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March 1, 2025
Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
 
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A Lifetime of Learning
Sidney Diamond stands outside
      
Now 99 years old, Sidney Diamond came out of retirement to join the Sinha Lab and study how the brain processes sensory signals. “You have the responsibility to learn as much as you can about the things that interest you,” he says.
Top Headlines
Fiber computer allows apparel to run apps and “understand” the wearer
MIT researchers developed a fiber computer and networked several of them into a garment that learns to identify physical activities.
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MIT engineers prepare to send three payloads to the moon
Data from the devices will help future astronauts navigate the moon’s south polar region and search for frozen water.
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How to use generative AI to augment your workforce
Artificial intelligence can be useful in the workplace, but humans have to first define what success looks like, says Professor Danielle Li.
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Reducing carbon emissions from residential heating: A pathway forward
A new MIT study identifies steps that can lower not only emissions, but also costs, across the combined electric power and natural gas industries that now supply heating fuels.
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Turning a seaweed crisis into an energy opportunity
Legena Henry SM ’10 is the CEO of Rum and Sargassum, a startup that converts invasive seaweed into renewable natural gas to fuel cars.
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The mix-in revolution
How an ice cream innovator influenced computing pioneers at MIT — and made a lasting mark on programming.
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#ThisisMIT
Four members of MIT’s Figure Skating team skate on ice frozen over on Killian Court while three of them hold up another member. Text via @‌mit.figureskating: When your campus freezes over…of course you skate on it! We had a blast taking advantage of the cold weather this week
In the Media
These leading ladies are providing women with shelter and dedicating research to endometriosis // Chronicle 
Professor Linda Griffith, “a forerunner in the field of biological engineering,” discusses her research investigating endometriosis and breaking the stigma around menstruation.
Autonomous navigation for drones // Tech Briefs
Graduate research assistants Maisy Lam and Laura Dodds discuss their work developing MiFly, a new approach that “enables a drone to self-localize, or determine its position, in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments.”
The Sloan Foundation announces 126 research fellows for 2025 // Forbes
Seven MIT faculty members — Ariel Furst, Marzyeh Ghassemi, Mohsen Ghaffari, Darcy McRose, Sarah Millholland, Emil Verner, and Christian Wolf — along with 21 additional MIT alumni have been awarded 2025 Sloan Research Fellowships for “being among the most promising scientific researchers currently working in their fields.” 
“There’s going to be a lot of science” at 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale // Dezeen
Professor of the practice Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, explores how this year’s event will be a “science-heavy edition of the festival examining the changing role of architecture at a time of environmental instability.”
Listen
“Curiosity Unbounded” logo, which includes those words on a white circle that is effusing particles at the top
In the latest episode of the Curiosity Unbounded podcast, MIT President Sally Kornbluth asks Associate Professor Brent Minchew to describe how he went from being a 17-year-old U.S. Marine to an MIT geophysicist studying glaciers and their impact on ocean levels. The two also discuss his current work on glacier-related sea-level rise and potential mitigation solutions.
Listen to the full episode
“
The process of collaborating, disagreeing, building with others who are different — this is the key to growth and development.
—Michael Ewing, second-year undergraduate in mechanical engineering, at the 51st annual MLK Celebration Luncheon
Watch This
Elaine Chew smiles, with a grand piano and some data on a screen behind her.
What can signals from the human body reveal about the power of music to move people? Elaine Chew SM ’98, PhD ’00, a concert pianist and professor of engineering at King’s College London, seeks to understand how people react to music by developing methods to analyze music and its physiological impacts. Inspired by the irregular heartbeat patterns of arrythmia, Chew began her research by creating music to those beats. This work led to a new way of understanding heart rhythms, as Chew began to colloborate with doctors to investigate music’s impacts on heart health. Chew, who is “very grateful to be given the chance to do this work,” hopes this research could be used in music-based therapies and diagnostics for cardiovascular diseases.
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