Creative dreams + Killian Award + Fulbright Fellows + MIT Press colophon

MIT Weekly May 20, 2023 Greetings! We start this issue with a question: How are you enjoying the MIT Weekly? Please take [this brief survey]( which should take about two minutes to complete. Thank you! Now, here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community. The Dream Team #[A person lies asleep on couch while wearing a blindfold in dim room. Their left middle finger is wrapped in tape and connected to an electric wristband through a set of wires.]( When drifting between sleep and waking, the creative mind is particularly fertile, a new study shows. “When you are prompted to dream about a topic during sleep onset, you can have dream experiences that you can later use for creative tasks,” says MIT senior Kathleen Esfahany. [Full story via MIT News →]( Top Headlines Engineers design sutures that can deliver drugs or sense inflammation The bioderived “smart sutures” could help patients heal after bowel resection or other types of surgery. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Paula Hammond wins faculty’s Killian Award for 2023-24 The chemical engineer is honored for her work designing polymers and nanomaterials with wide-ranging applications in medicine and energy. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Thirteen from MIT win 2023 Fulbright fellowships The Fulbright US Student Program funds opportunities for research, graduate study, and teaching abroad. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( “In everything I do, I’m a creator” Mechanical engineer and storyteller Hannah Gazdus integrates her love of art into all of her projects. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Architectural heritage like you haven’t seen it before The “Ways of Seeing” project documents endangered Afghan heritage sites through digital imaging, virtual reality, and hand-drawn professional renderings. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Five MIT faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences for 2023 Joshua Angrist, Gang Chen, Catherine Drennan, Dina Katabi, Gregory Stephanopoulos, and seven additional alumni are recognized by their peers for their outstanding contributions to research. [Full story via MIT News →]( #ThisisMIT #[Collage of two images. Left, Professor Gilbert Strang stands in front of blackboard. Right, seated students face Professor Strang, who stands at the front of the lecture hall. Text via @‌rai2z: Gilbert Strang, who taught at MIT as long as I have been on this earth, is getting ready to give his last Linear Algebra lecture..]( [Tweet via @rao2z→]( In the Media What if windows could generate solar power? // Mashable Ubiquitous Energy, an MIT startup, has created a transparent photovoltaic glass coating, called UE Power, that can turn any surface into a tiny solar panel. [Full story via Mashable→]( Color-changing wrap could let you know when food has spoiled // New Scientist Assistant Professor Benedetto Marelli and his colleagues have created “packaging that can react to changes in the food it contains to better indicate when it has gone bad.” [Full story via New Scientist→]( Will robots and AI take our jobs? // WBZ News Professor Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, discusses his new book “The Magic Conveyor Belt,” and his research examining the potential impact of AI on the future of work. [Full story via WBZ News→]( Covid made us retreat into our corners. A worrisome new study says we haven’t left them // The Boston Globe MIT researchers find interactions between people from different economic backgrounds have dropped significantly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. [Full story via The Boston Globe →]( Did You Know? #[At top, the MIT Press colophon is seen as 7 vertical black bars on a white background, representing the letters m-i-t-p. The bars are evenly spaced, and 5 are the same height. The 5th from left is taller, alluding to the lowercase “t.” The 6th from left extends below the others, and with the 7th looks like a lowercase “p.” At bottom, a grayscale photo of Muriel Cooper at desk. In the background is a whiteboard with text and boxy designs.]( The [MIT Press colophon]( symbolizes the legacy of its creator Muriel Cooper, a graphic design pioneer and longtime member of the MIT community. Over the last 60 years, the design has stood the test of time as a distinctive and iconic logo for one of the largest university presses in the world. It has garnered accolades and inspired adaptations. Last month, the colophon was acquired into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art — becoming the only publisher logo to earn that distinction. [Learn more via MIT News→]( Digit 392 Total number of spokes in the bicycles that will be ridden across the U.S. this summer by MIT Spokes, a team of seven MIT students dedicated to providing STEAM workshops to local communities. Their bike ride will start at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and end at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. [Learn more via MIT Spokes→]( Watch This #[Geoffrey Hinton appears via telecom on a large screen above a stage, at left. At right, headshots of Hinton and Will Douglas Heaven appear on a screen labeled “The Future of Intelligence.” Heaven sits alone on a stage, while audience members watch.]( Earlier this month, technologist Geoffrey Hinton spoke at an MIT event about artificial intelligence and its potential harms. Hinton, who recently announced he was stepping down from his role as a Google AI researcher after a decade with the company, spoke with Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review’s senior editor for AI, at [EmTech Digital]( an annual AI event hosted at MIT. “I think it’s quite conceivable that humanity is just a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence,” Hinton said. [Watch the video→]( This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by [fast facts about your brain](. 🧠Want a daily dose of MIT in your inbox? [Subscribe to the MIT Daily](. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! —MIT News Office [Forward This Email]( [Subscribe]( [MIT Logo] Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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