The Digital Insider | Category: Technology

At MIT, Clare Grey stresses battery development to electrify the planet

“How do we produce batteries at the cost that is suitable for mass adoption globally, and how do you do this to electrify the planet?” Clare Grey asked an audience of over 450 combined in-person and virtual attendees at the sixth annual Dresselhaus Lecture, organized by MIT.nano on Nov. 18. “The biggest challenge is, how do you make batteries to allow more renewables on the grid.”

These questions emphasized one of Grey’s key messages in her presentation: The future of batteries aligns with global climate efforts. She addressed sustainability issues with lithium mining and stressed the importance of increasing the variety of minerals that can be used in batteries. But the talk primarily focused on advanced imaging techniques to produce insights into the behaviors of materials that will guide the development of new technology. “We need to come up with new chemistries and new materials that are both more sustainable and safer,” she said, as well as think about other issues like secondhand use, which requires batteries to be made to last longer.

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Dresselhaus Lecture 2024
Video: MIT.nano

Better understanding will produce better batteries

“Batteries have really transformed the way we live,” Grey said. “In order to improve batteries, we need to understand how they work, we need to understand how they operate, and we need to understand how they degrade.”

Grey, a Royal Society Research Professor and the Geoffrey Moorhouse-Gibson Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge University, introduced new optical methods for studying batteries while they are operating, visualizing reactions down to the nanoscale. “It is much easier to study an operating device in-situ,” she said. “When you take batteries apart, sometimes there are processes that don’t survive disassembling.”

Grey presented work coming out of her research group that uses in-situ metrologies to better understand different dynamics and transformational phenomena of various materials. For example, in-situ nuclear magnetic resonance can identify issues with wrapping lithium with silicon (it does not form a passivating layer) and demonstrate why anodes cannot be replaced with sodium (it is the wrong size molecule). Grey discussed the value of being able to use in-situ metrology to look at higher energy density materials that are more sustainable such as lithium sulfur or lithium air batteries.

The lecture connected local structure to mechanisms and how materials intercalate. Grey spoke about using interferometric scattering (iSCAT) microscopy, typically used by biologists, to follow how ions are pulled in and out of materials. Sharing iSCAT images of graphite, she gave a shout out to the late Institute Professor and lecture namesake Mildred Dresselhaus when discussing nucleation, the process by which atoms come together to form new structures that is important for considering new, more sustainable materials for batteries.

“Millie, in her solid-state physics class for undergrads, nicely explained what’s going on here,” Grey explained. “There is a dramatic change in the conductivity as you go from diluted state to the dense state. The conductivity goes up. With this information, you can explore nucleation.”

Designing for the future

“How do we design for fast charging?” Grey asked, discussing gradient spectroscopy to visualize different materials. “We need to find a material that operates at a high enough voltage to avoid lithium plating and has high lithium mobility.”

“To return to the theme of graphite and Millie Dresselhaus,” said Grey, “I’ve been trying to really understand what is the nature of the passivating layer that grows on both graphite and lithium metal. Can we enhance this layer?” In the question-and-answer session that followed, Grey spoke about the pros and cons of incorporating nitrogen in the anode.

After the lecture, Grey was joined by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics in the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering, for a fireside chat. The conversation touched on political and academic attitudes toward climate change in the United Kingdom, and audience members applauded Grey’s development of imaging methods that allow researchers to look at the temperature dependent response of battery materials.

This was the sixth Dresselhaus Lecture, named in honor of MIT Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus, known to many as the “Queen of Carbon Science.” “It’s truly wonderful to be here to celebrate the life and the science of Millie Dresselhaus,” said Grey. “She was a very strong advocate for women in science. I’m honored to be here to give a lecture in honor of her.”

High school teams compete at 2024 MIT Science Bowl Invitational

A quiet intensity held the room on edge as the clock ticked down in the final moments of the 2024 MIT Science Bowl Invitational. Montgomery Blair High School clung to a razor-thin lead over Mission San Jose High School — 70 to 60 — with just two minutes remaining.

Mission San Jose faced a pivotal bonus opportunity that could tie the score. The moderator’s steady voice filled the room as he read the question. Mission San Jose’s team of four huddled together, pencils moving quickly across their white scratch paper. Across the stage, Montgomery Blair’s players sat still, their eyes darting between the scoreboard and the opposing team attempting to close the gap.

Mission San Jose team captain Advaith Mopuri called out their final answer.

“Incorrect,” the moderator announced.

Montgomery Blair’s team collectively exhaled, the tension breaking as they sealed their championship victory, but the gravity of those final moments when everything was on the line lingered — a testament to just how close the competition had been. Their showdown in the final round was a fitting culmination of the event, showcasing the mental agility and teamwork honed through months of practice.

“That final round was so tense. It came down to the final question,” says Jonathan Huang, a senior undergraduate at MIT and the co-president of the MIT Science Bowl Club. “It’s rare for it to come down to the very last question, so that was really exciting.”

A tournament of science and strategy

Now in its sixth year at the high school level, the MIT Science Bowl Invitational welcomed 48 teams from across the country this year for a full day of competition. The buzzer-style tournament challenged students on topics that spanned disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and physics. The rapid pace and diverse subject matter demanded a combination of deep knowledge, quick reflexes, and strategic teamwork.

Montgomery Blair’s hard-fought victory marked the culmination of months of preparation. “It was so exciting,” says Katherine Wang, Montgomery Blair senior and Science Bowl team member. “I can’t even describe it. You never think anything like that would happen to you.”

The volunteers who make it happen

Behind the scenes, the invitational is powered by a team of more than 120 dedicated volunteers, many of them current MIT students. From moderating matches to coordinating logistics, these volunteers form the backbone of the invitational.

Preparation for the competition starts months in advance. “By the time summer started, we already had to figure out who was going to be the head writers for each subject,” Huang says. “Every week over the summer, volunteers spent their own time to start writing up questions.”

“Every single question you hear today was written by a volunteer,” said Paolo Adajar, an MIT graduate student who served in roles like questions judge this year and is a former president of the MIT Science Bowl Club. Adajar, who competed in the National Science Bowl as a high school student, has been involved in the MIT Invitational since it began in 2019. “There’s just something so fun about the games and just watching people be excited to get a question right.”

