December 26, 2024

This international surveillance project aims to protect wheat from deadly diseases

When Dave Hodson walked through wheat fields in Ethiopia in 2010, it seemed as if everything had been painted yellow. A rust fungus was in the process of infecting about one-third of the country’s wheat, and winds had carried its spores far and wide, coating everything in their path. “The fields were completely yellow. You’d…

More puzzles, less sleep

December 23, 2024
We need a strategy to deal with a hydra.  It’s Sunday, January 14, 2024, more than 50 hours since the annual MIT Mystery Hunt kicked off at noon on Friday, and Setec Astronomy is one of more than 200 teams racing to solve hundreds of puzzles over three days. The 60-some members of Setec, many…

The cult of tech

December 23, 2024
“THE CULT OF THE FOUNDER.” “THE CULT OF THE TECH GENIUS.”  “Beware: Silicon Valley’s cultists want to turn you into a disruptive deviant.” “Tech’s cult of the founder bounces back.” “Silicon Valley’s Strange, Apocalyptic Cults.” “How the cult of personality and tech-bro culture is killing technology.” “Company or cult?” “Is your corporate culture cultish?” “The…

Tapping the wisdom of human-centered fields

December 23, 2024
When I last wrote to you in this magazine, I told you a bit about the MIT Collaboratives, an effort to spark new ideas and modes of inquiry and help the people of MIT solve global problems. Since then, we’ve launched the first collaborative, grounding it in the human-centered fields represented by our School of…

Smudge before flight

December 23, 2024
“I’m moving to Boston in three weeks!” At my high school graduation, I had just learned I’d been accepted into the Interphase EDGE program, an incredible opportunity to acclimate to life at MIT before the 2022 school year began. I was glad to have that chance, since I faced a big change from life at…