| Minecraft at MIT | | | | | | MIT students, like their beaver mascot, are known for engineering skills, industrious habits, and creating amazing things late into the night. An ambitious project to replicate the Institute in Minecraft has provided a way to connect while away from campus. |
| Bluetooth signals from your smartphone could automate Covid-19 contact tracing while preserving privacy A system that enables smartphones to transmit “chirps” to nearby devices could notify people if they have been near an infected person. |  |
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| MIT offers assistance to the City of Cambridge during the Covid-19 crisis |
The Institute is supporting Cambridge’s nonprofits, small businesses, and residents. |  |
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| Researching from home: Science stays social, even at a distance Picower Institute researchers are advancing their work in many ways despite time away from the lab required to corral Covid-19. |  |
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| Learning about artificial intelligence: A hub of MIT resources for K-12 students |
A new website offers learning units, hands-on activities, and mentor guides to foster AI literacy. |  |
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| Professor Emeritus Ulrich Becker, who made major contributions to particle physics, dies at 81 The longtime MIT physicist and mentor created instruments that advanced high-energy physics, including the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the J particle. |  |
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| From MIT, a new shield against COVID virus // The Boston Globe |
MIT researchers have designed a new face shield that can be rapidly manufactured and delivered to hospitals. |
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| Scientists have turned the structure of the coronavirus into music // Science |
“The new format can help scientists find sites on the protein where antibodies or drugs might be able to bind — simply by searching for specific musical sequences that correspond to these sites.” |
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| More voting by mail would make the 2020 election safer for our health. But it comes with risks // The Washington Post “Many voters who might otherwise not have the opportunity will be happy to cast their ballots at home this November,” writes Professor Charles Stewart III. “But rushing to put it into place nationwide would surely bring some unpleasant and unintended consequences.” |
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| As the US struggles with a lack of coronavirus testing, researchers look to our sewage for clues // ABC News |
“Wastewater data may become more reliable than individual testing, especially if hospitals become overwhelmed," says Professor Eric Alm. “We hope to use this kind of data to stop outbreaks before they reach epidemic levels so we will never find ourselves again in a situation like we are in today.” |
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| | | MIT President L. Rafael Reif hosted a virtual MIT Town Hall featuring leaders from around the Institute, who addressed how MIT has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as what may be in store in the months ahead. |
 | | | | Without noticing, we slowly slip into the routines of our lives, like becoming so accustomed to living on a noisy street that we cannot remember our previous neighborhood and a time of silence. Some powerful force must strike to awaken us from our slumber. Now we have been struck. We have a chance to notice: We have been living too fast. | | —Alan Lightman, professor of the practice of humanities at MIT, in a new essay, “The Virus Is a Reminder of Something Lost Long Ago” |
| Verse | | | Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
—“Hope is the Thing With Feathers” by Emily Dickinson |
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