#MIT

[pinkblanc]

Van de Graff generator, 1933

[manichewitz]

some photos i took from emerson college’s encampment for palestine. most of these were taken only a few hours before the boston PD attacked hundreds of protestors and brutally arrested 118 students, most of whom were poc, jewish, and/or queer.

anyone who spent any amount of time in the encampment will tell you just how much it brought us all together—there was always food, music, arts and crafts, and hundreds of messages of support written in chalk.

after the BPD was done brutalising us for peacefully protesting, they power washed down the walls of the encampment—all of these messages are gone. theyre trying to erase what happened, but they’ll never truly be able to. everyone saw, and everyone will remember.

[memys-art-stuff]

It is vital that we keep the efforts of so many students across the United States from going to waste. We need to keep the momentum going and ensure that news of the cruelty happening to the people of Palestine is not ignored or suppressed.

Despite what many news outlets may have you believe, what is happening in our world is not minor in the slightest. It is a genocide that is happening before our eyes, day after day. Do not forget the administrative responses these colleges have given to the act of bringing attention this inhumanity. This is history happening now, and these colleges are on the wrong side of it.

These students are calling to divest college funds from Israel. Do not let the media warp their efforts and paint them as an antisemitic mob. Do not let those opposing these demonstrations hide behind claims of antisemitism to justify their actions. This is about stopping human suffering, and to believe anything different is willful ignorance.

[reasonsforhope]

"Thanks to a new discovery by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, painful injections and intravenous drugs could potentially be a thing of the past.

Inspired by the way squids (yes, squids!) use jets to propel themselves through the ocean, shooting ink clouds, researchers took this biological process to the lab.

The result is an ingestible capsule that ��releases a burst of drugs directly into the wall of the stomach or other organs in the digestive tract,” developed by researchers from MIT and Novo Nordisk...

Traverso was the senior author of the study, which concludes that the capsule could offer an alternative to delivering drugs that normally have to be injected, like insulin, antibodies, and even mRNA.

The reason these drugs cannot be taken orally is because they consist of large proteins that are easily broken down in the digestive tract, rendering them ineffective. 

For years, Traverso’s lab has been working on a solution, encapsulating these drugs in small devices that protect them through their journey in the body until they reach the lining of the digestive tract, where they can be injected directly into the system.

In previous iterations, he and his colleagues devised capsules that use microneedles to deliver the drugs once they enter the digestive system.

But in this new study (recently published in Nature), the researchers went completely needle-free.

Taking inspiration from cephalopods — or squids and octopuses — the researchers came up with two ways to mimic their siphon organ, which allows these animals to shoot jets of ink to distract predators...

And don’t fret — once the drugs are administered, the capsules (which are made of metal and plastic) simply pass through the digestive tract naturally.

Although researchers have only tested the device on animals so far, the trails have shown resounding success. In these tests, the capsule successfully delivered insulin, a drug similar to Ozempic, and a type of RNA that can be used in treating genetic disorders.

In this research, success was calculated by measuring the concentration of drugs in the animals’ bloodstream, which reached the same levels as drugs administered by injections. Plus, there was no tissue damage after the fact...

According to MIT, the researchers will now work to further develop the capsules, in hopes of testing them in humans.

Their ultimate vision is that the capsules could be used at home by patients who need to take insulin or other injected drugs frequently. The approach also eliminates the need to dispose of sharp needles, creating a safer — and more comfortable — experience for patients and providers alike."

-via GoodGoodGood, November 25, 2024

[nasa]

Chris Williams

Born in New York City, Chris Williams considers Potomac, Maryland, to be his hometown. A private pilot and Eagle Scout, Williams is a board-certified medical physicist and holds a doctorate in physics from MIT. https://go.nasa.gov/49YJJmf

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[informationatlas]

Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships with each other

Researchers from Northeastern University, in conjunction with scientists from MIT and the University of Glasgow, conducted a study exploring the impact of teaching a group of domesticated birds to communicate using tablets and smartphones. The findings indicate that utilizing video calls may assist parrots in mimicking the communication patterns observed in wild birds, potentially enhancing their behavior and overall well-being in the homes of their owners.

via smithsonianmag.com

[sayruq]

[vixen-academia]

Free MIT online courses that sound interesting

Arts & Literature

Introduction to World Music

Reading Fiction

Literary Interpretation: Virginia Woolf's Shakespeare

Introduction to Photography

Foundations of Western Culture II: Renaissance to Modernity

Studies in Poetry - Briths Poetry and the Sciences of the Mind

Studies in Literary History: Modernism: From Nietzsche to Fellini

Screen Women: Body Narratives in Popular American Film

Studies in Poetry: "What's the Use of Beauty"

