view in browser
MIT Logo
January 4, 2025
Greetings, and happy new year! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
 
Want a daily dose of MIT in your inbox? Subscribe to the MIT Daily.
2024 in Review
Text says “MIT 2024: Community” with photos of campus, students, and MIT community with maroon overlay.
         
With a new year upon us, let us take a moment to appreciate the many accomplishments and happenings across MIT during the past 12 months. Here are the Institute’s top research stories, community stories, and media mentions from 2024. 
    
Top Headlines
MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems unveils plans for the world’s first fusion power plant
The company has announced that it will build the first grid-scale fusion power plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
News thumbnail
MIT engineers grow “high-rise” 3D chips
An electronic stacking technique could exponentially increase the number of transistors on chips, enabling more efficient AI hardware.
News thumbnail
Lara Ozkan named 2025 Marshall Scholar
The MIT senior will pursue graduate studies in the UK at Cambridge University and Imperial College London.
News thumbnail
Surface-based sonar system could rapidly map the ocean floor at high resolution
A small fleet of autonomous surface vessels forms a large sonar array for finding submerged objects.
News thumbnail
Why open secrets are a big problem
Philosopher Sam Berstler diagnoses the corrosive effects of not acknowledging troubling truths.
News thumbnail
Celebrating the opening of the new Graduate Junction residence
MIT grad students and their families joined project and construction staff to mark the collaborative effort to plan and create MIT’s newest graduate residence.
News thumbnail
#ThisisMIT
Aerial view of MIT campus and Charles River in autumn. Text via @‌mit: It’s Tau time — the wait is over! Congratulations to our early-action admitted students. Welcome to MIT!
In the Media
Hate grocery shopping? Robots could soon do it for you // NBC Boston
Professor Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, discusses her work developing a new AI system aimed at making grocery shopping easier, more personalized, and more efficient.
A moving museum experience at MIT // The Boston Globe
The “Moving Objects” exhibit at the MIT Museum features around 50 items from the 1.5 million in the museum’s permanent collection.
The world’s largest space telescope just got an unexpected new role: asteroid hunter // National Geographic 
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), MIT astronomers spotted “small space rocks — including some just dozens of feet in length, the tiniest ever discovered in our solar system’s main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.”
This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by a year of trying new things. 🧺

Have feedback to share? Email mitdailyeditor@mit.edu.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

—MIT News
Forward This Email Subscribe