“Achieving [Paris Agreement] targets while balancing the impact on people’s lives is a very significant challenge,” Environment Minister Hirotaka Ishihara said.

An Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina spurred the rapid expansion of the global housing nonprofit.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 28 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02465-0

A human-driven increase in upwelling of carbon-rich deep waters threatens the efficiency of the Southern Ocean carbon sink, which substantially mitigates global warming. Long-term observations reveal that surface freshening since the 1990s has acted as a barrier, preventing CO2 release to the atmosphere and, temporarily, preserving the Southern Ocean’s role in slowing down climate change.

Nuclear security can be a daunting topic: The consequences seem unimaginable, but the threat is real. Some scholars, though, thrive on the close study of the world’s most dangerous weapons. That includes Caitlin Talmadge PhD ’11, an MIT faculty member who is part of the Institute’s standout group of nuclear security specialists.

Talmadge, who joined the MIT faculty in 2023, has become a prominent scholar in security studies, conducting meticulous research about militaries’ on-the-ground capabilities and how they are influenced by political circumstances.

Earlier in her career, Talmadge studied the military capabilities of armies run by dictatorships. For much of the last decade, though, she has focused on specific issues of nuclear security: When can conventional wars raise risks of nuclear use? In what circumstances will countries ratchet up nuclear threats?

“A scenario that’s interested me a lot is one where the conduct of a conventional war actually raises specific nuclear escalation risks,” Talmadge says, noting that military operations may put pressure on an adversary’s nuclear capabilities. “There are many other instabilities in the world. But I’ve gotten pretty interested in what it means that the U.S., unlike in the Cold War when there was more of a bipolar competition, now faces multiple nuclear-armed adversaries.”

MIT is a natural intellectual home for Talmadge, who is the Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Political Science. She is also part of MIT’s Security Studies Program, long the home of several of the Institute’s nuclear experts, and a core member of the recently launched MIT Center for Nuclear Security Policy, which supports scholarship as well as engagement with nuclear security officials.

“I think dialogue for practitioners and scholars is important for both sides,” says Talmadge, who served on the Defense Policy Board, a panel of outside experts that directly advises senior Pentagon leaders, during the Biden administration. “It’s important for me to do scholarship that speaks to real-world problems. And part of what we do at MIT is train future practitioners. We also sometimes brief current practitioners, meet with them, and get a perspective on the very difficult problems they encounter. That interaction is mutually beneficial.”

Why coup-proofing hurts armies

From a young age, Talmadge was interested in global events, especially military operations, while growing up in a family that supported her curiosity about the world.

“I was fortunate to have parents that encouraged those interests,” Talmadge says. “Education was a really big value in our family. I had great teachers as well.”

Talmadge earned her BA degree at Harvard University, where her interests in international relations and military operations expanded.

“I didn’t even know the term security studies before I went to college,” she says. “But I did, in college, get very interested in studying the problems that had been left by the Soviet nuclear legacy.”

Talmadge then worked at a think tank before deciding to attend graduate school. She had not been fully set on academia, as opposed to, say, working in Washington policy circles. But while earning her PhD at the Institute, she recalls, “it turned out that I really liked research, and I really liked teaching. And I loved being at MIT.”

Talmadge is quick to credit MIT’s security studies faculty for their intellectual guidance, citing the encouragement of a slew of faculty, including Barry Posen (her dissertation advisor), Taylor Fravel, Roger Peterson, Cindy Williams, Owen Cote, and Harvey Sapolsky. Her dissertation examined the combat power of armies run by authoritarians.

That research became her 2015 book, “The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes,” published by Cornell University Press. In it she examines how, for one thing, using a military for domestic “coup-proofing” limits its utility against external forces. In the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, to cite one example, Iraq’s military improved in the later years of the war, after coup-proofing measures were dropped, whereas Iran’s army performed worse over time as it became more preoccupied with domestic opposition.

