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Philadelphia Inquirer reporterMaggie Prosser spotlights senior Alice Hall, who was selected as one of the 2026 Rhodes Scholars. “Never stop trying to learn, especially from the people around you,” says Hall. “You don’t have to be a Rhodes scholar to change the world. Just be yourself.” 

Postdoctoral Fellow Halie Olson has been named to The Transmitter’s Rising Stars of Neuroscience, reports Francisco J. Rivera Rosario and Lauren Schneider for The Transmitter. The award “recognizes early-career researchers who have made outstanding scientific contributions to the field and demonstrated a commitment to mentoring and community-building.” 

Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 have been named 2026 Rhodes Scholars, reports Michael Nietzel for Forbes. “This class of U.S .Rhodes Scholars will pursue studies across the social sciences, humanities, and biological and physical sciences,” writes Nietzel. 

George Smoot '66, PhD '70, who was honored for his work in cosmology with the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, has died at the age of 80, reports Douglas Scott, Joseph Silk and Tom Broadhurst for Nature. Smoot’s work “contributed to our understanding of the Universe on the largest scales and at the earliest observable times by measuring temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background,” they explain. 

The American Academy of Sciences & Letters has awarded Prof. Richard Binzel the Barry Prize for his contributions to expanding “humanity’s knowledge of the cosmos,” reports Michael Nietzel for Forbes. The prize is “awarded to scholars at U.S. colleges and universities for distinguished intellectual achievements in the arts, sciences and learned professions,” writes Nietzel. 

Boston 25 spotlights Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 who have been named 2026 Rhodes Scholars. “The students will attend the University of Oxford as part of the Rhodes scholar program, which awards more than 100 scholarships worldwide each year for students to pursue two to three years of graduate studies.”

As part of an overall effort to help prevent head injuries, the MIT football team has implemented the use of helmets that have an extra layer of padding to reduce the impact of hits to the head, reports Esteban Bustillos for GBH. Engineers Head Coach Brian Bubna notes that MIT athletics staff are regularly updating their helmets to ones with the highest safety ratings, adding that after introducing the new helmets, coaching staff have seen a downward trend in head injuries, based on their day-to-day observations. 

Boston 25 reporter Rachel Keller visits the MIT AgeLab and dons the AGNES suit, “an innovative tool designed to simulate the physical and cognitive challenges of aging, allowing users to experience what it feels like to be 80 years old.” Lauren Cerino, a technical associate at the AgeLab, explains that “the intention of the suit is really to help people to think about how can I make the built environment better or how can I make these little changes that can actually make it really much easier for people to navigate spaces.” 

Writing for Meteorological Technology International, Alex Pack explores how MIT researchers have developed a new “lightning-prediction model that could help protect more unconventional aircraft designs – such as blended-wing bodies or truss-braced configurations – as aviation moves beyond traditional tube-and-wing designs.” 

Sloan lecturer Michael Schrage speaks with Fortune reporter Sheryl Estrada about the implications of workslop, “AI-generated content that masquerades as good work but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.” “Ultimately, serious senior management will demand workslop metrics the same way they demand quality metrics,” says Schrage. “They’ll use LLMs to detect slop patterns in computational tasks—essentially, you’ll fight AI with AI.” 

Prof. Kerri Cahoy speaks with New York Times reporter Katrina Miller about the risks to satellites during geomagnetic storms. Cahoy explains that satellites in low-Earth orbit can experience anomalies, like signal dropouts and reboots. But molecules in Earth’s atmosphere and the strength of its magnetic field can offer some natural protection for satellites closest to the ground.  

Prof. Laura Lewis speaks with New Scientist reporter Grace Wade about the importance of sleep research. Lewis notes that understanding the dynamics of how the brain transitions into sleep could help lead to new treatments for insomnia. “With sleep onset, it has been really difficult for us to find that moment,” says Lewis, where brain mechanisms drive the transition to sleep. “If we knew when that was, then we could start to say, what is the brain region or circuit that is making somebody fall asleep?” 

Yuly Fuentes-Medel of the MIT Climate Project speaks with Fast Company reporter Elizabeth Segran about how encouraging collaboration between shoe manufacturers could help increase shoe recycling. “The shoe industry is competitive, and these brands are rivals,” says Fuentes-Medel. “But by sharing costs, data, and infrastructure, they can achieve the sustainability goals that have eluded them for years.”

Prof. Emeritus Tim Berners-Lee speaks with The Verge’s Decoder host Nilay Patel about his hopes and concerns for the future of the world wide web. “In the early days of the web, anybody used to be able to make a website,” explains Lee. “That feeling of sovereignty as an individual being enabled and being a peer with all of the other people on the web, that is what were still fighting for and what we need to rebuild.” 

MIT researchers have developed a new AI tool, dubbed “DrugReflector,” aimed at speeding up the drug discovery process, reports William A. Haseltine for Forbes. The researchers used DrugReflector to test tested almost 9,600 drugs in different human cell types.“This system was 17 times more accurate than older computational methods and improved as it used honest lab feedback,” writes Haseltine. 

In honor of the 25^th anniversary of the International Space Station (ISS), Earth.com reporter Derek Davis spotlights the contributions of a number of MIT-trained astronauts and engineers, who played pivotal roles in the ISS’ history.