School of Science

Diverse Issues in Higher Education reporter Lois Elfman spotlights Shirley Ann Jackson '68 PhD '73 for her distinguished professional career in academia, industry, and government. “Sometimes, a window in time opens for you, and if you are prepared to step through then it can create opportunities for you to make a real difference in the world,” says Jackson. “I’ve had that kind of extraordinary set of opportunities. I have always felt it’s important to make a difference and leave and imprint.”

Researchers at MIT have found that the brain can send a burst of noradrenaline when it requires you to pay attention to something crucial, reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “The MIT team discovered that one important function of noradrenaline, commonly known as norepinephrine, is to assist the brain in learning from unexpected results,” explains Juandre.

MIT researchers have developed a new computational model that could be used to help explain differences in how neurotypical adults and adults with autism recognize emotions via facial expressions, reports Tony Ho Tran for The Daily Beast. “For visual behaviors, the study suggests that [the IT cortex] pays a strong role,” says research scientist Kohitij Kar. “But it might not be the only region. Other regions like amygdala have been implicated strongly as well. But these studies illustrate how having good [AI models] of the brain will be key to identifying those regions as well.”

Researchers from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) are working on making commercial nuclear fusion a reality, reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “CFS will build [the tokamak] SPARC and develop a commercial fusion product, while MIT PSFC will focus on its core mission of cutting-edge research and education,” says Prof. Dennis G. Whyte, director of the PSFC. 

Associate Provost Richard Lester and Prof. Noelle Selin speak with Tiziana Dearing, host of Radio Boston, about MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges. “To me, the Climate Grand Challenges effort really represents that we’re kind of at a frameshift when thinking about the climate problem. It’s not just a problem that some people can work on,” says Selin. “A climate challenge is a whole of society challenge, and therefore it really has to be a whole of MIT challenge.” Lester adds he hopes the challenges will “inspire a new generation of students to roll up their sleeves, put their shoulders to the wheel and help us solve this problem.”

Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with AP reporter Seth Borenstein about the upcoming hurricane season and his research showing an increase in Atlantic storms over the past 150 years.

Prof. Erin Kara speaks with Harry Smith of NBC News about the data sonification of the black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy. Kara notes that data sonification is “a really exciting way to hear the universe and think about it in a new way.”

MIT researchers have solved a geometry problem that explores how to divide n-dimensional spaces into theoretically equal “slices," reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “I can tell you at the beginning, we were a little bit stuck. We made some partial progress, but I guess by hitting those roadblocks we just learned a lot about what we needed at the end,” explains Zilian Jiang, a former Applied Mathematics Instructor at MIT. “That was [a] great experience, because at least for me personally, I feel like doing research is also about the experience.”

Astronomers and researchers from MIT and 80 other institutions have captured the first image of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post.  “The pandemic slowed us down but it couldn’t stop us,” said research scientist Vincent Fish of the pandemic’s impact on the Event Horizon Telescope team’s work.

Researchers from MIT and 80 other institutions have captured the first image of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, reports Denise Chow for NBC News. The image provides “the first direct visual evidence of ‘the gentle giant’ that lies at the center of our galaxy,” writes Chow.

Researchers from MIT contributed to the first image of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, reports CBS Boston. “Black holes don’t emit light, but the image shows the shadow of the black hole surrounded by a bright ring of light, which is bent by the gravity of the black hole,” reports CBS.  

An international team of scientists, including MIT researchers, unveiled the first picture of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. “Our collaboration’s remarkable images of Sgr A* and our scientific conclusions were a combined effort that involved not just the handful of us on stages around the world today, but more than 300 people all working together united by our fascination with black holes,” explains research scientist Vincent Fish.

Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein writes that the international consortium behind the Event Horizon Telescope has imaged the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. To get the picture, eight synchronized radio telescopes around the world had to coordinate so closely “in a process similar to everyone shaking hands with everyone else in the room,” explained research scientist Vincent Fish.

Researchers from the Event Horizon Telescope team, including MIT scientists, have captured the first image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, reports Bill Chappell for NPR. “More than 300 researchers collaborated on the effort to capture the image, compiling information from radio observatories around the world,” reports Chappell. “To obtain the image, scientists used observations from April 2017, when all eight observatories were pointed at the black hole.”

Scientists from MIT and other institutions have developed the largest, most detailed computer model of the universe’s first billion years, which could help shed light on how the early universe evolved, reports Charles Q. Choi for Scientific American. The model, named THESAN, “can track the birth and evolution of hundreds of thousands of galaxies within a cubic volume spanning more than 300 million light-years across.”