Nobel Laureate | | | Economist William Nordhaus PhD ’67 won this year’s Nobel Prize in economic sciences for “integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis.” He shares the prize with Paul Romer, who also did graduate work at MIT. Full story via MIT News → |
A new path to solving a longstanding fusion challenge A novel design could help shed excess heat in next-generation nuclear fusion power plants. Full story via MIT News → | |
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Helping small science make big changes Farnaz Niroui is helping to usher in research at MIT.nano, with inspiration from Mildred Dresselhaus’ former office. Full story via Slice of MIT → | |
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Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air Taking a page from green plants, new polymer “grows” through a chemical reaction with carbon dioxide. Full story via MIT News → |
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Gaining confidence on a journey toward engineering The Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) program helped Catalina Romero understand that she wasn’t alone on her MIT journey. Full story via MIT News → | |
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MIT to start work on a “new front door” // The Boston Globe At a groundbreaking ceremony for 314 Main Street, MIT’s Steve Marsh explains that the Institute’s Kendall Square Initiative aims “to create an environment where people solve problems.” Full story via The Boston Globe → |
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‘Crowdlaw’ could save our democracy // The Washington Post An op-ed hails RiskMap, an open-source platform developed by researchers at MIT’s Urban Risk Lab, as a collective intelligence tool that can be used to improve governance. Full story via The Washington Post → |
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Making clothes that can communicate // BBC Click Professor Yoel Fink has developed a fabric embedded with light-emitting diodes that can detect lights from an oncoming vehicle and establish an “affirmative link between the car and pedestrian.” Full story via BBC Click → |
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Use big data to improve the big city, say scientists // Reuters Researchers at the MIT Senseable City Lab aim to use big data to improve public infrastructure and living spaces to “make the metropolis fit for future generations.” Full story via Reuters → |
| | Five students were recently challenged to live and work in a glass cube on MIT’s North Court for four days as part of InCube, a global startup competition. Tasked with reimagining the ambulance of the future, the students designed a solution they think can help paramedics more accurately identify patients who are in critical condition. “It was so much fun,” says junior Samuel Salomon. “I don’t think we would have had such a good experience if we weren’t living together in the cube. It was an intellectual campground.” Full story via MIT News → | | For “Cairo Stories,” Professor Judith Barry, director of the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, interviewed more than 200 women of varying social and economic classes in Cairo between 2003 and 2011. Working with actors to preserve the women’s privacy, the project resulted in a series of 11 diptychs (photos plus text) and four videos. Currently on view in New York City, the work addresses the importance of speaking one’s history. Online exhibit via the Mary Boone Gallery → | This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by free food, quantified. 🍪 Want a daily dose of MIT in your Inbox? Click “update preferences” below to receive the MIT Daily. (New subscribers can sign up here.) Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day! —Maia, MIT News Office |
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