For many volunteers, the event is a chance to reconnect with a shared community. “It’s so nice to get together with the community every year,” says Emily Liu, a master’s student in computer science at MIT and a veteran volunteer. “And I’m always pleasantly surprised to see how much I remember.”

Looking ahead

For competitors, the invitational offers more than just a chance to win. It’s an opportunity to connect with peers who share their passion for science, to experience the energy of MIT’s campus, and to sharpen skills they’ll carry into future endeavors.

As the crowd dispersed and the auditorium emptied, the spirit of the competition remained — a testament to the dedication, curiosity, and camaraderie that define the MIT Science Bowl Invitational.

Remembering Mike Walter: “We loved him, and he loved us”

Michael “Mike” Walter, MIT Health applications support generalist, passed away on Nov. 2 at age 46 after a battle with cancer.

At home, Walter was a husband and devoted father to his two adolescent sons. But for 22 years, he was everyone’s friend and the smiling face at MIT Health who never failed to solve individual computer problems, no matter how large or small.

Walter came to MIT as an office assistant in MIT Health’s Medical Records department in 2002. He eventually transferred to MIT Health’s Technology Services team, where he worked from 2009 until his passing. Information Systems Manager David Forristall, who had previously worked in medical records, still remembers when “this young guy came to work for his first day.”

“When he first got to Medical Records, he thought it was only going to be a pit stop — that he was only going to be here for like two weeks,” says Walter’s colleague, Technical Support Specialist Michael Miller. “Then, 20 years later…”

“You don’t often, other than a family member, watch someone grow through their life,” says Forristall. “So for him to come to MIT as a young man at the start of his career, to a full-blown career with a wife and children. He basically came here as a boy, and we watched him turn into a man.”

Walter’s colleagues were always struck by how positive he was. “He never complained about help desk tickets. All of us looked to him for that,” remembers Medical Records Manager Tom Goodwin. “When I found myself getting a little annoyed, I would just look to Mike and think, he doesn’t do that.”

Without fail, Walter would drop everything to help his MIT Health colleagues. “He would go out on a call, and people would just keep stopping him,” remembers Senior Programmer Analyst Terry McNatt. “They would see him around the building, and they knew he would help them. He wouldn’t come back for two hours!”

The needs of MIT patients were just as important to Walter. At the annual flu clinics, Walter would, without fail, volunteer for the full day. Oftentimes people could find him serving as a go-fer; he would deliver vaccines, Band-Aids, and whatever other supplies were needed to help the vaccinators be as efficient as possible.

According to his colleagues, Walter’s dedication to the MIT community is best explained by the day he learned of his cancer diagnosis. A major snowstorm was approaching, and Walter was diligently working to get laptop computers set up so employees could work remotely for multiple days if needed. All the while, he felt awful. Eventually he went to Urgent Care to be seen.

“Urgent Care was telling him, ‘You need to go to Mount Auburn hospital right now,’” recalls Forristall. “But Mike didn’t want to go.” He refused to leave until all the laptops were properly set up so his colleagues could continue to care for patients despite the impending MIT snow closure. He only left after he grudgingly agreed to have his peers cover for him.

Walter was also a Patriots superfan, and deep lover of sports. He had multiple footballs at his desk at all times, and for years he would gather his colleagues for “coffee-break” walks around campus where they would all walk and toss a football back and forth. Anyone who passed by was invited to Walter’s game of catch — students, construction workers, staff, and faculty alike were welcome.

“Mike was always happy and he shared that with everyone,” says Forristall. “He made you happy when you saw him. We loved him and he loved us.”

Mike Walter is survived by his wife Cindy (Cucinotta), his sons Ben and Leo, and many extended family members and friends. See his legacy page here.

A new computational model can predict antibody structures more accurately

By adapting artificial intelligence models known as large language models, researchers have made great progress in their ability to predict a protein’s structure from its sequence. However, this approach hasn’t been as successful for antibodies, in part because of the hypervariability seen in this type of protein.

To overcome that limitation, MIT researchers have developed a computational technique that allows large language models to predict antibody structures more accurately. Their work could enable researchers to sift through millions of possible antibodies to identify those that could be used to treat SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious diseases.

“Our method allows us to scale, whereas others do not, to the point where we can actually find a few needles in the haystack,” says Bonnie Berger, the Simons Professor of Mathematics, the head of the Computation and Biology group in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and one of the senior authors of the new study. “If we could help to stop drug companies from going into clinical trials with the wrong thing, it would really save a lot of money.”

The technique, which focuses on modeling the hypervariable regions of antibodies, also holds potential for analyzing entire antibody repertoires from individual people. This could be useful for studying the immune response of people who are super responders to diseases such as HIV, to help figure out why their antibodies fend off the virus so effectively.

Bryan Bryson, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT and a member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, is also a senior author of the paper, which appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Rohit Singh, a former CSAIL research scientist who is now an assistant professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics and cell biology at Duke University, and Chiho Im ’22 are the lead authors of the paper. Researchers from Sanofi and ETH Zurich also contributed to the research.

Modeling hypervariability

Proteins consist of long chains of amino acids, which can fold into an enormous number of possible structures. In recent years, predicting these structures has become much easier to do, using artificial intelligence programs such as AlphaFold. Many of these programs, such as ESMFold and OmegaFold, are based on large language models, which were originally developed to analyze vast amounts of text, allowing them to learn to predict the next word in a sequence. This same approach can work for protein sequences — by learning which protein structures are most likely to be formed from different patterns of amino acids.

However, this technique doesn’t always work on antibodies, especially on a segment of the antibody known as the hypervariable region. Antibodies usually have a Y-shaped structure, and these hypervariable regions are located in the tips of the Y, where they detect and bind to foreign proteins, also known as antigens. The bottom part of the Y provides structural support and helps antibodies to interact with immune cells.

Hypervariable regions vary in length but usually contain fewer than 40 amino acids. It has been estimated that the human immune system can produce up to 1 quintillion different antibodies by changing the sequence of these amino acids, helping to ensure that the body can respond to a huge variety of potential antigens. Those sequences aren’t evolutionarily constrained the same way that other protein sequences are, so it’s difficult for large language models to learn to predict their structures accurately.