“We tend to think of militaries as being designed for external conventional wars, but autocrats use the military for regime-protection tasks, and the more you optimize your military for doing that, sometimes it’s harder to aggregate combat power against an external adversary,” Talmadge says.

In the time since that book was published, even more examples have become evident in the world.

“It may be why the Russian invasion of Ukraine did so poorly in 2022,” she adds. “When you’re a personalist dictator and divide the military so it can’t be strong enough to overthrow you, and direct the intelligence apparatus internally instead of at Ukraine, it affects what your military can achieve. It was not the only factor in 2022, but I think the authoritarian character of Russia’s civil-military relations has played a role in Russia’s rather surprising underperformance in that war.”

On to nuclear escalation

After earning her PhD from MIT, Talmadge joined the faculty of George Washington University, where she taught from 2011 to 2018; she then served on the faculty at Georgetown University, before returning to MIT. And for the last decade, she has continued to study conventional military operations while also exploring the relationship between those operations and nuclear risk.

One issue is that conventional military strikes that might degrade an opponent’s nuclear capabilities. Talmadge is examining why states adopt military postures that threaten adversaries in this way in a book that’s in progress; her co-author is Brendan Rittenhouse Green PhD ’11, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati.

The book focuses on why the U.S. has at times adopted military postures that increase nuclear pressure on opponents. Historically these escalatory postures have been viewed as unintentional, the result of aggressive military planning.

“In this book we make a different argument, which is that often these escalatory risks are hardwired into force posture deliberately and knowingly by civilian [government leaders] who at times have strategic rationales,” Talmadge says. “If you’re my opponent and I want to deter you from starting a war, it might be helpful to convince you that if you start that war, you’re eventually going to be backed into a nuclear corner.”

This logic may explain why many countries adopt force postures that seem dangerous, and it may offer clues as to how future wars involving the U.S., Russia, China, North Korea, India, or Pakistan could unfold. It also suggests that reining in nuclear escalation risk requires more attention to civilian decisions, not just military behavior.

While being in the middle of research, book-writing, teaching, and engaging with others in the field, Talmadge is certain she has landed in an ideal academic home, especially with MIT’s work in her field being bolstered by the Stanton Foundation gift to establish the Center for Nuclear Security Policy.

“We’re so grateful for the support of the Stanton Foundation,” Talmadge says. “It’s incredibly invigorating to be in a place with so much talent and just constantly learning from the people around you. It’s really amazing, and I do not take it for granted.”

She adds: “It is a little surreal at times to be here because I’m going into the same rooms where I have memories as myself as a grad student, but now I’m the professor. I have a little bit of nostalgia. But one of my primary reasons for coming to MIT, besides the great faculty colleagues, was the students, including the chance to work with the PhD students in the Security Studies Program, and I have not been disappointed. It doesn’t feel like work. It’s a joy to try to have a positive influence helping them become scholars.”

MIT researchers recently studied a region of space called the Taurus Molecular Cloud-1 (TMC-1) and discovered more than 100 different molecules floating in the gas there — more than in any other known interstellar cloud. They used powerful radio telescopes capable of detecting very faint signals across a wide range of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum.

With over 1,400 observing hours on the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) — the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope, located in West Virginia — researchers in the group of Brett McGuire collected the astronomical data needed to search for molecules in deep space and have made the full dataset publicly available. From these observations, published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (ApJS), the team censused 102 molecules in TMC-1, a cold interstellar cloud where sunlike stars are born. Most of these molecules are hydrocarbons (made only of carbon and hydrogen) and nitrogen-rich compounds, in contrast to the oxygen-rich molecules found around forming stars. Notably, they also detected 10 aromatic molecules (ring-shaped carbon structures), which make up a small but significant fraction of the carbon in the cloud.

