Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
Enhanced Vigilance
MIT neuroscientists have found a brain circuit that may alert us to potential threats. Dopamine is key to the process: Released in the prefrontal cortex when danger is perceived, it then primes another area of the brain for enhanced vigilance. When off-balance, the circuit may trigger anxious or paranoid behavior.
Researchers created an “AI physicist” // Motherboard
MIT researchers developed an artificial intelligence system that can generate theories about physical laws of imaginary universes. The system could be used to study massively complex datasets.
Tips for female MBA grads seeking mentors // Financial Times
“One of the greatest things women can do to support each other is to become mentors and bring up the women behind them,” writes Maura Herson, assistant dean of the MIT Sloan MBA Program.
MIT Professor Angelika Amon was among the researchers celebrated in rock-star fashion Sunday at this year’s Breakthrough Prize ceremony. Amon (above, left) shared a life science prize for her work on chromosomes. Charles Kane PhD ’89 (above, center) and Eugene Mele PhD ’78 (above, right) won in the physics category, while MIT’s Lisa Barsotti, Matthew Evans, and Daniel Harlow took home New Horizons in Physics Prizes and Chenyang Xu won a New Horizons in Mathematics Prize. Other MIT community members in attendance included Professor Alan Guth and science vlogger Dianna Cowern ’11.
Twice a year, the setting sun lines up with MIT’s Infinite Corridor so that sunlight beams through the windows of Building 7 and illuminates the corridor all the way to Building 8. It’s a phenomenon known as “MIThenge,” and it’s slated to happen again (weather permitting) over the next few days. Dan Falk, former fellow in the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, created this video in 2011 to explain the ’Tute’s unique celestial phenomenon.