“Part of the reason why language models can predict protein structure well is that evolution constrains these sequences in ways in which the model can decipher what those constraints would have meant,” Singh says. “It’s similar to learning the rules of grammar by looking at the context of words in a sentence, allowing you to figure out what it means.”

To model those hypervariable regions, the researchers created two modules that build on existing protein language models. One of these modules was trained on hypervariable sequences from about 3,000 antibody structures found in the Protein Data Bank (PDB), allowing it to learn which sequences tend to generate similar structures. The other module was trained on data that correlates about 3,700 antibody sequences to how strongly they bind three different antigens.

The resulting computational model, known as AbMap, can predict antibody structures and binding strength based on their amino acid sequences. To demonstrate the usefulness of this model, the researchers used it to predict antibody structures that would strongly neutralize the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The researchers started with a set of antibodies that had been predicted to bind to this target, then generated millions of variants by changing the hypervariable regions. Their model was able to identify antibody structures that would be the most successful, much more accurately than traditional protein-structure models based on large language models.

Then, the researchers took the additional step of clustering the antibodies into groups that had similar structures. They chose antibodies from each of these clusters to test experimentally, working with researchers at Sanofi. Those experiments found that 82 percent of these antibodies had better binding strength than the original antibodies that went into the model.

Identifying a variety of good candidates early in the development process could help drug companies avoid spending a lot of money on testing candidates that end up failing later on, the researchers say.

“They don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket,” Singh says. “They don’t want to say, I’m going to take this one antibody and take it through preclinical trials, and then it turns out to be toxic. They would rather have a set of good possibilities and move all of them through, so that they have some choices if one goes wrong.”

Comparing antibodies

Using this technique, researchers could also try to answer some longstanding questions about why different people respond to infection differently. For example, why do some people develop much more severe forms of Covid, and why do some people who are exposed to HIV never become infected?

Scientists have been trying to answer those questions by performing single-cell RNA sequencing of immune cells from individuals and comparing them — a process known as antibody repertoire analysis. Previous work has shown that antibody repertoires from two different people may overlap as little as 10 percent. However, sequencing doesn’t offer as comprehensive a picture of antibody performance as structural information, because two antibodies that have different sequences may have similar structures and functions.

The new model can help to solve that problem by quickly generating structures for all of the antibodies found in an individual. In this study, the researchers showed that when structure is taken into account, there is much more overlap between individuals than the 10 percent seen in sequence comparisons. They now plan to further investigate how these structures may contribute to the body’s overall immune response against a particular pathogen.

“This is where a language model fits in very beautifully because it has the scalability of sequence-based analysis, but it approaches the accuracy of structure-based analysis,” Singh says.

The research was funded by Sanofi and the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health.

Unlocking the hidden power of boiling — for energy, space, and beyond

Most people take boiling water for granted. For Associate Professor Matteo Bucci, uncovering the physics behind boiling has been a decade-long journey filled with unexpected challenges and new insights.

The seemingly simple phenomenon is extremely hard to study in complex systems like nuclear reactors, and yet it sits at the core of a wide range of important industrial processes. Unlocking its secrets could thus enable advances in efficient energy production, electronics cooling, water desalination, medical diagnostics, and more.

“Boiling is important for applications way beyond nuclear,” says Bucci, who earned tenure at MIT in July. “Boiling is used in 80 percent of the power plants that produce electricity. My research has implications for space propulsion, energy storage, electronics, and the increasingly important task of cooling computers.”

Bucci’s lab has developed new experimental techniques to shed light on a wide range of boiling and heat transfer phenomena that have limited energy projects for decades. Chief among those is a problem caused by bubbles forming so quickly they create a band of vapor across a surface that prevents further heat transfer. In 2023, Bucci and collaborators developed a unifying principle governing the problem, known as the boiling crisis, which could enable more efficient nuclear reactors and prevent catastrophic failures.

For Bucci, each bout of progress brings new possibilities — and new questions to answer.

“What’s the best paper?” Bucci asks. “The best paper is the next one. I think Alfred Hitchcock used to say it doesn’t matter how good your last movie was. If your next one is poor, people won’t remember it. I always tell my students that our next paper should always be better than the last. It’s a continuous journey of improvement.”

From engineering to bubbles

The Italian village where Bucci grew up had a population of about 1,000 during his childhood. He gained mechanical skills by working in his father’s machine shop and by taking apart and reassembling appliances like washing machines and air conditioners to see what was inside. He also gained a passion for cycling, competing in the sport until he attended the University of Pisa for undergraduate and graduate studies.

In college, Bucci was fascinated with matter and the origins of life, but he also liked building things, so when it came time to pick between physics and engineering, he decided nuclear engineering was a good middle ground.

“I have a passion for construction and for understanding how things are made,” Bucci says. “Nuclear engineering was a very unlikely but obvious choice. It was unlikely because in Italy, nuclear was already out of the energy landscape, so there were very few of us. At the same time, there were a combination of intellectual and practical challenges, which is what I like.”

For his PhD, Bucci went to France, where he met his wife, and went on to work at a French national lab. One day his department head asked him to work on a problem in nuclear reactor safety known as transient boiling. To solve it, he wanted to use a method for making measurements pioneered by MIT Professor Jacopo Buongiorno, so he received grant money to become a visiting scientist at MIT in 2013. He’s been studying boiling at MIT ever since.

Today Bucci’s lab is developing new diagnostic techniques to study boiling and heat transfer along with new materials and coatings that could make heat transfer more efficient. The work has given researchers an unprecedented view into the conditions inside a nuclear reactor.

“The diagnostics we’ve developed can collect the equivalent of 20 years of experimental work in a one-day experiment,” Bucci says.

That data, in turn, led Bucci to a remarkably simple model describing the boiling crisis.

“The effectiveness of the boiling process on the surface of nuclear reactor cladding determines the efficiency and the safety of the reactor,” Bucci explains. “It’s like a car that you want to accelerate, but there is an upper limit. For a nuclear reactor, that upper limit is dictated by boiling heat transfer, so we are interested in understanding what that upper limit is and how we can overcome it to enhance the reactor performance.”

Another particularly impactful area of research for Bucci is two-phase immersion cooling, a process wherein hot server parts bring liquid to boil, then the resulting vapor condenses on a heat exchanger above to create a constant, passive cycle of cooling.

