A new way to detect light in the brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could enable researchers to map changes in gene expression, map anatomical connections between cells, or reveal how cells communicate with each other. mitsha.re/MzqG50REr3g

EAPS researchers have found that heavy snowfall and rain likely contributed to a swarm of earthquakes over the past several years in Japan’s Noto Peninsula. The study is the first to show that climate conditions could initiate some earthquakes. mitsha.re/aC6S50RAp9V

CSAIL researchers have used machine learning to decode a phonetic “alphabet” used by sperm whales. They found the structure of the whales’ click patterns varies depending on the conversational context, suggesting an intricate communication system. mitsha.re/9qTT50RzwmW

Astronomers have observed starlight surrounding some of the universe’s earliest quasars — blazing centers of active galaxies that host a supermassive black hole at their core. The findings may help explain how these early black holes became so massive. mitsha.re/JUaZ50RxrAR

CAST Visiting Artist Chloe Bensahel examines how materials carry information, including in the way they are made. “Textiles are kind of like the grandparent of contemporary technologies because it’s such a potent historical form of binary code,” she says. mitsha.re/XGYw50RvBfk

“Long Covid looks exactly, and I mean exactly, like chronic Lyme,” Michal “Mikki” Tal says. Her research group investigates why some people develop chronic illness from acute infections, and works to identify biomarkers for chronic Lyme and long Covid. mitsha.re/k4xZ50RuZPR

Senior James Simon effects change by quantifying societal issues and working directly with disadvantaged communities. “It’s always surprising how much of an impact you can make on people if you just put in the effort to seek out opportunities,” he says. mitsha.re/AKHZ50RtBbn

MIT CSAIL brings programming behind bars: a first of its kind web programming course for incarcerated individuals.

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w/Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) & UMass Lowell

Electrons become fractions of themselves in graphene, study finds: An exotic electronic state observed by MIT physicists could enable more robust forms of quantum computing. mitsha.re/iTfb50QGKMm

Our habit of using numbers to make political arguments has a history, and William Deringer is a leading historian of it. He has carved out a distinctive niche through his scholarship showing how quantitative reasoning has become part of public life. mitsha.re/6NNT50RqMM4

In these intestinal tumor cells, the Sox17 protein is shown red. MIT researchers have found that when tumor cells turn on the Sox17 gene, it helps them evade immune detection, in part by turning off the expression of a protein called Lgr-5, shown in green. mitsha.re/WxNw50QKj0l

MIT researchers remotely map crops, field by field: The team used machine learning to analyze satellite and roadside images of areas where small farms predominate and agricultural data are sparse. mitsha.re/iWz050QCSHA

Geologists have uncovered ancient rocks in Greenland bearing the oldest remnants of Earth’s magnetic field—potentially extending its age by 200 million years. “That’s important because that’s the time when we think life was emerging,” Benjamin Weiss says. mitsha.re/Lls750Rp3Vh

This tiny, tamper-proof ID tag can authenticate almost anything: MIT engineers developed a tag that can reveal with near-perfect accuracy whether an item is real or fake. The key is in the glue on the back of the tag. ttp://mitsha.re/aHKI50QFE9s

Using tiny, engineered livers derived from cells from human donors, researchers found that more than 300 liver genes are under circadian control. These circadian variations affect how much of a drug is available and how effectively it can be broken down. mitsha.re/tPvF50Ro6uH

Engineers developed a chip that can safeguard user data while enabling efficient computing by power-hungry AI models on a smartphone. “It is important to design with security in mind from the ground up,” Maitreyi Ashok says. mitsha.re/7hRk50Rnayh

Among this year's palindrome days in the US, today might be the sweetest: 4-24-24.

Senior Mikayla Britsch sees civil and environmental engineering as a vocation requiring both technical and people skills. “It calls on you to be in constant dialogue with others. No one can work in civil engineering alone,” she says. mitsha.re/P0by50RmpeW

A new test could predict how heart attack patients will respond to mechanical pumps: Performing this test could help doctors prevent dysfunction that can occur when the right and left ventricles of the heart become imbalanced. mitsha.re/qcCb50QBU4M

When a human-AI conversation involves many rounds of dialogue, the powerful large language machine-learning models like ChatGPT sometimes start to collapse. A team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere has pinpointed a surprising cause of this problem. mitsha.re/KYxV50Rk5h5