Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
Halloween Treat
PhD student Ashley Kaiser recently grew millions of carbon nanotubes — each incredibly strong and only 1/10,000 the width of a human hair — and immersed them in a guiding liquid. Upon drying, the nanotube “forest” created a recognizable spooky pattern. 👻
With a love for the environment that took root on his family’s farm, senior Jesse Hinricher aims to put less expensive components into more efficient batteries.
Multitasking is bad, and you really shouldn’t do it // BuzzFeed
“When someone is on the phone with you, they have no idea what’s going on in front of you,” says Professor Earl Miller of the problems posed by multitasking while driving. “That’s just plain dangerous.”
MIT researchers have developed a technique to store information using lasers instead of electrons; the development could yield “a wave of new-generation data storage devices.”
Associate Professor Iyad Rahwan and colleagues conducted a global survey to determine how people felt about the ethical dilemmas presented by autonomous vehicles.
This week, BAMIT, the organization of black alumni of MIT, celebrates the 50-year history of the MIT Black Students’ Union. Today, “the number of black women in the freshman class is nearly equal to the number of all women in my class,” BSU co-founder Linda Sharpe ’69 says.
I am proud that we do not fear each other or the world. As one can see any day in the Infinite Corridor, our openness to talent from every faith, culture, nation and background is central to our success, and central to our humanity.
—MIT President L. Rafael Reif, in a letter to the community reaffirming the Institute’s stance on the rights and safety of all at MIT
Back in 2010, Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine PhD ’14 dazzled his fellow linguistics scholars with this impressive Stata-o’-lantern. It was created in the likeness of Building 32, MIT’s iconic Ray and Maria Stata Center, designed by architect Frank Gehry and home to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and more. 🎃