“It keeps chips cold with minimal waste of energy, significantly reducing the electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of data centers,” Bucci explains. “Data centers emit as much CO2 as the entire aviation industry. By 2040, they will account for over 10 percent of emissions.”

Supporting students

Bucci says working with students is the most rewarding part of his job. “They have such great passion and competence. It’s motivating to work with people who have the same passion as you.”

“My students have no fear to explore new ideas,” Bucci adds. “They almost never stop in front of an obstacle — sometimes to the point where you have to slow them down and put them back on track.”

In running the Red Lab in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Bucci tries to give students independence as well as support.

“We’re not educating students, we’re educating future researchers,” Bucci says. “I think the most important part of our work is to not only provide the tools, but also to give the confidence and the self-starting attitude to fix problems. That can be business problems, problems with experiments, problems with your lab mates.”

Some of the more unique experiments Bucci’s students do require them to gather measurements while free falling in an airplane to achieve zero gravity.

“Space research is the big fantasy of all the kids,” says Bucci, who joins students in the experiments about twice a year. “It’s very fun and inspiring research for students. Zero g gives you a new perspective on life.”

Applying AI

Bucci is also excited about incorporating artificial intelligence into his field. In 2023, he was a co-recipient of a multi-university research initiative (MURI) project in thermal science dedicated solely to machine learning. In a nod to the promise AI holds in his field, Bucci also recently founded a journal called AI Thermal Fluids to feature AI-driven research advances.

“Our community doesn’t have a home for people that want to develop machine-learning techniques,” Bucci says. “We wanted to create an avenue for people in computer science and thermal science to work together to make progress. I think we really need to bring computer scientists into our community to speed this process up.”

Bucci also believes AI can be used to process huge reams of data gathered using the new experimental techniques he’s developed as well as to model phenomena researchers can’t yet study.

“It’s possible that AI will give us the opportunity to understand things that cannot be observed, or at least guide us in the dark as we try to find the root causes of many problems,” Bucci says.

MIT scientists pin down the origins of a fast radio burst

Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and can carry an enormous amount of energy — enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies.

Since the first fast radio burst (FRB) was discovered in 2007, astronomers have detected thousands of FRBs, whose locations range from within our own galaxy to as far as 8 billion light-years away. Exactly how these cosmic radio flares are launched is a highly contested unknown.

Now, astronomers at MIT have pinned down the origins of at least one fast radio burst using a novel technique that could do the same for other FRBs. In their new study, appearing today in the journal Nature, the team focused on FRB 20221022A — a previously discovered fast radio burst that was detected from a galaxy about 200 million light-years away.

The team zeroed in further to determine the precise location of the radio signal by analyzing its “scintillation,” similar to how stars twinkle in the night sky. The scientists studied changes in the FRB’s brightness and determined that the burst must have originated from the immediate vicinity of its source, rather than much further out, as some models have predicted.

The team estimates that FRB 20221022A exploded from a region that is extremely close to a rotating neutron star, 10,000 kilometers away at most. That’s less than the distance between New York and Singapore. At such close range, the burst likely emerged from the neutron star’s magnetosphere — a highly magnetic region immediately surrounding the ultracompact star.

The team’s findings provide the first conclusive evidence that a fast radio burst can originate from the magnetosphere, the highly magnetic environment immediately surrounding an extremely compact object.

“In these environments of neutron stars, the magnetic fields are really at the limits of what the universe can produce,” says lead author Kenzie Nimmo, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “There’s been a lot of debate about whether this bright radio emission could even escape from that extreme plasma.”

“Around these highly magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars, atoms can’t exist — they would just get torn apart by the magnetic fields,” says Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics at MIT. “The exciting thing here is, we find that the energy stored in those magnetic fields, close to the source, is twisting and reconfiguring such that it can be released as radio waves that we can see halfway across the universe.”

The study’s MIT co-authors include Adam Lanman, Shion Andrew, Daniele Michilli, and Kaitlyn Shin, along with collaborators from multiple institutions.

Burst size

Detections of fast radio bursts have ramped up in recent years, due to the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). The radio telescope array comprises four large, stationary receivers, each shaped like a half-pipe, that are tuned to detect radio emissions within a range that is highly sensitive to fast radio bursts.

Since 2020, CHIME has detected thousands of FRBs from all over the universe. While scientists generally agree that the bursts arise from extremely compact objects, the exact physics driving the FRBs is unclear. Some models predict that fast radio bursts should come from the turbulent magnetosphere immediately surrounding a compact object, while others predict that the bursts should originate much further out, as part of a shockwave that propagates away from the central object.

To distinguish between the two scenarios, and determine where fast radio bursts arise, the team considered scintillation — the effect that occurs when light from a small bright source such as a star, filters through some medium, such as a galaxy’s gas. As the starlight filters through the gas, it bends in ways that make it appear, to a distant observer, as if the star is twinkling. The smaller or the farther away an object is, the more it twinkles. The light from larger or closer objects, such as planets in our own solar system, experience less bending, and therefore do not appear to twinkle.

The team reasoned that if they could estimate the degree to which an FRB scintillates, they might determine the relative size of the region from where the FRB originated. The smaller the region, the closer in the burst would be to its source, and the more likely it is to have come from a magnetically turbulent environment. The larger the region, the farther the burst would be, giving support to the idea that FRBs stem from far-out shockwaves.

Twinkle pattern

To test their idea, the researchers looked to FRB 20221022A, a fast radio burst that was detected by CHIME in 2022. The signal lasts about two milliseconds, and is a relatively run-of-the-mill FRB, in terms of its brightness. However, the team’s collaborators at McGill University found that FRB 20221022A exhibited one standout property: The light from the burst was highly polarized, with the angle of polarization tracing a smooth S-shaped curve. This pattern is interpreted as evidence that the FRB emission site is rotating — a characteristic previously observed in pulsars, which are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars.

To see a similar polarization in fast radio bursts was a first, suggesting that the signal may have arisen from the close-in vicinity of a neutron star. The McGill team’s results are reported in a companion paper today in Nature.

The MIT team realized that if FRB 20221022A originated from close to a neutron star, they should be able to prove this, using scintillation.

