In the Media

Dezeen’s Ellen Eberhardt describes how the renovation of the historic Metropolitan Warehouse, the new home of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, maintains “details such as the building's fortress-like corner towers and crenellated corbeled cornices, while punching new windows into its two-foot-thick walls.” Eberhardt highlights how “the project included careful ‘cutting strategies’ and the application of new support systems to shift existing loads within the building to make room for modern academic spaces such as studios and makerspaces.”  

Gizmodo’s Gayoung Lee describes how Prof. Tristan Brown found that a tea chest label, on originally thought to be an artifact of the Boston Tea Party, actually originated from 19th century trade between China and America. “The discovery doesn’t diminish the label; it replaces one story with a richer one,” says Brown. “That broader story, of how revolutionary memory gets made through objects whose own histories stretch across the globe, is what I hope the paper contributes to ongoing conversations about history, material culture, and American identity.” 

In a “radical example of adaptive reuse” and a reimagining of a historic Cambridge landmark, MIT has transformed the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse into the new home of the School of Architecture and Planning, bringing together MIT’s architecture and design programs into one connected academic hub, reports Boston Business Journal reporter Maya Shavit. “There will be new installations and new manifestations of our students’ creativity every single week,” explains Prof. John Ochsendorf. “That’s unpredictable and messy, but it’s also part of the fun of being at a place like MIT where people are constantly inventing the future.”

For The Architect’s Newspaper, reporter Fred A. Bernstein details the renovation of the Metropolitan Warehouse, the new home of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, transforming the fortress-like storage warehouse into “light-filled classrooms and studios.” The building is “going to be a living laboratory and a teaching tool for generations of students,” shares Prof. John Ochsendorf. “Twenty years ago, MIT took me inside and asked if I could see a way to reuse the building. And I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ It was hard to imagine it could be as open and light-filled as it is. That took heroics.” 

Popular Science’s Andrew Paul spotlights how MIT astronomers have identified a black hole star (MoM-BH*-1), a gigantic, dense gas cloud fueled by a central black hole, discovered in an image of a large red dot on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). “The groundbreaking realization and newest addition to the cosmic catalogue wouldn’t have been possible without the JWST, whose smallest discoveries have massive ramifications,” writes Paul. “Even something as tiny as a 100-million-year-old red dot.” 

Postdoctoral Associate Rohan Naidu speaks to The Guardian’s Ian Sample about his team’s research discovering a black hole star, a cosmic object the size of the entire solar system. “They [black hole stars] may govern when stars are able to form and when they cease forming, setting the course for everything that follows from star formation: the birth of planets, the rise of life, the emergence of species that may one day piece together this entire history,” says Naidu.  

In an article about AI’s impact on the job market, The Guardian’s Varsha Bansal highlights Prof. Paul Osterman’s new book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment.” Bansal writes: “About 35% of the US workforce is already considered easily replaceable, according to his [Osterman’s] research. AI will only exacerbate this, he said. But not all jobs are in the same boat, and neither are their options for adapting, said MIT’s Osterman.” 

Dr. Joseph Sakran and Dr. Rebecca Stone, contributors to USA Today, highlight the Outsmart Ovarian Cancer initiative launched across cancer centers and institutions, including MIT. Outsmart Ovarian Cancer “has a single goal: making concurrent salpingectomy, the removal of the fallopian tubes during another planned post-reproductive operation, a routine and reimbursable part of care rather than an aspirational idea,” Sakran and Stone write.  

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), MIT researchers have discovered a black hole star, MoM-BH*‑1, the earliest example of a black hole in the universe, writes Mashable’s Elisha Sauers. “We argue that Black Hole Stars may be powering all of JWST's Little Red Dots that are found almost everywhere in the early Universe,” says Postdoctoral Associate Rohan Naidu. “Which is to say, this channel of making massive black holes must be very common, to the point where every massive black hole (like the Milky Way's) may have gone through this phase.” 

Financial Times reporter Martin Wolf spotlights Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s latest book, “What Happened to Liberal Democracy?”, which he notes is "timely and thought-provoking,” and "an important call to arms.” In the book, Acemoglu explores his "grand idea of ‘working-class liberalism,’” writes Wolf. “This concept, he states, is built on experimentation and the freedoms of association and expression, is suspicious of excessive power, uses redistribution, allows the less fortunate to participate more fully, values growth, attempts to provide good jobs for everybody and values community, trust and the sharing of useful knowledge.”

Prof. Tristan Brown discovered that a tea label previously thought to be salvaged from the Boston Tea Party in 1773 actually dates back to the 19th century, writes Smithsonian Magazine’s Ryley Graham. “The artifact’s true origin came to light when Brown took a closer look at the Chinese text on the label...When read in Cantonese, Brown found that the phonetic characters yielded the words 'Smith, Archer,' a reference to Smith, Archer & Co, an American import-export company that shipped teas from East Asia to the United States in the 19th century, nearly a century after revolutionaries dumped British tea into Boston Harbor.” 

As the moon began to obscure portions of the sun during a partial solar eclipse, the MIT Astrogazers, an outreach group of MIT graduate students, brought telescopes to Kendall Square and offered passersby the opportunity to view the celestial showcase, reports Jay Willett for WBZ News Radio. “This is a Unistellar eVscope Two, so it can take the image that falls on that sensor, and project it to an iPad, another tablet, a smartphone, or even the eyepiece itself,” explained alumnus and Astrogazer, David DePalma ‘26. Graduate student Sydney Jenkins shared: “We’re trying to show everyone what the eclipse looks like, but safely.” 

MIT students and community members spoke with 7 News Boston about their experiences viewing Wednesday’s partial solar eclipse, using the Unistellar eVscope Two, a smart telescope provided by the MIT Astrogazers, an outreach group largely made up of MIT graduate students. “To be able to see this celestial event in a way that’s so approachable, and the way that everybody in the community can enjoy it, especially when you have the right gear, is a really special opportunity,” says Joe Diaz, program manager and STEAM educator at the MIT Media Lab.