Surprising immune discovery + MIT Museum collections + confronting race science

[view in browser]( MIT Weekly [MIT Logo] August 12, 2023 Greetings! The MIT Weekly will be on hiatus next week, returning August 26. Want a daily dose of MIT in your inbox? [Subscribe to the MIT Daily](. Immune System Discovery #[Against a decorative background is a rendering of a STING protein made of curling strings and rods. It is pink on the left and blue on the right, and the parts are intertwined.]( 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. [Full story via MIT News →]( Top Headlines Using AI to protect against AI image manipulation “PhotoGuard,” developed by MIT CSAIL researchers, prevents unauthorized image manipulation, safeguarding authenticity in the era of advanced generative models. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Q&A: Alexey Makarin on why social media harms youth mental health The MIT professor discusses the US surgeon general’s recent advisory and why scrolling social media can lead to depression and anxiety. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Moving days for MIT’s history The MIT Museum is preparing to transfer its enormous collection — and making a few surprising discoveries along the way. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( AI model can help determine where a patient’s cancer arose Predictions from the OncoNPC model could enable doctors to choose targeted treatments for difficult-to-treat tumors. [Full story via MIT News →]( [MIT Heat Island]( Unlocking age-old secrets set in stone “I love breaking people’s misconceptions about geology,” says rising senior Becca Mastrola. [Full story via MIT Spectrum→]( [MIT Heat Island]( #ThisisMIT #[Instagram reel still of Harrison Lee, who plays the piano shirtless with sensors all over his body. Text via @‌harrisonpiano: So excited be part of an MIT research study on pianist movement!! Walking into @‌mitimmersionlab I did not expect to be analyzed to this extent. But as the 5hrs passed I became more comfortable with the setting, the sensors all over me and playing without a shirt on. The movement, EKG and ultrasound data are being taken here.]( [Post via @harrisonpiano on Instagram→]( In the Media Energy-storing concrete could form foundations for solar-powered homes // New Scientist MIT engineers uncovered a way to create an energy supercapacitor — by combining cement, carbon black, and water — that could one day be used to power homes or electric vehicles. [Full story via New Scientist→]( The most surprising discoveries in physics // Scientific American Professor Janet Conrad and Associate Professor Tracy Slatyer discuss their favorite physics discoveries. [Full story via Scientific American→]( Opinion: Welcome to a world where AI can value your home // Financial Times “To train a real estate bot, our lab at MIT used pictures of 20,000 houses around Boston, as well as data that measured how their prices changed over time,” writes professor of the practice Carlo Ratti. [Full story via Financial Times→]( Secrets of the early universe are hidden in this chill galaxy cluster // Popular Science Astronomers from MIT and elsewhere recently captured views of a galaxy cluster as it existed when it was 5 billion years old, and found it is one of the few relaxed galaxy clusters from that time period in the cosmos. [Full story via Popular Science→]( Did You Know? #[Illustration featuring the head of a woman with dark skin, an afro, and her eyes in shadow next to an open caliper. Overlay text reads “The Persistence of Race Science.”]( “[Long Division: The Persistence of Race Science]( is a multipart series from [Undark]( an independent digital magazine published by the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program at MIT within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “We believe that one of the most important things that journalists do is shine light into the shadowy corners of who we are. And that stands for science journalism as well,” says Deborah Blum, director of KSJ at MIT. “The Long Division project and its deeply reported investigation of the legacy of race science ... is one of the most important subjects we’ve taken on.” The series was a 2023 National Magazine Award finalist and received a [first place award]( in the category of digital publication features from the National Association of Black Journalists. [Explore the series→]( Watch This #[Sirma Orguc looks into a microscope and smiles, as someone else looks on.]( [Sirma Orguc]( SM ’16, PhD ’21, a postdoc in the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, uses computational neuroscience to probe the brain for clues on its function. She’s inspired by the MIT community’s “great energy for science [and] great motivation to contribute to important problems that our society faces.” [Watch the video→]( Arts on Display #[Head and legs of a giant flamingo sculpture span floor to ceiling inside an airport terminal. The ceiling is covered in a mirrorlike material that suggests the edge of the water the flamingo is wading through.]( Travelers making their way through the Tampa International Airport in Florida won’t soon forget a current installation by [Matthew Mazzotta]( SM ’09, who earned a master of science degree in visual studies at MIT. “Home,” a floor-to-ceiling lifelike flamingo, was recently [profiled by Colossal]( and selected as one of the CODAawards’ top 100 displays integrating commissioned art into an interior, architectural, or public space. [Learn more via the Program in Art, Culture + Technology →]( This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by [seeing the whole picture](. 👁️ 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