| Nobel Laureate | | | | | | David Julius ’77 has won a share of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Julius, a physiology professor at the University of California at San Francisco, shares the prize with neuroscientist Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries regarding how the body senses touch and temperature. |
| Mathematicians solve an old geometry problem on equiangular lines How many lines can be pairwise separated by the same angle in high dimensions? A geometry breakthrough gives new insights into spectral graph theory. |  |
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| MIT Welcome Center opens in Kendall Square The new center provides information and services to MIT visitors, while the adjacent open space offers community-building events and activities. |  |
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| A voice for Native voices Leah Lemm ’04 produces radio segments and podcasts that examine media portrayals of Native people. |  |
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| Rover images confirm Jezero crater is an ancient Martian lake |
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The findings include signs of flash flooding that carried huge boulders downstream into the lakebed. |  |
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| Maria Zuber testifies before Congress on striking a balance between research security and openness “U.S. competitiveness depends less on defensive measures than on what we do to strengthen our own capacities,” says MIT’s vice president for research. |  |
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| Can nuclear fusion put the brakes on climate change? // The New Yorker Researchers at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) discuss the history of fusion research and the recent test of their large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet. “I feel we proved the science. I feel we can make a difference,” says Joy Dunn ’08, head of manufacturing at CFS. |
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| Opinion: Manipulating viruses and risking pandemics is too dangerous. It’s time to stop. // The Washington Post “Natural pandemics may be inevitable. Synthetic ones, constructed with full knowledge of society’s vulnerabilities, are not,” writes Assistant Professor Kevin Esvelt. “Let’s not learn to make pandemics until we can reliably defend against them.” |
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| Breakthrough in amputation narrows gap between human and machine // Financial Times An amputation technique being developed by MIT researchers provides patients with more sensory feedback from prosthetic limbs. “The technique could transform the way that amputation has long been viewed: not as a last-resort method that subtracts from the body but an act of rejuvenation with the potential to restore a sense of completeness.” |
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| A journey from the horse-and-buggy to outer space // The Boston Globe MIT Haystack Observatory honored the work of Herbert Weiss, a trailblazing engineer and former researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratory who helped establish Haystack, which operates a radio telescope whose work “is the stuff of scientific legend.” Colin Lonsdale, director of Haystack, says of Weiss, “This place wouldn’t exist if he had not had the leadership and the vision and the drive to make it happen.” |
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| | | Today (10/9) is National Nanotechnology Day, the day we celebrate the world at the scale of one nanometer, 10^-9 or one billionth of a meter. This year, you’re invited to step virtually inside MIT.nano, the Institute’s state-of-the-art nanoscience and nanotechnology facility. In this video, you can follow along as Jorg Scholvin, assistant director of user services at FAB.nano, fabricates an image of MIT students onto a silicon wafer coated with a layer of aluminum just 50 nanometers thick. You’ll visit MIT.nano’s cleanroom, discover the importance of bunny suits and amber lighting, and learn some of the techniques and methods used to build the chips, sensors, and other technologies that power our world. |
| 1,000 | | Number of career wins achieved by MIT Women’s Volleyball Coach Paul Dill. The team, ranked No. 18 in the nation, recently improved to 17-0 for the season. |
| | | If you’re ever in need of a replacement heart valve, Ellen Roche has you covered. An associate professor at MIT’s Institute of Medical Engineering and Science and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Roche is devoted to teaching the next generation of medical engineers and inventors. She’s also a professor at Harvard Medical School, and part of a team of instructors teaching 2.75 (Medical Device Design). Last spring, she her colleagues led senior undergraduate and graduate students in bringing their projects to fruition despite being remote. |
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