August 18, 2018
Greetings! Here’s the latest from the MIT community.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Summer Tune-up
Since 1962, mid-career engineers, biologists, chemists, microbiologists, and biochemists have flocked from afar to take “Fermentation Technology,” the longest-running course from MIT Professional Education. “Sometimes,” says professor of chemical engineering Kristala Prather (pictured), students from the five-day course “teach me things that I can then offer to our own students.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Top Headlines
MIT mathematicians solve age-old spaghetti mystery
It’s nearly impossible to break a dry spaghetti noodle into only two pieces. A new study shows how and why it can be done.
NASA student competitors honored for persistence
MIT welcomes a team of high school students that had been targeted by racist and misogynistic members of an infamous online forum.
Shaping technology’s future
With data-informed models, Jessika Trancik seeks ways to coax progress toward sustainable energy systems.
What Paris shows us about the history of photography
MIT professor’s book develops a new narrative about photography and the ways we use it, from the place where it all began.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
#ThisIsMIT
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In the Media
Can conspiracy theories be stopped? // Pacific Standard
Prof. Adam Berinsky discusses his research examining how information sources impact voters.
Unexpected effects of climate change: worse food safety, more car wrecks // CNN
Researchers from MIT and Harvard studied how climate change could affect food inspections, traffic accidents, and police stops.
Researchers identify a brain region connected to pessimism // The Boston Globe
A study that identifies the area of the brain responsible for negative thinking could “help scientists better understand how some of the effects of depression and anxiety arise, and guide development of new treatments.”
Seals’ whiskers provide a model for the latest submarine detectors // The Economist
Prof. Michael Triantafyllou’s study of how seals use their whiskers to detect their surroundings could offer a model for developing underwater sensors.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Digit
96
That’s the number of countries from which MIT hosted international scholars during the 2016-2017 academic year.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“
The only way we can protect what we love is by actively pursuing a stable, just, and sustainable world. Every action has a consequence. Every inaction perhaps even more so.
—Paul Michelman, editor in chief of the MIT Sloan Management Review, in his column, “The High Cost of the Actions We Don't Take”
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