In their new study, Nimmo and her colleagues analyzed data from CHIME and observed steep variations in brightness that signaled scintillation — in other words, the FRB was twinkling. They confirmed that there is gas somewhere between the telescope and FRB that is bending and filtering the radio waves. The team then determined where this gas could be located, confirming that gas within the FRB’s host galaxy was responsible for some of the scintillation observed. This gas acted as a natural lens, allowing the researchers to zoom in on the FRB site and determine that the burst originated from an extremely small region, estimated to be about 10,000 kilometers wide.

“This means that the FRB is probably within hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the source,” Nimmo says. “That’s very close. For comparison, we would expect the signal would be more than tens of millions of kilometers away if it originated from a shockwave, and we would see no scintillation at all.”

“Zooming in to a 10,000-kilometer region, from a distance of 200 million light years, is like being able to measure the width of a DNA helix, which is about 2 nanometers wide, on the surface of the moon,” Masui says. “There’s an amazing range of scales involved.”

The team’s results, combined with the findings from the McGill team, rule out the possibility that FRB 20221022A emerged from the outskirts of a compact object. Instead, the studies prove for the first time that fast radio bursts can originate from very close to a neutron star, in highly chaotic magnetic environments.

“These bursts are always happening, and CHIME detects several a day,” Masui says. “There may be a lot of diversity in how and where they occur, and this scintillation technique will be really useful in helping to disentangle the various physics that drive these bursts.”

This research was supported by various institutions including the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Trottier Space Institute at McGill University, and the University of British Columbia.

10+ Explainer Toolkits & Templates for After Effects – Speckyboy

Working with clients and colleagues often includes explaining various concepts. Subjects like SEO, technology, and marketing are prime examples. After all, knowing how something works helps people make smart decisions.

Video is the perfect medium for breaking down these complex concepts. It allows you to narrow the focus to key talking points. You can also add illustrations and animations to provide visual reinforcement for viewers.

Creating such a video is a challenge in its own right. Starting from scratch means mapping out a storyline, adding effects, and polishing your presentation. That’s a lot of work. And what if you’re not an expert video editor?

The solution is using an After Effects template. They include everything you need to create a compelling explainer video. Take advantage of their professional layout and transitions. Then, customize it to fit your subject. It’s that easy!

We’ve put together a collection of 10+ explainer toolkits and templates for After Effects. Take a look and find one that matches your needs.

Add a touch of fun to your video with Stickmania. The template features a delightful stick figure to introduce segments and help with your explanations. It includes 38 scenes, along with a dozen transition effects.

Big and bold, this package includes six title sequences to enhance your tutorial. The grunge styling looks great on backgrounds and animations. A simple layout makes this one perfect for use in step-by-step videos.

This corporate explainer toolkit offers plenty of materials to create your presentation. You’ll find 18 scenes, 15 titles, plus lots of animations and transitions. It’s suitable for virtually any video project.

Explaining your ideas is as simple as waving your hand with this template. An animated hand introduces segments and brings a human touch to your video. Combined with bold text, it’s sure to get viewers’ attention.

Use this template package to share your contact information with viewers. Fun animations are there to reinforce your custom content. It might be a good fit for the end of your video presentation.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) isn’t the easiest subject to explain. It’s intricate and full of ifs and buts. This video template for After Effects can help make your job easier. It’s built with SEO in mind and includes plenty of infographics to get you started.

There are over 30 “helping hands” included with this toolkit. Use them to introduce concepts and entice viewers to take action. The result will be a fun, easy-to-understand explainer video.

This template includes a variety of assets like banners, badges, icons, and backgrounds. However, the stars of the show are a group of cute birds. They’ll serve as guides through your tutorial or educational video. Viewers can’t help but fall in love.

The friendly characters in this package will brighten up your explainer video. They’re hard at work demonstrating analytics, multitasking, and teamwork. It’s a nice touch to help bring your ideas to life.

This toolkit offers plenty of flexibility for your project. It includes 40+ individual scenes to help you craft the perfect presentation. You’ll also find outstanding animation effects along with handy illustrations.

Here’s a template for realtors, mortgage brokers, and property managers. It’s a brisk 32 seconds and a good fit as an introduction to your video. Bright colors and lively animations make this a winner.

Email marketers will want to check out this After Effects toolkit. It has an international flavor and includes voiceovers in three languages (English, German, and Spanish). It’s also flexible with six color templates and plenty of customization options.

Explainer Toolkits & Templates for After Effects FAQs

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Create an Explainer Video That Converts

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MIT’s top research stories of 2024

MIT’s research community had another year full of scientific and technological advances in 2024. To celebrate the achievements of the past twelve months, MIT News highlights some of our most popular stories from this year. We’ve also rounded up the year’s top MIT community-related stories.

3-D printing with liquid metal: Researchers developed an additive manufacturing technique that can print rapidly with liquid metal, producing large-scale parts like table legs and chair frames in a matter of minutes. Their technique involves depositing molten aluminum along a predefined path into a bed of tiny glass beads. The aluminum quickly hardens into a 3D structure.
Tamper-proof ID tags: Engineers developed a tag that can reveal with near-perfect accuracy whether an item is real or fake. The key is in the glue that sticks the tag to the item. The team uses terahertz waves to authenticate items by recognizing a unique pattern of microscopic metal particles mixed into the glue.
Chatting with the future you: Researchers from MIT and elsewhere created a system that enables users to have an online, text-based conversation with an AI-generated simulation of their potential future self. The project is aimed at reducing anxiety and guiding young people to make better choices.
Converting CO2 into useful products: Engineers at MIT designed a new electrode that boosts the efficiency of electrochemical reactions to turn carbon dioxide into ethylene and other products.
Generative AI for databases: Researchers built GenSQL, a new generative AI tool that makes it easier for database users to perform complicated statistical analyses of tabular data without the need to know what is going on behind the scenes. The tool could help users make predictions, detect anomalies, guess missing values, fix errors, and more.
Reversing autoimmune-induced hair loss: A new microneedle patch delivers immune-regulating molecules to the scalp. The treatment teaches T cells not to attack hair follicles, promoting hair regrowth and offering a promising solution for individuals affected by alopecia areata and other autoimmune skin diseases.
Inside the LLM black box: Researchers demonstrated a technique that can be used to probe a large language model to see what it knows about new subjects. The technique showed the models use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge.
Sound-suppressing silk: An interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers from MIT and elsewhere developed a silk fabric, barely thicker than a human hair, that can suppress unwanted noise and reduce noise transmission in a large room.
Working out for your nervous system: Researchers found that when muscles work out, they help neurons to grow as well. The findings suggest that biochemical and physical effects of exercise could help heal nerves.
Finding AI’s world model lacking: Researchers found that despite its impressive output, generative AI models don’t have a coherent understanding of the world. Large language models don’t form true models of the world and its rules, and can thus fail unexpectedly on similar tasks.