“This project represents the single largest amount of telescope time for a molecular line survey that has been reduced and publicly released to date, enabling the community to pursue discoveries such as biologically relevant organic matter,” said Ci Xue, a postdoc in the McGuire Group and the project’s principal researcher. “This molecular census offers a new benchmark for the initial chemical conditions for the formation of stars and planets.”

To handle the immense dataset, the researchers built an automated system to organize and analyze the results. Using advanced statistical methods, they determined the amounts of each molecule present, including variations containing slightly different atoms (such as carbon-13 or deuterium).

“The data we’re releasing here are the culmination of more than 1,400 hours of observational time on the GBT, one of the NSF’s premier radio telescopes,” says McGuire, the Class of 1943 Career Development Associate Professor of Chemistry. “In 2021, these data led to the discovery of individual PAH molecules in space for the first time, answering a three-decade-old mystery dating back to the 1980s. In the following years, many more and larger PAHs have been discovered in these data, showing that there is indeed a vast and varied reservoir of this reactive organic carbon present at the earliest stages of star and planet formation. There is still so much more science, and so many new molecular discoveries, to be made with these data, but our team feels strongly that datasets like this should be opened to the scientific community, which is why we’re releasing the fully calibrated, reduced, science-ready product freely for anyone to use.”

Overall, this study provides the single largest publicly released molecular line survey to date, enabling the scientific community to pursue discoveries such as biologically relevant molecules. This molecular census offers a new benchmark for understanding the chemical conditions that exist before stars and planets form.

This summer, nine MIT students worked across the Middle East through the MISTI Arab World Program. 

“At MISTI Arab World, the most impactful learning occurs when students venture beyond their comfort zones and experience the richness of a dynamic region,” says Maye Elqasem, program administrator of MISTI Arab World. “Our students return not only with new technical and professional capabilities, but also with a greater sense of self, resilience, and global awareness.” 

Since it launched in 2014, more than 200 students have participated in MISTI Arab World, providing them with essential international perspectives while connecting them to meaningful work.

“Each internship is a bridge connecting MIT to the region, bridging theory with implementation,” Elqasem says.

Seeing the Middle East for herself

One of this year’s students was junior Khadiza Rahman, a chemical and biological engineering major. Born in Bangladesh and raised in Queens, New York, Rahman hadn’t left the United States in over a decade. She spent 10 weeks in Casablanca, Morocco, working at the OCP Group, the world’s largest phosphate mining company.

Rahman’s interest in the region was sparked last year as a student in class 21H.161 (The Modern Middle East), a course taught by Pouya Alimagham.

“It was an eye-opening class. Through scholarly works, my opinion of the region changed and I realized biases that I held. It made me want to go to the Middle East to see it for myself,” she says.

Her internship was with Pixel, a sustainability startup incubated at OCP through Le Mouvement, an internal initiative where employees pitch business ideas at a demo day (similar to those often hosted at MIT) and then receive seed funding and the workday space to launch them.

“Pixel aims to create an integrated system for helping farmers around the world get better crop results,” Rahman explains.

“I essentially combined genomic, climate, and environmental data to create a model to provide actionable forecasts that could be used for policy decisions. For example, if we were to receive the climate data, it could predict the biological richness and diversity of the soil.”

The experience reinforced her interest in engineering and management while also challenging and inspiring her in unexpected ways. For example,  her coworkers began each day with tea and conversation. This “human-centered approach” is something she hopes to carry into her own career.

For housing, Rahman was paired with another woman from MIT, and MISTI and helped them find an apartment in Casablanca’s financial center. “At the beginning, I was a little afraid to venture outside my comfortable apartment, but the real experiences you get from MISTI come from going out and exploring,” she says.

One highlight was a hike in the Ourika Valley outside Marrakech. “I wasn’t sure if I was physically prepared for a long hike,” she admits. “We climbed a really high mountain in the Ourika Valley. It was scary at first, but it turned into an amazing experience, with incredible views of the mountain range and waterfalls. I stood there at the peak and realized that I should never have doubted myself in the first place.” 

