Artificial reefs + school quality + breaking down CO2

[view in browser]( MIT Weekly [MIT Logo] March 30, 2024 Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.  Want a daily dose of MIT in your inbox? [Subscribe to the MIT Daily](. Fortifying Coastlines #[Illustration of an architected reef protecting buildings on a shoreline]( MIT engineers designed an artificial reef that mimics the wave-buffering effects of coral reefs and provides pockets for marine life. The structure could dissipate more than 95 percent of incoming wave energy using a small fraction of the material normally needed. [Full story via MIT News →]( Top Headlines Is it the school, or the students? A study shows perceptions of “good” schools are heavily dependent on the preparation of the students entering them. [Full story via MIT News →]( [News thumbnail]( A new way to quantify climate change impacts: “Outdoor days” This measure, developed by MIT researchers, reflects direct effects on people’s quality of life — and reveals significant global disparities. [Full story via MIT News →]( [News thumbnail]( Engineers find a new way to convert carbon dioxide into useful products A catalyst tethered by DNA boosts the efficiency of the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to CO, a building block for many chemical compounds. [Full story via MIT News →]( [News thumbnail]( Large language models use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge Researchers demonstrate a technique that can be used to probe a model to see what it knows about new subjects. [Full story via MIT News →]( [News thumbnail]( Optimizing nuclear fuels for next-generation reactors While working to nurture scientific talent in his native Nigeria, Assistant Professor Ericmoore Jossou is setting his sights on using materials science and computation to design robust nuclear components. [Full story via MIT News →]( [News thumbnail]( Creative collisions: Crossing the art-science divide A collaboration between ACT and MIT.nano, class 4.373/4.374 (Creating Art, Thinking Science) asks what it really takes to cultivate dialogue between disciplines. [Full story via MIT News →]( [News thumbnail]( #ThisisMIT #[About 19 members of MIT’s Women’s Ultimate team sprawl out in various poses on field while wearing purple uniforms. Text via @‌ultismite: CENTEX 2024!! sMITe killed it on the field AND on the dance floor in Austin last weekend]( [Follow @ultismite on Instagram→]( In the Media Weird new electron behavior in stacked graphene thrills physicists // Nature Assistant Professor Long Ju and his colleagues observed the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect when five layers of graphene were sandwiched between sheets of boron nitride. [Full story via Nature→]( A protein in human sweat protects against Lyme disease, study finds // Salon Researchers from MIT have isolated a protein in human sweat that protects against Lyme disease. [Full story via Salon→]( Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapse will “significantly disrupt” East Coast car shipments // Boston 25 Professor Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, discusses how the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the closing of the Port of Baltimore could impact car shipments on the East Coast. [Full story via Boston 25 News→]( Tech maze // Politico Research by MIT engineers finds that “when an AI tool for radiologists produced a wrong answer, doctors were more likely to come to the wrong conclusion in their diagnoses.” [Full story via Politico→]( 51 Across #[A mostly-empty crossword puzzle shows the answer “SLOAN” and the highlighted clue “M.I.T.'s (blank) School of Management”]( In case you missed Monday’s New York Times Crossword puzzle, we’ll get you started! [Play the crossword→]( [“] You could be doing the most interesting science in the world, but if you’re unable to explain it in a compelling way, nobody is going to know. —Diana Chien PhD ’16, manager of the MIT School of Engineering Communication Lab, which helps students and postdocs hone their presentations, applications, resumes, and more [Full story via MIT Spectrum→]( Watch This #[Gabriela Farfan points to and holds a large amethyst with table of various crystals and minerals beside her. A tweet behind her reads “What’s the difference btwn rocks and minerals” and the “Wired” logo is at left.]( Are all minerals crystals? Do diamonds last forever? Where do the minerals in our cellphones come from? Gabriela Farfan PhD ’19, who studied chemical oceanography through the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program, answers these questions and more in a recent episode of the Wired “Tech Support” video series. Farfan is the curator of gems and minerals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and a biomineralogist studying crystals formed organically through biological processes. [Watch the video→]( This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by [an ode to pirates and pi, but not rats](. 🏴 ☠️ Have feedback to share? Email mitdailyeditor@mit.edu. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! —MIT News [Forward This Email]( [Subscribe]( [MIT Logo] This email was sent to {EMAIL} because of your affiliation with MIT, or because you signed up for our newsletters. [subscribe]( [update preferences]( [unsubscribe]( [view in browser]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( MIT News Office · 77 Massachusetts Avenue · Cambridge, MA 02139 · USA