MIT community in 2024: A year in review

The year 2024 saw MIT moving forward on a number of new initiatives, including the launch of President Sally Kornbluth’s signature Climate Project at MIT, as well as two other major MIT collaborative projects, one focused around human-centered disciplines and another around the life sciences. The Institute also announced free tuition for all admitted students with family incomes below $200,000; honored commitments to ensure support for diverse voices; and opened a flurry of new buildings and spaces across campus. Here are some of the top stories from around the MIT community this year.

Climate Project takes flight

In February, President Kornbluth announced the sweeping Climate Project at MIT, a major campus-wide effort to solve critical climate problems with all possible speed. The project focuses MIT’s strengths on six broad climate-related areas where progress is urgently needed, and mission directors were selected for those areas in July. “The Climate Project is a whole-of-MIT mobilization,” Kornbluth said at a liftoff event in September. “It’s designed to focus the Institute’s talent and resources so that we can achieve much more, faster, in terms of real-world impact, from mitigation to adaptation.”

MIT Collaboratives

In the fall, Kornbluth announced two additional all-Institute collaborative efforts, designed to foster and support new alliances that will take on compelling global problems. The MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) aims to bring together scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences with colleagues across the Institute as a way to amplify MIT’s impact on challenges like climate change, artificial intelligence, pandemics, poverty, democracy, and more. Meanwhile, the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS) will draw on MIT’s strengths in life sciences and other fields, including AI and chemical and biological engineering, to accelerate progress in improving patient care. Additional MIT collaborative projects are expected to follow in the months ahead.

Increased financial aid

MIT announced in November that undergraduates with family income below $200,000 — a figure that applies to 80 percent of American households — can expect to attend MIT tuition-free starting next fall, thanks to newly expanded financial aid. In addition, families with income below $100,000 can expect to pay nothing at all toward the full cost of their students’ MIT education, which includes tuition as well as housing, dining, fees, and an allowance for books and personal expenses. President Kornbluth called the new cost structure, which will be paid for by MIT’s endowment, “an inter-generational gift from past MIT students to the students of today and tomorrow.”

Encouraging community dialogue

The Institute hosted a series of “Dialogues Across Difference,” guest lectures and campus conversations encouraging community members to speak openly and honestly about freedom of expression, race, meritocracy, and the intersections and potential conflicts among these issues. Invited speakers’ expertise helped cultivate civil discourse, critical thinking, and empathy among members of the community, and served as a platform for public discussions related to Standing Together Against Hate; the MIT Values Statement; the Strategic Action Plan for Belonging, Achievement, and Composition; the Faculty Statement on Free Expression; and other ongoing campus initiatives and debates.

Commencement

At Commencement, biotechnology leader Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87 urged the MIT Class of 2024 to “accept impossible missions” for the betterment of the world. Afeyan is chair and co-founder of the biotechnology firm Moderna, whose groundbreaking Covid-19 vaccine has been distributed to billions of people in over 70 countries.

President Kornbluth lauded the Class of 2024 for being “a community that runs on an irrepressible combination of curiosity and creativity and drive. A community in which everyone you meet has something important to teach you. A community in which people expect excellence of themselves — and take great care of one another.”

Nobels and other top accolades

In October, Daron Acemoglu, an Institute Professor, and Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, along with James Robinson of the University of Chicago, for their work on the relationship between economic growth and political institutions. MIT Department of Biology alumnus Victor Ambros ’75, PhD ’79 also shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Gary Ruvkun, who completed his postdoctoral research at the Institute alongside Ambros in the 1980s. The two were honored for their discovery of MicroRNA. Earlier this month, the new laureates received their prizes in Stockholm during Nobel Week.

Earlier in the year, professors Nancy Kanwisher, Robert Langer, and Sara Seager were awarded prestigious Kavli Prizes, for their outstanding advances in the fields of neuroscience, nanoscience, and astrophysics, respectively.

Miguel Zenón, assistant professor of jazz, won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album of the year.

At MIT, professor of physics John Joannopoulos won this year’s Killian Award, the Institute’s highest faculty honor.

New and refreshed spaces

Quite a few new buildings opened, partially or in full, across the MIT campus this year. In the spring, the airy Tina and Hamid Moghadam Building, a new addition to the recently refurbished Green Building, was dedicated. The gleaming new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing building also opened its doors and hosted a naming ceremony.

The new home of the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard University opened in the heart of Kendall Square in June, while the new Graduate Junction housing complex on Vassar Street opened over the summer.

And earlier this fall, the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building opened for a selection of classes and will be fully operational in February 2025.

Student honors and awards

As is often the case, MIT undergraduates earned an impressive number of prestigious awards. In 2024, exceptional students were honored with Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, and Schwarzman scholarships, among many others.

For the fourth year in a row, MIT students earned all five top spots at the Putnam Mathematical Competition. And the women’s cross country team won a national championship for the first time.

Administrative transitions

A number of administrative leaders took on new roles in 2024. Ian Waitz was named vice president for research; Anantha Chandrakasan took on the new role of MIT chief innovation and strategy officer in addition to his existing role as dean of engineering; Melissa Choi was named director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory; Dimitris Bertsimas was named vice provost for open learning; Duane Boning was named vice provost for international activities; William Green was named director of the MIT Energy Initiative; Alison Badgett was named director of the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center; and Michael John Gorman was named director of the MIT Museum.

Remembering those we lost

Among MIT community members who died this year were Arvind, Hale Van Dorn Bradt, John Buttrick, Jonathan Byrnes, Jerome Connor, Owen Cote, Ralph Gakenheimer, Casey Harrington, James Harris, Ken Johnson, David Lanning, Francis Fan Lee, Mathieu Le Provost, John Little, Chasity Nunez, Elise O’Hara, Mary-Lou Pardue, Igor Paul, Edward Roberts, Peter Schiller, John Vander Sande, Bernhardt Wuensch, Richard Wiesman, and Cynthia Griffin Wolff.