That’s a lesson that Rahman says she’ll remember amidst whatever challenges her future career throws her way. 

Harnessing AI to improve the passenger experience

MIT senior Amitoj Singh, a computer science and electrical engineering major, joined MISTI after taking four courses on Middle Eastern history and politics. His internship with Abu Dhabi Airports combined his regional interest with his technical expertise and gave him a new sense of direction.

Raised near Los Angeles, Singh had never left North America. He first connected with MISTI in January 2025 through doing a short internship in a startup in the MITdesignX accelerator in Dubai. After helping a fintech company streamline United Arab Emirates mortgage applications using artificial intelligence, he sought out another, longer work opportunity.  

Elqasem worked closely with him to finalize a placement with Abu Dhabi Airports Smart Airports Initiative.

“My skill set fit what the airport was looking for, and it turned out to be a perfect match,” Singh says.

MISTI also paired him with mentor Rajeet Sampat, a 2017-18 MIT Sloan Fellow and vice president of strategy at Abu Dhabi Airports.

“My day-to-day work in the office involved working on an independent use-case, which is developing an application of machine learning and AI software to perform predictive data analysis at Abu Dhabi Airports,” Singh says.

The Smart Airports Initiative uses biometrics and AI to streamline travel — from facial recognition that replaces stressfully long check-ins to real-time virtual simulations of airport operations.

“For example, if an airline experiences an unexpected flight delay, air traffic controllers would be able to seamlessly visit their virtual environment dashboard to make an immediate decision about which terminals the aircraft can park at when it arrives, eliminating further delays,” Singh explains.

Despite the fact that he was directing various airport divisions, Sampat took his mentoring responsibility seriously, meeting with Singh weekly, helping him to clarify strengths and identify aspects of work that could bring long-term fulfillment.

“Very inclusive, collaborative, and startup-inspired,” is how Sampat describes his office’s culture.

For Singh, the most valuable lesson was learning to work in a global environment with colleagues from many backgrounds and specialties. “When I got stuck, there was always someone to ask for help in finding a solution,” he says. “They were highly welcoming and collaborative.”

Singh is still exploring career paths, but discovered he seeks work that connects him to others and “ultimately be able to use college as a journey that will eventually help me to give back to others more.”

Sampat offered him advice: “You can be somebody who enjoys coding and putting things together, but there’s another side of things in the corporate world. I need people with strengths like you to also strategize and lead the way.” To push him, Sampat invited Singh to join the AI team in shaping future strategy. “That is how a coder turns into a leader,” he says.

To learn more about applying or partnering with the program, visit the MISTI Arab World website.

We’ve known since ancient times that physical activity can prevent and treat a broad range of mental and physical illnesses. But today, exercise is not a central focus of modern health-care systems. Why? This is the motivating question behind MIT’s class STS.041/PE&W.0537 (Exercise is Medicine: From Ancient Civilizations to Modern Healthcare Systems) — a collaboration between the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and the Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER).

Going beyond the MIT tradition of hands-on learning, Exercise is Medicine (EIM) offers full-body experiential education, combining readings, lectures, and physical activity at the Zesiger Center and on MIT’s playing fields. Students investigate topics including barriers to exercise, loneliness as a public health issue, and social determinants of health through partner acrobatics, broomball, and sailing. During midterm week, they reflect on the mental health impact of activities, including meditation and pickleball. They also learn about the principles of traditional Chinese medicine through Qigong.

Co-taught by professors Jennifer Light and Carrie Moore, in addition to other DAPER instructors, EIM was first offered in spring 2024 for 20 undergraduates. Students from every major are invited to enroll — the next offering filled quickly, doubling in size to 40 students, with a long waitlist.

