Researchers have found a surprising new role for a major immune regulator: In addition to turning on genes involved in cell defense, the STING protein also acts as an ion channel, allowing it to control a wide variety of immune responses.
“My parents, who didn’t go to college, didn’t push me toward any specific profession," says BCS PhD student Kathrin Kajderowicz, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. “This gave me the freedom to explore any field I wanted, and my curiosity naturally led me to science.”
Via @mitprojectmanus on Instagram: “We have enjoyed hosting students from MIT Interphase @mit_ome in our makerspaces recently, offering new students the opportunity to get oriented to our maker resources by making MIT coasters!”
In a feature for Wired, Anne White explains the nature of fusion energy at five levels of difficulty. “Fusion is so exciting because it is extraordinarily beautiful physics, which underpins some of the most basic processes in our universe,” she says.
The founders of MIT spinout Active Surfaces describe their thin-film solar technology and their experience winning this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, one of the Institute’s most visible entrepreneurship competitions.
For this year’s Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Jay Scheib created a version of Richard Wagner’s opera “Parsifal” that is set in an apocalyptic future and employs augmented reality. “I can’t even believe we did this,” Scheib says. “But it’s working.”
Engineers are constantly searching for materials with desirable properties. Now, with a user-friendly interface, they can quickly design cellular metamaterials — artificial structures composed of units, or cells, that repeat in various patterns.