| Taming Chronic Pain | | | | | “Chronic pain is a major societal issue,” says Professor Fan Wang. “As scientists, it’s our duty to tackle this problem.” Her studies of how the brain controls pain may one day lead to new treatments that could help millions of people. |
| New power sources Thirty-six million people in the U.S. use an energy system developed by a handful of activists in the 1990s. An MIT scholar examines this unusual story. |  |
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| MIT community members elected to the National Academy of Engineering for 2022 John Cohn and Franz-Josef Ulm, along with 19 additional MIT alumni, are honored for significant contributions to engineering research, practice, and education. |  |
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| New solar-powered system offers a route to inexpensive desalination The passive solar evaporation system could be used to clean wastewater, provide potable water, or sterilize medical tools in off-grid areas. |  |
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| Can machine-learning models overcome biased datasets? A model’s ability to generalize is influenced by both the diversity of the data and the way the model is trained, researchers report. |  |
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| Six arguments for carbon taxes Long touted by economists, carbon taxes are transparent, enforceable, and adjustable. MIT Sloan professor of finance Deborah Lucas explains her support. |  |
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| Martin Schmidt reflects on his time as provost // The Tech Provost Martin Schmidt discusses his proudest accomplishments as MIT’s senior academic officer, what he will miss most about MIT, and the importance of integrating ethics into engineering education. |
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| Work inspired by the Gardner Museum, a children’s book set in a garden, and word of a new book series from MIT // The Boston Globe MIT Press and Brown University Library announced a new book series called “On Seeing” that will be “‘committed to centering underrepresented perspectives in visual culture,’ exploring places where visual culture intersects with questions of race, care, decolonization, privilege, and precarity.” |
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| The weather on this exoplanet includes metal clouds and rain made of precious gems // CNN MIT researchers have observed the dark side of an exoplanet that is 855 light-years from Earth and found that the gas giant may have metal clouds and rain containing liquid gems. |
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| Justice Department drops China spy initiative as past target speaks out // CBS News Professor Gang Chen speaks about his ordeal following charges he faced — all now dismissed — under the “China Initiative.” Describing the accusations against Chen as “a massive jolt,” President L. Rafael Reif said, “I felt it was an attack on all Chinese Americans in America, particularly in academia.” |
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| | | Professor Hugh Herr, an MIT Media Lab biophysicist working to create brain-controlled robotic limbs, is profiled in “Augmented,” a new NOVA documentary. At age 17, Herr’s legs were amputated after a climbing accident. Frustrated by the crude prosthetic limbs he was given, he set out to remedy their design, leading to a career as an inventor of innovative prosthetic devices. Now, Herr is teaming with an injured climber and a surgeon to test a new amputation approach that allows prosthetic limbs to move and feel like the real thing. |
| 5 | | The number of different entrepreneurial personas, according to the Martin Trust Center’s Bill Aulet. Are you a curious entrepreneur, a ready-to-go entrepreneur, a joiner, an amplifier, or a corporate entrepreneur? |
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