In case you missed it…

Additional top stories from around the Institute in 2024 include a roundup of new books by faculty and staff, a look at unique license plates of MIT community members, our near-total view of a solar eclipse on campus, and the announcement of a roller rink in Kendall Square.

MIT in the media: 2024 in review

From a new Institute-wide effort aimed at addressing climate change to a collaborative that brings together MIT researchers and local hospitals to advance health and medicine, a Nobel prize win for two economists examining economic disparities and a roller-skating rink that brought some free fun to Kendall Square this summer, MIT faculty, researchers, students, alumni, and staff brought their trademark inventiveness and curiosity-driven spirit to the news. Below please enjoy a sampling of some of the uplifting news moments MIT affiliates enjoyed over the past year.

Kornbluth cheers for MIT to tackle climate change
Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights how MIT President Sally Kornbluth is “determined to harness MIT’s considerable brainpower to tackle” climate change.
Full story via The Boston Globe

MIT’s “high-impact” initiative
The MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative is a new effort designed to “spur high-impact discoveries and health solutions through interdisciplinary projects across engineering, science, AI, economics, business, policy, design, and the humanities.”
Full story via Boston Business Journal

A fireside chat with President Sally Kornbluth
President Sally Kornbluth speaks with undergraduate student Emiko Pope about her personal interests, passions, and life at MIT. Sally “is proud of MIT and how it can provide real solutions to society’s problems,” writes Pope. “She loves that you can get a daily fix of science because you are surrounded by such amazing people and endeavors.”
Full story via MIT Admissions

Nobel economics prize goes to three economists who found that freer societies are more likely to prosper
Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu and Professor Simon Johnson have been honored with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in memory of Alfred Nobel for their work demonstrating “the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity.”
Full story via Associated Press

MIT to cover full tuition for undergrads from households making below $200,000
“We really want to send a message that coming to school at MIT is affordable and that cost should not stand in the way of a student applying,” says Stuart Schmill, dean of admissions and student financial services.
Full story via WBUR

MIT adds another architectural standout to its collection
The new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing is described as “the most exciting work of academic architecture in Greater Boston in a generation.”
Full story via The Boston Globe

Free roller skating rink open all summer long in Cambridge
WBZ NewsRadio’s Emma Friedman visits Rollerama, a free, outdoor pop-up roller skating rink that was “all about bringing the community together and having fun in the space.”
Full story via WBZ News Radio

Three actions extraordinary people take to achieve what seems impossible, from the co-founder of Moderna
“I’m utterly unreasonable and an eternal optimist,” said Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87 during his commencement address at MIT, adding that to tackle improbable challenges having “a special kind of optimism” can help.
Full story via NBC Boston

Applying AI

How AI could transform medical research treatment
Professor Regina Barzilay discusses how artificial intelligence could enable health care providers to understand and treat diseases in new ways.
Full story via Babbage, a podcast from The Economist

What are sperm whales saying? Researchers find a complex “alphabet”
Using machine learning, MIT researchers have discovered that sperm whales use “a bigger lexicon of sound patterns” that indicates a far more complex communication style than previously thought.
Full story via NPR

“SuperLimbs” could help astronauts recover from falls
Researchers at MIT have developed a “set of wearable robotic limbs to help astronauts recover from falls.”
Full story via CNN

Tiny batteries for tiny robots that could deliver drugs inside our bodies
Professor Michael Strano delves into his team’s work developing tiny batteries that could be used to power cell-sized robots.
Full story via Somewhere on Earth

Origami and computers? Yes, origami and computers.
“We get stuck on a science problem and that inspires a new sculpture, or we get stuck trying to build a sculpture and that leads to new science,” says Professor Erik Demaine of his work combining the art of origami with computer science.
Full story via The Boston Globe

Creating climate impact

This map shows where the shift to clean energy will most affect jobs
MIT researchers have developed a new map detailing how the shift to clean energy could impact jobs around the country.
Full story via Fast Company

Climate change in New England may scorch summer fun, study finds
Inspired by his daily walks, Professor Elfatih Eltahir and his colleagues have developed a new way to measure how climate change is likely to impact the number of days when it is comfortable to be outdoors.
Full story via WBUR

Solving problems with Susan Solomon
Professor Susan Solomon speaks about her latest book “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do it Again.”
Full story via The New York Times

MIT ice flow study takes “big” step towards understanding sea level rise, scientists say
MIT scientists have developed a new model to analyze movements across the Antarctic Ice Sheet, “a critical step in understanding the potential speed and severity of sea level rise.”
Full story via Boston Globe

Meet the MIT professor with eight climate startups and $2.5 billion in funding
Professor Yet-Ming Chiang has used his materials science research to “build an array of companies in areas like batteries, green cement and critical minerals that could really help mitigate the climate crisis.”
Full story via Forbes

Hacking health

A bionic leg controlled by the brain
New Yorker reporter Rivka Galchen visits the lab of Professor Hugh Herr to learn more about his work aimed at the “merging of body and machine.”
Full story via The New Yorker

From inflatable balloons to vibrating pills, scientists are getting creative with weight loss
Professor Giovanni Traverso speaks about his work developing weight loss treatments that don’t involve surgery or pharmaceuticals.
Full story via GBH

MIT scientists want to create a “Lyme Block” with proteins found in your sweat
MIT researchers have discovered a protein found in human sweat that holds antimicrobial properties and can “inhibit the growth of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.”
Full story via NECN

Wearable breast cancer monitor could help women screen themselves
Professor Canan Dagdeviren delves into her work developing wearable ultrasound devices that could help screen for early-stage breast cancer, monitor kidney health, and detect other cancers deep within the body.
Full story via CNN

The surprising cause of fasting’s regenerative powers
A study by MIT researchers explores the potential health benefits and consequences of fasting.
Full story via Nature

Spooky and surprising space

Planet as light as cotton candy surprises astronomers
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered an exoplanet that “is 50% larger than Jupiter and as fluffy as cotton candy.”
Full story via The Wall Street Journal

Two black holes are giving the cosmos a fright
Researchers at MIT have discovered a “black-hole triple, the first known instance of a three-body system that includes a black hole, which is not supposed to be part of the mix.”
Full story via New York Times

