| Decarbonizing Manufacturing | | | | | | Visolis, founded by Deepak Dugar SM ’11, MBA ’13, PhD ’13, is merging synthetic biology with chemical catalysis to rethink manufacturing. It’s more sustainably making everything from cosmetics to jet fuel by tweaking the chemical processes involved in production. Full story via MIT News → |
| How Tau tangles form in the brain A study shows truncated versions of the Tau protein are more likely to form the sticky filaments seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Full story via MIT News → | |
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| Study finds ChatGPT boosts worker productivity for some writing tasks MIT researchers highlight the potential of generative AI to help workers with certain writing assignments. Full story via MIT News → | |
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| Addressing food insecurity in arid regions with an open-source evaporative cooling chamber design Less expensive than refrigerated cold rooms, this cooling chamber offers accessible cold storage for smallholder farmers. Full story via MIT News → | |
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| Astro Portraits: Pointing the lens toward our future Graduate student Evan Kramer’s latest foray into urban astrophotography puts the focus on his fellow researchers. Full story via MIT News → | |
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| Study of elite college admissions data suggests being very rich is its own qualification // The New York Times A study from Opportunity Insights examines the advantage wealthy applicants have in gaining admission to highly selective universities, and shows that at MIT they were no more likely to attend than the average applicant with the same test score. Stu Schmill, dean of admissions and student financial services, notes: “I think the most important thing here is talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not, and our admissions process is designed to account for the different opportunities students have based on their income.” Full story via The New York Times→ |
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| Climate change is making our oceans change color // CNN MIT researchers co-authored a study showing that the ocean’s color has changed considerably over the last 20 years and human-caused climate change is likely responsible. Full story via CNN→ |
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| Auntie Anh dreams big // The Moth Anh Vu Sawyer MBA ’20 speaks about what it was like for her to attend MIT Sloan as a 64-year-old student. “The experience of being at MIT showed who I really am,” says Sawyer. “That I can still dream. It opened many opportunities; it opened many doors.” Full story via The Moth → |
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| Opinion: The future of AI innovation and the role of academics in shaping it // The Boston Globe Professor Daniela Rus, director of MIT CSAIL, writes about the central role universities play in fostering innovation and the importance of ensuring universities have the computing resources necessary to help tackle major global challenges. Full story via The Boston Globe→ |
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| | | The MIT Daily newsletter debuted five years ago this week. Among the items we shared in the first few issues was the news that MIT roboticist Cynthia Breazeal had worked with designers at Mattel to ensure that Robotics Engineer Barbie (pictured) was both realistic and inspirational. Barbie has, in fact, been a STEM career role model for many decades; among other things, she’s been an astronaut a number of times, starting in 1965! |
| | | Solar Chariots, a new five-part web documentary on the American Solar Challenge, features the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team (SEVT) racing their hand-built solar car Nimbus in a cross-country course against formidable teams from colleges across the nation. In episode 2, Sydney Kim, rising senior and vice-captain of SEVT, comments that managing a team of 25 trying to power a solar car across the country is “a little more complex than anticipated.” We won’t spoil the ending but you can read about how the team fares on MIT News. Watch the video → |
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