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.
Visiting Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Newsweek reporter Amanda Greenwood about how a disruption of the polar vortex can impact the 2025-2026 winter outlook. “A sudden stratospheric warming [is] the largest type of disruption that occurs to the polar vortex,” says Cohen. “It is named because of the dramatic warming that occurs in the polar stratosphere (warming near the North Pole can exceed 100 degrees in just a few days). The warming displaces the polar vortex much further south than normal.”
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.”
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.
Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 have been selected as 2026 Rhodes Scholars, reports Lila Hempel-Edgers for The Boston Globe. “It’s just a thrill and an inspiration to meet each one of them,” said Prof. Nancy Kanwisher, who co-chairs MIT’s Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships. “You just can’t believe how accomplished they are and how thoughtful they are about the major problems facing the world.”
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.”
Visiting scientist Judah Cohen speaks with USA Today reporters Doyle Rice and Janet Loehrke about how the polar vortex and La Niña could impact winter weather across the country. Overall, Cohen believes that "the behavior of the polar vortex is more influential in determining if the U.S. will experience cold weather."
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.
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.
Wall Street Journal reporter Angel Au-Yeung spotlights Anysphere, an AI startup founded by Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22. “The company makes an AI tool that learns a developer’s coding style to help autocomplete, edit and review lines of code,” writes Au-Yeung.
Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, an AI startup developing Cursor, an AI coding tool that “allows engineers to use AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI to write and edit entire chunks of code as well as identify and fix bugs,” reports Rashi Shrivastava for Forbes.
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.”
Prof. Anand Natarajan speaks with CNN reporter Lisa Eadicicco about the promise of quantum computing. “The big hope is that a quantum computer can simulate any sort of chemical or biological experiment you would do in the lab,” says Natarajan. He adds that quantum computing could be very influential for cryptography and cybersecurity, as it could be used to break codes. “That’s also a major motivation, to make sure that our adversaries cannot do it and that we have this capability.”
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with New Scientist reporter Alex Wilkins about his work inventing the Near-Earth Object Hazard Index (later renamed the Torino scale), asteroid hunting and the future of planetary defense. “Speaking very personally, as a scientist who’s been in the field for 50 years, who has largely been supported by public funds, I feel a moral responsibility to push forward the idea that, because we now have the capability to find any serious asteroid threat, we have a moral obligation to do it,” says Binzel of his work. “Otherwise, we are not doing our job as scientists.”
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.”