| Science and the Circus | | | | | | “My dad told me that if I got through MIT, I could do anything,” James Tanabe ’00, ’01 says. After studying physics and earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences (along with professional dance and stunt coordination), Tanabe pursued his ultimate dream: joining the circus. |
| See-through film rejects 70 percent of solar heat The material could be used to coat windows and save on air-conditioning costs. |  |
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| I think, therefore I code Senior Jessy Lin, a double major in EECS and philosophy, is programming for social good. |  |
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| Extending the life of low-cost, compact, lightweight batteries New design could greatly extend the shelf life of single-use metal-air batteries for electric vehicles, off-grid storage, and other applications. |  |
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| MIT history: Looking back at Project Athena A revolutionary educational project in the 1980s put the tools of computation in students’ hands — and foreshadowed even greater changes. |  |
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| Could nuclear power play a major role in reversing climate change? // Marketplace Professor Jacopo Buongiorno discusses a recent MIT Energy Initiative study on the future of nuclear energy. |
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| Don’t want to fall for fake news? Don’t be lazy // WIRED Associate Professor David Rand describes his research on how reasoning and critical thinking skills allow people to differentiate between real and fake news. |
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| Before envelopes, people protected messages with letterlocking // Atlas Obscura MIT Libraries conservator Jana Dambrogio is building a dictionary cataloging the historical practice of letterlocking. |
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| Designer cells, and a Breakthrough researcher // Nature Professor Angelika Amon discusses her reaction to winning a 2019 Breakthrough Prize and her research investigating the consequences of a cell having the wrong number of chromosomes. |
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| | | MIT Football has had a banner year, winning its conference championship and now heading to the Division III NCAA Tournament this Saturday. Head coach Brian Bubna believes sports can augment a student’s college experience. There is, he says, “a lot of stuff that you can learn on a football field about yourself that you can’t learn in a classroom.” |
| 45,000 | | Approximate number of people who have participated in MIT Admissions info sessions and tours this year, triple the number from a decade ago |
| | | Sunday marked the 88th birthday of late Institute Professor Emerita Mildred “Millie” Dresselhaus. Last fall, the MIT community celebrated her life with a daylong tribute to her remarkable accomplishments in materials science and engineering. The event itself is now memorialized on a new MIT offering, the open access publishing platform PubPub, which is a collaboration between the Media Lab and MIT Press. Remarks from the event, as well as poster summaries and personal remembrances, provide a lasting impression of Dresselhaus as an influential figure at MIT and around the world. |
This edition of the MIT Weekly is brought to you by a car like no other. 💾
Thank you for reading! In observance of the upcoming U.S. holiday, the MIT Weekly will return Dec. 1. Happy Thanksgiving to all! 🍂🥧
—Maia, MIT News Office |
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