Queer Cinema and Visual Culture

Monteverdi to Mozart: 1600 - 1800

Writing and Experience: Reading and Writing Autobiography

Advanced Topics in Hispanic Literature and Film: The Films of Luis Buñel

Major Authors: Rewriting Genesis: "Paradise Lost" and Twentieth-Century Fantasy

Arthurian Literature and Celtic Colonization

Contemporary Literature: Britsh Novel Now

Studies in Poetry: 20th Century Irish Poetry: The Shadow of W. B. Yeats

Writing About Literature: Writing About Love

Introduction to European and Latin American Fiction: Great Books On The Page and On The Screen

Popular Culture and Narrative: Use and Abuse of the Fairy Tale

Victorian Literature and Culture

Reading Poetry

English Renaissance Drama: Theatre and Society in the Age of Shakespeare

Introduction to Fiction

International Woman's Voice

Major Authors: Oscar Wilde and the "90's"

Prizewinners: Nobelistas

American Authors: American Women Authors

Shakespeare, Film and Media

Japanese Literature and Cinema

Woman's Novels: A Weekly Book Club

Classics of Chinese Literature

Major English Novels

Topics in South Asia Literature and Culture

Introduction to Literary Theory

History & Social Studies

American Classics

The Middle East in the 20th Century

Africa and the Politics of Knowledge

The Rise of Modern Science

European Imperialism in the 19th and 20th Century

Philosophy of Love

Human Rights: At Home and Abroad

The Nature of Creativity

Introduction to Comparative Politics

Riots, Rebellions, Revolutions

Introduction to the History of Technology

Ancient Philosophy

Youth Political Participation

[i-am-aprl]

Priceless. This is an Israeli naval officer who participated in the atrocities in Gaza and who later went on Fox News and said he was “truly afraid” to walk on campus due to the protesting students. This time he walks into the middle of the MIT encampment and starts screaming for police to save him because he feels unsafe, while the students ignore him 😂

[oldguydoesstuff]

In 1978 MIT CS students Danny Hillis and Brian Silverman designed a working computer capable of playing tic-tac-toe against a human opponent entirely out of Tinker Toys.

The machine consisted of 10,000 wooden parts and fishing line, and was designed with the help of a LISP program running on a DEC PDP-10.

In a letter to computer pioneer Gordon Bell describing the project, Hillis said the machine could have been built by any six-year-old with 500 sets of Tinker Toys, and a PDP-10.

[stastrodome]

Fun Facts. 100% verified.

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, the Welsh national anthem, mentions leek soup four times.

During the Civil War, Walt Whitman made extra money drawing caricatures of soldiers.

Due to a fraternity prank in 1955, several Boston laws were signed into existence by Tim the Beaver, mascot for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The literal translation of the title of the Chinese version of the movie Pretty Woman is California Prostitute Challenge.

"An unused broom means an unclean house" was the saying that most inspired Vlad the Impaler.

Echo Park, Los Angeles

[mulcheon]

i’m actually kind of nervous to be posting this ajdjd but i’ve been loving the if “remember, you will die” by @vapolis I replayed it yet again recently, and in an oc fuelled craze i cranked out all of these

so here’s my merc! they named themself merc as a bit x0 to fuck with jax and echo

also i read that jax likes ass so it’s a good thing i gave them major cake lol

original sketches under the cut!

[girlactionfigure]

awiderframe

[nyonwife]

YIPEE, ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!

Hey!! It's my birthday! YES!! I wanted to thank you so much, my pookies, for liking me!!! and I really love them!!! I didn't know my account would stay alive until my birthday!!! (⁠づ⁠｡⁠◕⁠‿⁠‿⁠◕⁠｡⁠)⁠づ I luv you GUYS! Have a good day!

[hunter-husky]

September 2024 Secret Santa

I think I forgot to upload this, if I DID upload it well you get to see it TWICE September SS for @/AvocadoTiger were training baby

[paper-mario-wiki]

I've got a question to someone more Mathematically Learned than me:

What is the current Edge Of Human Knowledge in regards to the origins and fundamentals of the natural world? What's the current thread that most people are trying to follow to get down to like. The exact reason for the nature of the universe? I've heard that in the first second directly after the big bang, things were quote "a little weird," unquote. And I want to know what that means. I'd like to know what gaps in our knowledge of physics we are most focused on trying to fill right now.