MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology - On Campus and Around the world

Vogue editor Lisa Wong Macabasco spotlights “Lighten Up! On Biology and Time,” a new exhibit at the MIT Museum that “traces the rhythms of life itself: circadian patterns, light’s command over the body, and the delicate architecture of alertness and rest.” The exhibit features “18 works that blend science and art, from immersive soundscapes to visualizations of circadian patterns and reflective spaces where you observe your own heartbeat and alertness in new ways,” explains Macabasco. 

Prof. Sara Beery speaks with Smithsonian Magazine reporter Mike Bock about the benefits of AI use in ecological research. “There’s an increasing need to build strong machine learning skills directly in the ecological community,” says Beery. “These students don’t need to be AI researchers. But they do need access to the skills to apply these techniques to their research problems.” 

A study by Prof. Taha Choukhmane and his colleagues has found that “by switching retirement contributions to the account with the higher match rate, 1 in 5 couples could increase their savings by an estimated $750 per year,” reports Lorie Konish for CNBC. “The absence of coordination can be a choice, but it’s a costly choice,” says Choukhmane. 

Times Higher Education features President Sally Kornbluth among the world’s top 10 universities led by women in 2026, reports Patrick Jack for Times Higher Education. “Of the top 200 institutions in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026, 58 have a female vice-chancellor or president – 29 per cent of the total,” writes Jack. 

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, MIT Prof. Carlo Ratti and University of Toronto Prof. Richard Florida explore the “paradox of overtourism.” Ratti and Florida note that: “Tourism accelerates global convergence — the same luxury retailers, hotel chains, and Instagram‑ready design cues that push cities to conform to international expectations. At times, it can even undermine more authentic local businesses, which cannot compete against much larger global competitors. Yet local distinctiveness does not vanish under global pressure; it adapts. The visual signatures that make one place different from another persist beneath the surface layer of brands. That is where efforts to manage tourism’s cultural impact should concentrate.” 

Prof. Danielle Wood speaks with CNBC reporter Laya Neelakandan about NASA’s Artemis III, the United States’ first venture back to the moon in over 50 years, which will carry the first female and first Black astronaut to the Moon. “NASA’s been thinking through this whole process, two decades’ worth, of what we’re going to do is prepare the government to focus on these harder, next-generation missions and be able to do things that are not already demonstrated,” says Wood. 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with USA Today reporter Doyle Rice about how changes in the polar vortex will impact March weather across the United States. “I would expect a milder period in the eastern US until close to the spring equinox," says Cohen. "Then I think eventually colder weather arrives to the eastern U.S. related to the polar vortex split in late March or early April that could hang around for a while."

Associated Press reporter Kyle Hightower spotlights the 20th MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference which will take place in early March. “At a time when all the world’s digital data is believed to double every two years, it’s made the annual assemblage even more essential in a sports world driven by numbers,” explains Hightower. 

Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights the MIT Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship’s delta v startup accelerator program, which is designed to help early-stage startups find success in the Boston area. With financial support from Klaviyo co-founders Ed Hallen MBA ’12, and Andrew Bialecki, the program will “help support more customizing, to better tailor the program for each entrepreneur, as well as a broadening of its professional network, to support mentorship from industry veterans for the participating startups,” writes Chesto. 

A paper by Prof. Christopher Knittel and his colleagues explores the impact of climate change on inflation, reports Lydia DePillis for The New York Times. “We’re likely at this inflection point where costs are going to start growing more rapidly,” says Knittel. “The observed costs have been fairly linear so far. Going forward, that’s going to start increasing at an increasing rate.”

Guide Labs, co-founded by Julius Adebayo SM ’15, SM ’16, PhD ’22, has debuted a large language model designed to make “its actions easily interpretable,” reports Tim Fernholz for Tech Crunch. “Every token produced by the model can be traced back to its origins in the LLM’s training data,” explains Fernholz. 

Boston Globe reporter Annie Sarlin spotlights the MIT Museum’s digital collection “dedicated to the life and work of Harold ‘Doc’ Edgerton.” The collection is available for viewing online and “includes digitized copies of his notebooks, historical photographs, and informational text and videos about his industry-shaping role in the evolution of high-speed, flash photography,” explains Sarlin.