Astronomers use wobbly star stuff to measure a supermassive black hole’s spin
MIT astronomers have found a new way to measure how fast a black hole spins, observing the aftermath of a black hole tidal disruption event with a telescope aboard the International Space Station.
Full story via Popular Science

Are some of the oldest stars in the universe right under our noses?
Researchers at MIT have discovered “three of the oldest stars in the universe lurking right outside the Milky Way.”
Full story via Mashable

Waves of methane are crashing on the coasts of Saturn’s bizarre moon Titan
New research by MIT geologists finds waves of methane on Titan likely eroded and shaped the moon’s coastlines.
Full story via Gizmodo

Mastering materials

A vibrating curtain of silk can stifle noise pollution
Researchers at MIT have created a noise-blocking sheet of silkworm silk that could “greatly streamline the pursuit of silence.”
Full story via Scientific American

This is how drinking a nice cold beer can help remove lead from drinking water
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new technique that removes lead from water using repurposed beer yeast.
Full story via Boston 25 News

Some metals actually grow more resilient when hot
A new study by MIT engineers finds that heating metals can sometimes make them stronger, a “surprising phenomenon [that] could lead to a better understanding of important industrial processes and make for tougher aircraft.”
Full story via New Scientist

The human experience

The economist who figured out what makes workers tick
Wall Street Journal reporter Justin Lahart spotlights the work of Professor David Autor, an economist whose “thinking helped change our understanding of the American labor market.”
Full story via The Wall Street Journal

If a bot relationship feels real, should we care that it’s not?
Professor Sherry Turkle discusses her research on human relationships with AI chatbots.
Full story via NPR

AI should be a tool, not a curse, for the future of work
The MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative is a new effort aimed at analyzing the forces that are eroding job quality for non-college workers and identifying ways to move the economy onto a more equitable trajectory.
Full story via The New York Times

Phenomenal physics

Physicists captured images of heat’s “second sound.” What?
MIT scientists have captured images of heat moving through a superfluid, a phenomenon that “may explain how heat moves through certain rare materials on Earth and deep in space.”
Full story via Gizmodo

Think you understand evaporation? Think again, says MIT
Researchers at MIT have discovered that “light in the visible spectrum is enough to knock water molecules loose at the surface where it meets air and send them floating away.”
Full story via New Atlas

Scientists shrunk the gap between atoms to an astounding 50 nanometers
MIT physicists have “successfully placed two dysprosium atoms only 50 nanometers apart — 10 times closer than previous studies — using ‘optical tweezers.’”
Full story via Popular Mechanics

Making art and music

Composing for 37 Years at MIT
A celebration in Killian Hall featured recent works composed by Professor Peter Child and honored the musician as he prepares to retire after 37 years of teaching and composing at MIT.
Full story via The Boston Musical Intelligencer

MIT puts finishing touches on new music hub
The new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building will serve as a “hub for music instruction and performance” for MIT’s 30 on-campus ensembles and more than 1,500 students enrolled in music classes each academic year.
Full story via The Boston Globe

MIT art lending program puts contemporary works in dorm rooms
The MIT Student Lending Art Program allows undergraduate and graduate students to bring home original works of art from the List Visual Arts Center for the academic year.
Full story via WBUR

Michael John Gorman named new director of MIT Museum
Michael John Gorman, “a museum professional who has created and run several organizations devoted to science and the arts,” has been named the next director of the MIT Museum.
Full story via The Boston Globe

Engineering impact

A Greek-Indian friendship driven by innovation
Dean Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, and Pavlos-Petros Sotiriadis PhD ’02 discuss MIT’s unique approach to entrepreneurship, the future of AI, and the importance of mentorship.
Full story via Kathimerini

Metabolizing new synthetic pathways
“The potential to educate, encourage, and support the next generation of scientists and engineers in an educational setting gives me a chance to amplify my impact far beyond what I could ever personally do as an individual,” says Professor Kristala Prather, head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering.
Full story via Nature

MIT’s biggest contributions of the past 25 years? They aren’t what you think.
Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner spotlights Professor Mitchel Resnick, Professor Neil Gershenfeld, and the late Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers and their work developing programs that “get kids excited about, and more proficient in, STEM.”
Full story via The Boston Globe

Barrier breaker shapes aerospace engineering’s future
Professor Wesley Harris has “not only advanced the field of aerospace engineering but has also paved the way for future generations to soar.”
Full story via IEEE Spectrum

Amos Winter: MIT professor, racecar driver, and super tifosi
Lecturer Amy Carleton profiles Professor Amos Winter PhD ’11, a mechanical engineer driven by his Formula 1 passion to find “elegant engineering solutions to perennial problems.”
Full story via Esses Magazine

New documentary features African students at MIT and their journey far from home
Arthur Musah ’04, MEng ’05 and Philip Abel ’15 discuss Musah’s documentary, “Brief Tender Light,” which follows the life of four African-born students on their personal and academic experiences at MIT.
Full story via GBH

Putting pen to paper

Strong universities make for a strong United States
President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif cautions against treating universities “like the enemy,” pointing out that “without strong research universities and the scientific and technological advances they discover and invent, the United States could not possibly keep up with China.”
Full story via The Boston Globe

To compete with China on AI, we need a lot more power
Professor Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, makes the case that the United States should not only be building more efficient AI software and better computer chips, but also creating “interstate-type corridors to transmit sufficient, reliable power to our data centers.”
Full story via The Washington Post

“Digital twins” give Olympic swimmers a boost
“Today the advent of sensor technology has turned this idea into a reality in which mathematics and physics produce useful information so that coaches can ‘precision-train’ 2024 Olympic hopefuls,” writes master’s student Jerry Lu. “The results have been enormously successful.”
Full story via Scientific American

The miracle weight-loss drug is also a major budgetary threat
Professor Jonathan Gruber, MIT Innovation Fellow Brian Deese and Stanford doctoral student Ryan Cummings explore the health benefits of new weight-loss drugs and the risk they pose to American taxpayers.
Full story via The New York Times

What if we never find dark matter?
“Although we can’t say exactly when or even whether we’ll find dark matter, we know that the universe is filled with it,” writes Professor Tracy Slatyer. “We’re optimistic that the next years of our quest will lead us to a deeper understanding of what it is.”
Full story via Scientific American

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