| Making Waves | | | | | | A new, low-cost device developed at MIT generates high-power terahertz waves and can be packed onto a semiconductor chip. Arrays of these chips could enable more efficient, sensitive electronics for applications like security scanning or environmental monitoring. |
| High-speed videos show what happens when a droplet splashes into a pool The findings may help predict how rain and irrigation systems launch particles and pathogens from watery surfaces, with implications for industry, agriculture, and public health. |  |
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| Unlocking the secrets of fusion’s core with AI-enhanced simulations Fusion’s future depends on decoding plasma’s mysteries. Simulations can help keep research on track and reveal more efficient ways to generate fusion energy. |  |
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| MIT biologists discover a new type of control over RNA splicing They identified proteins that influence splicing of about half of all human introns, allowing for more complex types of gene regulation. |  |
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| What business needs to know about carbon border adjustments Professor Catherine Wolfram explains how the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism aims to level the playing field among trading partners. |  |
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| Cynthia Barnhart to step down as provost An alumna and longtime faculty member, Barnhart helped lead the Institute for the last decade, serving as both chancellor and provost. |  |
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| MIT community members elected to the National Academy of Engineering for 2025 Eight researchers, along with 13 additional alumni, are honored for significant contributions to engineering research, practice, and education. |  |
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| Opinion: Trump’s cuts threaten US lead in science and technology // The Boston Globe President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif highlights the fundamental contributions made by universities across the U.S. “Since World War II, the ideas born in university research laboratories have helped to make America great,” writes Reif. |
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| The world’s most wonderful places of worship: readers’ choices // Financial Times The nondenominational MIT Chapel was named by Financial Times readers as one of the best places of worship in the world. “The Eero Saarinen-designed chapel at MIT is otherworldly,” they write. |
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| Why large cars are a public health hazard, according to one expert // WBUR David Zipper, a senior fellow at the Mobility Initiative, discusses “car bloat,” the trend of increasingly large SUVs and trucks on the road. |
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| Quantum-computing technology that makes qubits from atoms wins mega investment // Nature QuEra, an MIT spinout that uses atoms and lasers to encode quantum bits or “qubits,” has developed a system that allows physicists to “trap an array of rubidium atoms using laser light and store quantum information in the energy levels of their electrons.” |
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| | | Sometimes a bird’s-eye view brings new perspective. Enjoy this recent photo of the MIT Dome on a winter’s day by Emily Dahl. |
| | | The late Woodie Flowers helped change the way engineering students are educated at MIT and beyond. He “revealed, unambiguously, that designing, fabricating, assembling, and building things was fun,” Professor Emeritus David Gossard says. “It was arguably the essence of engineering. There was joy in it.” |
| Ask MIT | | | Question: How do we know how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere hundreds of years ago? Answer, via the MIT Climate Portal: Scientists can use pockets of air found in ice cores, tubes of ice extracted from drilling ice sheets, to determine the concentration of gases like CO2 and understand what the atmosphere was like long ago. Samples from these ice cores also indicate that CO2 levels have risen swiftly since the early 1800s, just as humans began burning large amounts of carbon-rice fossil fuels. David McGee, an associate professor in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and guest expert on “ Ask MIT Climate,” and his team have been able “to understand how carbon dioxide levels have changed through time, and how those changes have been related to changes in global temperature.” |
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