Exercise is Medicine is one of three courses Light and Moore offer as part of the MIT Project on Embodied Education, launched in 2022. Professor Light was eager to create an academic class where students spent at least 50 percent of their learning time out of their seats doing a physical activity that reinforced the academic objectives she was presenting.

“I was developing a new research project on the ancient wisdom and modern science of movement and learning, and was looking to develop courses that put this method into practice. Through Anthony Grant, athletic director and head of the DAPER, I connected with Carrie. We are having so much fun collaborating; one course quickly became two, and now three,” says Light.

History of medicine and health systems courses have long been a staple of the STS program. In EIM, students visit with MIT Chief Health Officer Cecelia Stuopis, who offers insight into the place of exercise in health care throughout the history of the Institute. Discussions also include the economic factors that may impact ideas and innovations from STEM fields.

The partnership with DAPER helps students deepen their understanding of the readings and lectures and, Light hopes, sets them up to find ways to integrate movement into their lives after the semester’s end. Moore adds, “This course allows students to reflect on the impact of movement on their cognition — experiencing increases in motivation, mood, focus, and community, as well as improved retention of content by engaging more parts of the brain.”

“DAPER instructors have an amazing ability to make so many physical activities accessible at the beginner level, and students come away from the course appreciating new activities they can do while on campus or as they move into the real world,” says Light.

Nathan Kim, a senior in Course 15 (Management), says, “When I think of my MIT education, I mostly think about problem sets and studying for exams. Learning is initially thought of as a cognitive output and performance. Even in project-based classes, there’s little attention to the body’s role in comprehension. However, this course broke that mold. Instead of treating the body as separate from the mind, it treated it as an essential partner in learning.”

“I love that this class stretches students’ minds and bodies at the same time. They get to learn serious academic content, try all sorts of new physical activities, and do so in a context that aims to make what they’re learning personally relevant to the remainder of their time in college and life beyond. The idea that their bodies aren’t just there to transport their heads around campus — but can be resources for academic learning — is a revelation to pretty much everyone in the class,” says Light.

Emily Zhou, a senior in computer science and engineering, adds, “After reading about the role of team sports in reducing loneliness and improving mental health, I didn’t expect the connection to feel so immediate. But the moment I was slipping and falling on the ice [while playing broomball] with my teammates, some of whom I had never met before, it clicked for me. As we coordinated strategies and cheered together every time we made a goal, I gained a deeper understanding of the reading, and why collective physical activity builds meaningful connections. I could genuinely feel how community forms differently when I’m trusting people with my physical body.”

“It’s a unique and enriching experience for the students to have experiential learning be a component of the class. Not only does it create shared memories of something special that we hope they will have for a lifetime, but it’s also a lot of fun. It frees their minds from to-do lists and other tasks and it gives them extra energy throughout the day. Their brains may be tired at the end of the day, but not their bodies,” says Moore.

The class also fulfills MIT’s General Institute Requirements. Students who successfully complete the class earn HASS credit and two Physical Education and Wellness points. 

Earlier this year, Light and Moore presented findings from their ongoing class collaborations at the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education conference. The pair showcased how they connected the academic side of MIT with the activity side of campus, with the hopes of inspiring others to follow in a similar direction. They’re also working to help other MIT instructors bridge the two sides of Massachusetts Avenue.

“Professor Light and I have created a synergy of what education could be,” says Moore. “The model created works at MIT and is received well by our students, so we want to help faculty reshape the way they teach to enrich learning and the student experience. We hope that when our students become leaders in their careers, they will share the lessons they learned in our classes with their colleagues. If they do so, then we’ve done our job.”

MIT professors Michael McDonald and Kristala Prather embody a form of mentorship defined not only by technical expertise, but by care. They remind us that the most lasting academic guidance is not only about advancing research, but about nurturing their students along the way.

For McDonald’s students, his presence is one of deep empathy and steady support. They describe him as fully committed to their well-being and success — someone whose influence reaches beyond academics to the heart of what it means to feel valued in a community. Prather is celebrated for the way she invests in her mentees beyond formal advising, offering guidance and encouragement that helps them chart paths forward with confidence.

