Slice of MIT Headlines

Photo of the Week by Owen Franken ’68—May 19, 2012

Franken Photo of the Week: Coffee at the end of a meal, Le Grand Vefour, Paris

Obesity? Doing the Math Generates New Answers

An interactive Body Weight Simulator lets you calculate your potential weight loss.

Where the Wild Chairs Are

We’ve been sitting on chairs for 27,000 years. And some chairs are sick of being taken for granted.

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Do-It-Yourself IAP 2009

IAP Now Available on Your Time, Your Schedule

Longing for the days when MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP) was part of your winter ritual? Now you can revive the tradition with a do-it-yourself version. Steep yourself in the campus's recent sustainability efforts, get tips on how to benefit from social media, and visit campus events-virtually. Do it any time, on your own schedule.

---------------------------Sustainability---------------------------

 

Group photo of Net Impact groupSloan students in the Net Impact Leadership group gather at a sustainability C-function.

Sustainability describes a new generation of solutions to the complex problems of an energy-hungry population and an environmentally sensitive planet. A rising sustainability movement on campus builds on MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) efforts and places new emphasis on the value of direct action by individuals, groups, and the Institute.

Greening MIT's Campus and Beyond

For a quick introduction to MIT's efforts to use the campus as laboratory, watch the nine-minute video, Sustainability at MIT: Greening MIT's Campus and Beyond. Meet students, faculty, and staff who are launching hands-on change from green practices incorporated into the new Sloan building to student brigades who work with the Department of Facilities to curb energy waste.

Students Unite for Sustainability

Last fall, five student groups combined into one power-house entity called Sustainability@MIT (S*). The club hosts speakers and events and involves undergraduate and graduate students in hands-on change on campus, such as the Lights out 16-56 project. S* also promotes community activism to change individual wasteful behaviors and encourages alumni involvement. Learn how to get involved and watch for news about the April conference.

Sloan Maps the Business of Sustainability

What does sustainability mean to business? The Sustainability at MIT Sloan Web site offers a cornucopia of resources. Professor Rebecca Henderson tackles "Getting Unstuck: How to Promote More Sustainable Practices in Our Organizations." A student podcast discusses "Will sustainability sell?" Sloanies also had a blast at a sustainability C-function complete with a recycling relay race.

Business Partners Work with S-Lab

In Sloan's Sustainability Lab (S-Lab), students work with business and government organizations on direct solutions. Last spring 60 students worked with 14 clients to craft business approaches to environmental and social issues such as sustainable agriculture supply chains and determining how Wall Street incorporates climate-related reporting in risk analysis. Project reports and posters are online including a calculation of MIT's current environmental footprint.

Make Art, Not Waste

See the results of a collaborative art event with artist Cindy Snodgrass to better understand how climate unites everyone as members of the Earth system with a responsibility to conserve earth's resources for balanced living.

Walking the Talk

The Campus Energy Task Force and working groups are leading the MITEI's efforts to change how the Institute manages resources. Learn about sustainable energy projects such as the recent allocation of $500,000 to invest in strategic energy conservation measures across campus.

More about Sustainability

----------------------------Social Media----------------------------

 

BlossomsBlossom, a multiperson awareness system created by the Fluid Interfaces Group, connects distant friends and family.

Social media like Facebook are challenging traditional online communications like email for dominance in many arenas. The Media Arts and Sciences program studies the essence of social media-how digital technology is profoundly changing "how we express ourselves, how we communicate with each other, and how we perceive, think about and interact with our world." The Techreports that social media has even transformed college admissions. Below you will find research on social media and tips for getting involved.

How Do You Communicate Online?

The Media Lab's Sociable Media research group studies how people interact online when the audience is virtually unlimited, yet the communication tools are largely text. Their work includes developing tools to enrich online exchanges.

