October 17, 2024

The quest to figure out farming on Mars

Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from thick, cloudy skies. It wasn’t really so different from our own planet 4 billion years ago, except for one crucial detail—its size. Mars is about half the diameter of Earth,…

This is MIT and yes, we have bananas

August 27, 2024
Attending lectures and movies in 26-100 has been an integral part of the MIT experience for generations of students, but since 2018 they have also embraced what’s become another quintessential Institute experience just across the hall: picking up a banana in 26-110, officially the Karl Taylor Compton Room but now better known as the MIT…

In molecules, one chemist sees art

August 27, 2024
One Tuesday morning this past January, So Young Lee walked into a lab on the fourth floor of Building 18 and discovered that her equipment had exploded. It was a minor explosion—thankfully, no one was hurt—but the chemical she had painstakingly made had splattered all over the walls, the ceiling, and the broken shards of…

Transformative spaces

August 27, 2024
MIT people often find their greatest moments of inspiration in each other’s company. And two big, beautiful additions to West Campus now underway will open up new spaces for connection, collaboration, rigorous exploration, and joyful play.  Stretching along Mass. Ave. and Vassar Street, the familiar brick face of the historic Metropolitan Storage Warehouse may evoke…

Not just another band from Boston

August 27, 2024
In 1976, Tom Scholz ’69, SM ’70, was a 29-year-old product design engineer working at Polaroid on audio electronics and tape-recording technology, with 11 patents under his belt. But few colleagues knew what Scholz did after hours, why he often came in late, or why he was, in his own words, “a horrible employee.”  For…