Together, they create spaces where students are affirmed as individuals as well as scholars. 

Professors McDonald and Prather are members of the 2023–25 Committed to Caring cohort, recognized for their dedication to fostering growth, resilience, and belonging across MIT.

Michael McDonald: Empathetic, dedicated, and deeply understanding

Michael McDonald is an associate professor of physics at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. His research focuses on the evolution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, and the role that environment plays in dictating this evolution. 

A shining example of an empathetic and caring advisor, McDonald supports his students, fostering an environment where they can overcome challenges and grow with confidence. One of his students says that “if one of his research or class students is progressing slowly or otherwise struggling, he treats them with respect, care, and understanding, enabling them to maintain confidence and succeed.”

McDonald also goes above and beyond in offering help and guidance, never expecting thanks, praise, or commendation. A student expressed, “he does not need to be asked to advocate for students experiencing personal or academic challenges. He does not need to be asked to improve graduate student education and well-being at MIT. He does not need to be asked to care for students who may otherwise be left behind.”

When asked to describe his advising style, McDonald shared the mantra “we’re humans first, scientists second." He models his commitment to this idea, prioritizing balance for himself while also ensuring that his students feel happy and fulfilled. “If I’m not doing well, or am unhappy with my own work/life balance, then I’m not going to be a very good or understanding advisor,” McDonald says.

Students are quick to identify McDonald as a dedicated and deeply understanding teacher and mentor. “Mike was consistently engaging, humble, and kind, both bolstering our love of astrophysics and making us feel welcome and supported,” one advisee commended.

On top of weekly meetings, he conducts separate check-ins with his students on a semesterly basis to track not only their accomplishments and progress toward their personal goals, but also to evaluate his own mentoring and identify areas of improvement.

McDonald “thinks deeply and often about the long-term trajectory of his advisees, how they will fit into the modern research landscape, and helps them to develop professional and personal support networks that will help them succeed and thrive.”

McDonald feels that projects should be so much fun that they do not feel like work. To this end, he spends a lot of time developing and fleshing out a wide variety of research projects. When he takes on a new student, he presents them with five to 10 possible projects that they could lead, and works with them to find the one that is best matched to the student’s interests and abilities. 

“This is a lot of work on my end — and many of these projects never see the light of day — but I think it leads to better outcomes and happier group members,” McDonald says. One of the most impactful qualities in a mentor and supervisor is how they deal with challenges and failures, both their own and those of others, which McDonald does very effectively.

One nominator sums up McDonald’s character, writing that “Michael McDonald fully embodies the spirit of Committed to Caring as a teacher, advisor, counselor, and role model for the MIT community. He consistently impacts the lives of his students, mentees, and the physics community as a whole, encouraging us to be the best versions of ourselves while striving to be a better mentor, father, and friend.”

Kristala Prather: Meaningful support and departmental impact

Kristala Prather is the Arthur Dehon Little Professor of Chemical Engineering and is the head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. Her research involves the design and assembly of novel pathways for biological synthesis, enhancement of enzyme activity and control of metabolic flux, and bioprocess engineering and design.

Prather has proven to be a dedicated mentor and role model for her students, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. One nominator mentions that as an immigrant woman of color with no prior exposure to academia before coming to MIT, Prather’s guidance has been extremely important for her. Prather has pointed the nominator to resources that she didn't know existed, and helped her navigate U.S. and academic norms that she was not well-versed in. 

“As an international student navigating two new cultures (that of the U.S. as well as that of academia), it is easy to feel inadequate, confused, frustrated, or undeserving,” the student stated. Prather’s level of mentorship may not be easy to find, and it is extremely important to the success of all students, especially to marginalized students. 

