yeast could expand biofuels’ reach |
By making the microbes more tolerant to toxic byproducts, researchers show they can use a wider range of feedstocks, beyond corn. |  |
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| The woman who brought us the world Virginia Tower Norwood ’47 invented the first multispectral scanner to image Earth from space. Landsat 1 and its successors have been scanning the planet ever since. |  |
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| Meet some of the world’s most influential women engineers // Forbes Professor Dina Katabi, Institute Professor Barbara Liskov, Professor Dava Newman, Professor Daniela Rus, and a number of MIT alumnae and MIT Corporation members have been named to the Academic Influence list of 35 highly influential engineers who are women. |
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| It’s a quirky, historic hobby for the bellringers still pulling the ropes at Old North Church // WBUR Every weekend, members of the MIT Guild of Bellringers bring to life the bells at Boston’s Old North Church. Group leader John Bihn notes: “It is really exciting thinking that I’m ringing the same bells that nearly 300 years ago Paul Revere was ringing.” |
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| The down-to-Earth applications of space // Bloomberg TV Assistant Professor Danielle Wood, who was recently named to Bloomberg’s list of catalysts who are inspiring new ideas, discusses her work focused on using space technologies as a way to advance the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. |
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| A robot that finds your lost stuff // The Wall Street Journal MIT researchers have developed a robot that can help locate hidden items using AI and wireless technologies. “In the future, this home helper could ... retrieve a specific wrench or screwdriver from a toolbox and assist a human in assembling a piece of furniture.” |
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| | | As we enter the heart of summer, many of us will find ourselves with added time for relaxation and deep reading. MIT News has compiled a selection of recent titles from Institute faculty and staff. Happy reading! |
| | | MIT recently held an Institute-wide athletic competition — the first-ever MIT Dorm Olympics. Following January’s COVID Hack, during which students brainstormed ideas for improving the spring semester in pandemic times, a group of undergraduates were inspired to put their Covid-safe spin on field day and show some dorm pride in the process. What resulted was a spectacular day of relay races, bean-bag tosses, tug of war, ring tosses, and more. |
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