In search of new knowledge and better treatments, cancer research is leaping out of the petri dish. Researchers at MIT and BU recently found that placing breast cancer cells in three-dimensional environments changes how they move around, bind to each other, and respond to drugs. The study, published in PLOS Computational Biology last week, adds to a growing body of three-dimensional cancer research that — experts hope — will enable greater understanding of the disease and how to fight it.

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Mussels, pounded by the oceans’ waves, fasten themselves to rocks as a matter of survival. Bacteria cast protein nets to hold onto surfaces for dear life. Now MIT researchers have combined the two in a clever new way, producing the best-ever underwater glue inspired by Mother Nature—and a potential replacement for today’s surgical stitches.

The new study, published in Nature Nanotechnology on September 21, describes glue made of super-sticky, self-assembling networks of protein fiber. Led by Chao Zhong—a physical science professor at ShanghaiTech University and former MIT post-doc—the study addresses an enormous need: man’s lack of effective underwater adhesives.

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Last month, I was fortunate enough to report on MIT ‘s “Make The Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon,” during which about 150 engineers, designers, developers, and health care professionals gathered at the Media Lab to try to improve a very old piece of technology. If you feel like learning more about liquid superfoods, ZipTubes, and “Team Batman,” you can check out my coverage at the MIT News website.

An underground guild of assassins roams MIT at night. Armed with brightly colored rubber dart blasters, they strategize against one another, resurrect at stairwells, form alliances, and make enemies.

It sounds fantastical, but the MIT Assassins’ Guild is a very real live action role-playing (LARP) society at MIT founded by Stephen Balzac (BS ’85 Computer Science; SM ’87 Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences) in the mid ’80s. At the time, Balzac had been playing interactive role-playing games and applied to MIT’s association of student activities (ASA) to form a group that would allow students to reserve rooms for gaming and to fund attendance at interactive gaming conferences. Full Article »

MIT is a school that belongs to someone else, though to whom I’m not sure. When I got accepted here, I was fairly certain it was a mistake. Even days after the acceptance e-mails went out, when science writing program director, Tom Levenson, called to confirm that I actually got in, I had to put him on hold so I could freak out. Months later, I still haven’t told many of my friends, mainly because there’s a small piece of me that believes that a highly knowledgeable group of admissions reps somehow switched my application with someone else’s and will one day swoop down to take it back.

Here are some things I’ve learned about Impostor Syndrome since being at MIT—I.S. disproportionately affects women, it’s rampant at nearby Harvard Business School where about 75 percent of students felt like they were accidentally admitted, and it’s a thing that affects an almost intimidating number of top achievers in their field, from Fortune 500 CEOs to Supreme Court Justices to Pulitzer-Grammy-Tony Award-winning badasses. Even the phenoms feel like phonies. Full Article »

It is a Tuesday night, and on the quiet fourth floor of MIT’s otherwise bustling Stratton Student center, the MIT Science Fiction Society (MITSFS) is holding open hours.  A narrow doorway separates airy, institutional hallways from the colorful world of room W20-473, which is lined from ceiling to floor with books.

“We…aim to have a library full of science fiction and fantasy and horror, and tangentially related genres, that we can make accessible to MIT, the community, and anybody else who’s interested,” says Laura McKnight, the Society’s Vice for 2014-2015 (she describes her role as “approximately Vice President.”) To the left of the doorway, a small plywood box is stacked on its end.  This, McKnight says, is the Society’s original library. When freshman Rudolf “Rudy” Preisendorfer founded MITSFS in 1949, members would pass their books from dorm room to dorm room in this box.  Things have changed a bit in the last 65 years. “Our total book count is, last I heard, 63,000,” says Laura McKnight, the Society’s Vice for 2014-2015 (she describes this role as “approximately Vice President.”) “At one point, our goal was to collect all the science fiction that had ever been published. But with the rise of self-published science fiction, that’s not even sort of possible anymore.” Full Article »