  • Mycrocosm is a free online tool to express personal information in statistical graphs-from a daily pushup log to tea-drinking preferences. Graph your life!
  • BackChannel invites conference audiences to engage by asking and commenting on questions.
  • "Signals in Social Supernets" takes a theoretical look at analyzing and designing social network sites.
Making Communication More Fluid

The Fluid Interfaces Group focuses on rethinking the human-machine interactive experience. The Blossom project combines touch-based input with visual and other feedback to establish an awareness system that works in pairs to connect distant people. Embodied Emergence, a project aiming to design more engaging audio/visual experiences, works with small tangible nodes that are independent yet interactive when placed nearby. See how it works in the short video.

Try Social Media Classroom Tools

HyperStudio: Digital Humanities at MIT, a collaboration of Foreign Languages & Literatures, Comparative Media Studies Program, and the Literature Faculty, explores educational and research uses of new media technologies. The HyperStudio blog reports on the recent digital humanities workshops and the launch of an open-source, Social Media Classroom and Collaboratory, which includes blog, wiki, social bookmarking, and other tools, that you can download and try out.

Interact with MIT Social Media Networks

Find your peers online! Facebook MIT groups include Overheard at MIT, Sloan alumni, International students, and more. Linkedin MIT groups focus on alumni, the MIT Enterprise Forum, classes, graduate programs, and more. The MIT's Smart Bike creators offer a Facebook app that creates a social network for bikers.

Do-It-Yourself Social Media

-----------------------Intellectual Curiosities-----------------------

 

Sailor Rich Wilson A photo of Rich Wilson SM '76, taken amid a violent storm that hit during his 100-day solo race around the world

The talented minds of MIT faculty, students, and alumni are deeply curious about ideas and the world. On a winter's evening, share the interests of the MIT community in these sample pursuits.

When Artificial Intelligence Grows Up

When will artificial intelligence surpass that of humans? This Point of Singularity is approaching quickly, according to leading thinkers. In a Guardianarticle, inventor Ray Kurzweil '70, who recently appeared at a conference as a hologram, predicts rapid technical advances. MIT physicist Neil Gershenfeld shares his vision of making a Star Trek replicator within 20 years.

Racing 'Round the World Solo

Track Rich Wilson SM '76 as he sails in the Vendée Globe, a 100-day, solo race around the word through hazardous seas. View the daily multimedia updates, commentary by a team of experts, and student questions submitted to his sitesALIVE! Web site.

Documentary Tackles Urban Sprawl

A new feature-length documentary by Niccolo Casewit MAR '87 explores the ravages of American suburban sprawl and what can be done. Watch the trailer of Sprawling From Grace; Driven to Madness and learn more about proposed solutions.

Good Art Hunting Displayed in Hallway Contest

For six years, Physics Professor Walter Lewin has used a hallway bulletin board as a platform to run a weekly art quiz to pique curiosity among colleagues and students. Every Sunday he posts a printout of an artwork; participants guess who the artist is. Walk the Building 37 sixth-floor hallway yourself or view recent images online.

Learn about the Rise of the MIT Math Department

A new book, Recountings: Conversations with MIT Mathematicians , tells the story of the rise of MIT's Department of Mathematics through the eyes of 13 influential MIT mathematicians. The book is edited by Joel Segel, a writer whose late father, Lee Segel PhD '59, studied in the department.

Watch MIT World's Best Videos

Have a little time to indulge your intellectual curiosity? Try out MIT World's new features that identify the videos that are Most Popular, Editor's Picks, or Explore Ideas by viewing a tag cloud. You decide which are best.

Delight in a Chronicle of Hacks and Pranks

Undergraduate student Eric Schmiedl shares a photo gallery of MIT Hacks, Pranks, and Other Forms of Guerilla Architecture on his Web site. Click on the right arrows to prowl through a chronological journey through photos of the past few years.

Retrocogitator Puzzle Masters Revealed!

Curious about those wily undergraduates who developed the Retrocogitator puzzles that debuted the new MIT Alumni Association Web site in September? Learn about the perpetrators and how they did it.

MIT Museum Offers Holograms for the 21st Century

Nothing perks up a dark January evening like seeing holograms. Luminous Windows, the new exhibition of contemporary, three-dimensional holographic artworks displayed in MIT Museum street-level windows is viewable only from outside. Not close to campus? View the images online.

Published January 2009