| Fixing Social Media | | | | | A new report from the MIT Sloan School of Management offers 25 solutions for social media’s growing flaws — such as spreading misinformation, and lacking competition and transparency. “We’re now at a crossroads between its promise and its peril,” says Professor Sinan Aral. |
| How cautious should we be now that Delta is here? MIT Medical provides the latest guidance on masking and other precautions for both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in light of the fast-spreading Delta variant. |  |
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| MIT alumni in the Olympics: A brief history At least 40 MIT alumni have qualified, participated, or served as an alternate at the Olympic Games, including three alumnae who are competing in Tokyo this month. |  |
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| Study highlights long road toward gender parity in the geosciences Researchers find improvement in relative retention of women but predict decades of sustained effort are required to achieve gender parity. |  |
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| Asegun Henry has a big idea for tackling climate change: Store up the sun “This is the key, the linchpin that will set a lot of things in the right direction,” says the mechanical engineering professor. |  |
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| Paul Lagacé, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, dies at 63 Lagacé, an expert on composite materials and structures, was passionate about MIT and the Boston Red Sox. |  |
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| What scientists have learned from hidden ripples in spacetime // Motherboard Nergis Mavalvala, professor of physics and dean of the MIT School of Science, discusses LIGO’s 2015 discovery of gravitational waves and what researchers in the field have learned since then. |
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| Opinion: The AI we should fear is already here // The Washington Post Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu makes the case that there should be oversight of how artificial intelligence is applied, arguing that current AI technologies are already having tangible impacts on the labor market, the criminal justice system, and democratic discourse and politics. |
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| MIT researchers involved with Blue Origin launch celebrate milestone // 7 News Ariel Ekblaw, founder and director of MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative, discusses the future of commercial spaceflight: “As the economy grows around space exploration,” she says, “it will become more accessible and prices will drop, and that will become a huge success for everyone involved.” |
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| AI is transforming the coding of computer programs // The Economist Graduate student Shashank Srikant discusses his work developing an artificial intelligence model that can detect computer bugs and vulnerabilities that have been maliciously inserted into code. |
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 | | | | To meet this moment, we need to ensure that our federally sponsored research addresses questions that will enhance our competitiveness now and in the future. ... Our current system has many strengths — top research universities, a thriving basic research enterprise, an entrepreneurial ethos, prospering venture capital — but we must not allow these historical advantages to blind us to gaps that could become fatal weaknesses. |
| | —President L. Rafael Reif, examining Vannevar Bush’s groundbreaking 1945 “Science, the Endless Frontier” report and considering how our needs today have changed |
| | | This week marked 52 years since Apollo 11 first landed on the moon. One of the women who helped make it happen was Elaine Denniston, a key punch operator in the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed Apollo’s guidance and control software before spinning off to become the independent Draper Lab. As a key puncher, Denniston input and sometimes edited the data she received from programmers on the project. “I would be reading [the code] and I’d go back and say, hmm, I think this should have had a period or it should have had a right paren or something,” she said in a 2019 podcast. After MIT, Denniston pursued a career in law, retiring in 2012. |
A recent episode of the Chalk Radio podcast from MIT OpenCourseWare features Ceasar McDowell, professor of the practice of community development and associate director of MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication. In his discussion with host Sarah Hansen, McDowell shares how he’s helping students design better, more equitable public conversations. “We have to learn to talk to each other,” he says. “Yes, this is hard work, and yes, you can do it.”
Listen to the episode → |
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