Prather actively listens to her students’ concerns and helps them to identify their areas of academic improvement with regard to their desired career path. She consistently creates a comfortable space for authentic conversations where mentees feel supported both professionally and personally. Through her deep caring, advisees feel a sense of belonging and worthiness in academia.

“I treat everyone fairly, which is not the same as treating everyone the same,” Prather says. This is Prather’s way of acknowledging the reality that each individual comes as a unique person; different people need different advising approaches. The goal is to get everyone to the same endpoint, irrespective of where they start.

In addition to the meaningful support which Prather provides her students, she has also dedicated extra time to mentoring. One nominator explained that Prather has been known to meet with individual students in the department to check in on their progress and help them navigate academia. She also works closely with the Office of Graduate Education to connect students from disadvantaged backgrounds to resources that will help them succeed. In the department, she is known to be a trustworthy and caring mentor. 

Since much of Prather’s mentoring goes beyond her official duties, this work can easily be overlooked. It is clear that she has deliberately dedicated extra time to help students, adding to her numerous commitments and official positions both inside and outside of the department. Through their nominations, students called for the recognition of Prather’s mentorship, stating that it  “has meaningfully impacted so many in the department.”

I assume I don’t have to explain last week’s Louvre jewel heist. I love a good caper, and have (like many others) eagerly followed the details. An electric ladder to a second-floor window, an angle grinder to get into the room and the display cases, security guards there more to protect patrons than valuables—seven minutes, in and out.

There were security lapses:

The Louvre, it turns out—at least certain nooks of the ancient former palace—is something like an anopticon: a place where no one is observed. The world now knows what the four thieves (two burglars and two accomplices) realized as recently as last week: The museum’s Apollo Gallery, which housed the stolen items, was monitored by a single outdoor camera angled away from its only exterior point of entry, a balcony. In other words, a free-roaming Roomba could have provided the world’s most famous museum with more information about the interior of this space. There is no surveillance footage of the break-in...

Professor Ioannis V. Yannas SM ’59, a physical chemist and engineer known for the invention of artificial skin for the treatment of severe burns, and a longtime member of the MIT faculty, died on Oct. 19 at the age of 90.

“Professor Yannas was a beloved and distinguished colleague, teacher, and mentor. The impact of his inventions, and his legacy on the field of bioengineering was immense,” says John Hart, the Class of 1922 Professor and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. 

Yannas, known to friends and colleagues as Yanni, held appointments in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. His principal research interest throughout his career was the process of induced organ regeneration used to replace organs that are either severely injured or terminally diseased. His work also advanced the clinical use of collagen tubes to treat peripheral nerve injuries.

In 1969, when Yannas approached the late John Burke of Massachusetts General Hospital to collaborate, Burke took him on a tour of a children’s burn unit. “There was a great deal of human misery that was confronting me, and I felt I had to do something about it,” said Yannas in later interviews. In 1981, the pair announced their success: an amalgam of a silicone outer sheet over a scaffolding of molecular material drawn from cow tendon and shark cartilage. Offering protection from infection and dehydration, the scaffolding enabled healthy skin cells to grow. Their discovery would be transformative for the treatment of burn victims.

Their artificial skin, patented and now manufactured as Integra, is still widely used on patients with severe and extensive burns, and for other applications including some types of plastic surgery and the treatment of chronic skin wounds commonly suffered by people with diabetes. The groundbreaking advance, which was later recognized as the first example of organ regeneration in adults, had previously been considered impossible.

“Yanni’s boldness in attacking a wide array of medical problems, including spinal cord transection, in his investigations of applications of collagen-based implants, inspired others, including myself, to work toward solutions to devastating conditions such as blindness, stroke, and spinal cord injury,” says Myron Spector, professor emeritus of orthopedic surgery (biomaterials) at Massachusetts General Brigham and Harvard Medical School, and an affiliate of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Yannas and Spector created several MIT courses together, including 2.79 (Biomaterial-Tissue Interactions).

