Investigating all aspects of energy

In John's July Newsletter

Photo by Flickr user Changhua Coast Conservation Action.

Investigating all aspects of energy

Prosperity for a growing global population takes energyâ¦lots of it. Indeed, scholars have linked the progress of modern civilization to a 10,000 year sequence of energy innovations.

But now with mounting risks from human-caused climate change and other environmental degradations, the world faces an urgent need to transform its energy systems. And this rapid shift must happen while giving billions more people around the world fair access to their share of energy-based prosperity.

Seeking to understand and transform the worldâs energy systems, MIT researchers and students investigate all aspects of energy. They discover new ways of generating and storing energy, as in creating biofuels from plant waste and in holding electricity from renewable sources in cost-effective, high-capacity batteries.

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7.341 The Microbiome and Drug Delivery: Cross-species Communication in Health and Disease (Updated Course) There are more microbes permanently living in our gut than there are cells in the human body. This rich community of bacteria, fungi and viruses, called the microbiome, plays a central role in human health and disease. How can we analyze such a complex system? Can we exploit the microbiome to improve human health? Can interactions with microbes be harnessed for drug delivery? In this course, we will learn to critically assess the primary scientific literature to find answers to these questions and learn to distinguish between correlation and causality. We will learn how mechanistic insights and emerging tools, such as synthetic biology and microfluidics, together are transforming microbiome research, and might lead to new types of therapeutics and drug delivery for improving human health.

17.568 Comparative Politics and International Relations of the Middle East (Updated Course) This course surveys both classic and cutting-edge work on the politics of the Middle East, broadly defined. Topics include the causes and consequences of political and economic development, authoritarianism and democratization, the influence of social movements, the role of women in Middle Eastern politics, regional inter-state relations, Islamism, terrorism, colonialism and foreign occupation, state-building, resistance and rebellion, and the Arab uprisings.

What are you searching for?

Weâre excited to launch our upgraded Search tool for the OCW website. As always, the search bar is in the upper right corner of the top menu. But there are many improvements under the hood.

For instance, start typing and youâll now see âautocompleteâ suggestions. If you like one of them, click it to go straight to the result.

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