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Bringing sustainable and affordable electricity to all
When MIT electrical engineer Reja Amatya PhD ’12 arrived in Rwanda in 2015, she was whisked off to a village. She saw that diesel generators provided power to the local health center, bank, and shops, but like most of rural Rwanda, Karambi’s 200 homes did not have electricity. Amatya knew the hilly terrain would make […]
M’Care and MIT students join forces to improve child health in Nigeria
Through a collaboration between M’Care, a 2021 Health Security and Pandemics Solver team, and students from MIT, the landscape of child health care in Nigeria could undergo a transformative change, wherein the power of data is harnessed to improve child health outcomes in economically disadvantaged communities. M’Care is a mobile application of Promane and Promade […]
3 Questions: Noah Nathan and Ariel White on Global Diversity Lab summer internships
In June and July, the Global Diversity Lab (GDL) in the Department of Political Science hosted its first GDL Summer Research Program. Pathways@GDL is aimed at broadening the pipeline into U.S. political science PhD programs. Four current undergraduates from U.S. universities and two current master’s students at African universities mixed research assistant work and their own independent research projects, professionalizing their […]
Using social media to raise awareness of women’s resources
The Covid-19 pandemic created a global increase in domestic violence against women. Now, an MIT-led experiment designed with that fact in mind shows that some forms of social media can increase awareness among women about where to find resources and support for addressing domestic violence. In the randomized experiment, set in Egypt, women recruited via […]
Newly discovered bacterial communication system aids antimicrobial resistance
Researchers have discovered a new stress signaling system that enables bacteria cells to adapt and protect themselves against the immune system and certain antibiotics. An enzyme, RlmN, was observed to directly sense chemical and environmental stresses, and rapidly signal for the production of other proteins that allow the bacteria cell to adapt and survive. This […]
Q&A: A high-tech take on Wagner’s “Parsifal” opera
The world-famous Bayreuth Festival in Germany, annually centered around the works of composer Richard Wagner, launched this summer on July 25 with a production that has been making headlines. Director Jay Scheib, an MIT faculty member, has created a version of Wagner’s celebrated opera “Parsifal” that is set in an apocalyptic future (rather than the […]
Addressing food insecurity in arid regions with an open-source evaporative cooling chamber design
Anyone who has ever perspired on a hot summer day understands the principle — and critical value — of evaporative cooling. Our bodies produce droplets of sweat when we overheat, and with a dry breeze or nearby fan those droplets will evaporate, absorbing heat in the process creating a welcome cool feeling. That same scientific principle, known […]
System tracks movement of food through global humanitarian supply chain
Although more than enough food is produced to feed everyone in the world, as many as 828 million people face hunger today. Poverty, social inequity, climate change, natural disasters, and political conflicts all contribute to inhibiting access to food. For decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) has been […]
On a mission to uplift others and save the endangered Marma language
MIT graduate student Rani Ukhengching Marma is one of nearly 200,000 Marma people who speak the endangered Marma language. The Marma are one of the largest Indigenous groups in Bangladesh, where Bengali language and culture are dominant. For Ukheng, who is enrolled in the MIT Indigenous Languages Initiative (MITILI), preserving Marma is about more than the language […]
Study: The ocean’s color is changing as a consequence of climate change
The ocean’s color has changed significantly over the last 20 years, and the global trend is likely a consequence of human-induced climate change, report scientists at MIT, the National Oceanography Center in the U.K., and elsewhere. In a study appearing today in Nature, the team writes that they have detected changes in ocean color […]