“As we were talking about the content [for 2.79], Yanni proposed that we codify the cell behavior underlying the tissue response to implants,” explains Spector. “Within a short time, we laid out the plan for ‘unit cell processes’ to offer students a code to decipher the often inconceivably complex cellular processes that not only underlie the tissue response to implants, but that can guide the selection of the tools necessary to engineer medical devices and reveal their targets for treatment. This was all Yanni, taking a fundamental concept, the control volume used in chemical engineering to analyze systems, and applying it to cellular processes in the human body. I since use UCPs myself all the time.”

As a colleague serving as a collaborator in teaching and in research, Spector says Yannas was eager to help and to learn, bold in his thinking, smart in his choices, able to keep his eye on the goal, respectful of students as well as faculty and other colleagues, and selfless. “These are just the traits that we teach our students to look for when seeking the collaborators who are so necessary in science and engineering.”

Yannas was born on April 14, 1935, in Athens, Greece, where he completed his high school education at Athens College. He received a BA in chemistry at Harvard College in 1957, followed by an MS in chemical engineering from MIT in 1959. After a period of industrial research on polymers at W. R. Grace & Co., in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he attended Princeton University, where he completed an MS degree in 1965 and a PhD in 1966, both in physical chemistry. Yannas joined the MIT faculty immediately thereafter and remained at the Institute for the next 59 years until his passing.

For his discoveries in organ regeneration, Yannas was elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (1987), the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2015), and the National Academy of Engineering (2017). He was also elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineering.

Further, he was the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Society for Biomaterials Founders Award (1982) and the Society’s Clemson Award for Applied Science and Engineering (1992). He was an author of numerous journal articles, and the sole author of the influential book, “Tissue and Organ Regeneration in Adults.”

Yannas’ work, and 2015 induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, was the subject of “Hope Regenerated,” a video produced by the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. The film chronicles the development of Integra, which was initially characterized as a “failed experiment” but became a life-saving discovery that launched a new field of regenerative medicine.

“My father's relationship with MIT was deeply meaningful to him,” says Tania Yannas Kluzak. “He regarded MIT as the ideal partner in his life's work — pioneering lifesaving research in organ regeneration.”

Yannas was predeceased by his brother, Pavlos. He is survived by his two children, Tania Kluzak and her husband Gordon, and Alexi Yannas and his wife Maria; his grandchildren — Alexandra, Marina, Sophia, Philippos, and Nefeli; his sister, Elizabeth Sitinas; and many loving relatives and friends. A celebration of life will be announced at a later date. 

Mother Jones has a long article on surveillance arms manufacturers, their wares, and how they avoid export control laws:

Operating from their base in Jakarta, where permissive export laws have allowed their surveillance business to flourish, First Wap’s European founders and executives have quietly built a phone-tracking empire, with a footprint extending from the Vatican to the Middle East to Silicon Valley.

It calls its proprietary system Altamides, which it describes in promotional materials as “a unified platform to covertly locate the whereabouts of single or multiple suspects in real-time, to detect movement patterns, and to detect whether suspects are in close vicinity with each other.”...

Nations' failure to submit stronger carbon goals comes as President Donald Trump is pushing world leaders to abandon the climate fight.

The embattled industry has retained a firm founded by former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and other lobbyists close to the president.

The oil company contends that the state's requirements violate the First Amendment.

Ford and GM stocks jump as they project profits despite tariffs and the end of EV tax credits. "We expect to reduce EV losses," GM says.

"What might seem small is, in fact, really impactful in the context of the state budget," a Pew analyst says in a report showing state fiscal vulnerability.

The effort to identify hot spots in the state's countryside comes as people are dying of illnesses related to extreme heat.

The constellation of orbiters could enhance forecasts as extreme weather worsens.

The lack of available rooms for COP30 participants has cast a shadow over the talks.

The climate policy is a "scam," said a leading conservative politician.