The Tech, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Ste 483, Cambridge, MA (2026)

05/28/2026

This week’s issue (No. 9) is now out for distribution across campus and on The Tech website (https://thetech.com/issues/146/9/pdf).

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NEWS
• Ravyn Lenae performs at MIT for SpringFest 2026 (p. 1)

WEATHER
• Cool and unsettled weather for this year’s commencement (p. 2)

CAMPUS LIFE
• Senior Side Notes: On luck (p. 3)
• Frosh Files: What I did with my di**le this year (p. 3)
• I volunteered for a year (p. 8)
• Jojo’s Bizarre Musings: Freshman year: On falling down, again and again (p. 9)

SENIOR REFLECTIONS
• The turning point of my college career (p. 4)
• Getting dumber, in a good way (p. 5)
• On exiting (p. 5)
• Learning what it means to be an “editor” (p. 6)
• Observing the magic (p. 7)
• A special chapter of my life (p. 7)

SCIENCE
• Richard Sutton talks vision for superintelligence in Dertouzos Lecture on May 13 (p. 10)
• Residents of predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods are about four times more likely to get hit by a car while walking or biking in Boston (p. 11)
• Zachary Abel on finding the factorial of 1/2 (p. 12)
• From cell biology to tessellations (p. 13)

05/28/2026

SENIOR REFLECTIONS — The Tech’s V146 Senior Editors look back on their experiences in college journalism and say their final farewells to the paper as part of this week’s special Commencement Issue. Swipe to read takeaways from Claire Mao ’26, Alex Tang ’26, Vivian Hir G, Alor Sahoo ’26, Sabine Chu ’26, and Geoffrey Enwere ’26.

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Photos courtesy of Levy Le ’29.

05/14/2026

This week’s issue (No. 8) is now out for distribution across campus and on The Tech website (https://thetech.com/issues/146/8/pdf).

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NEWS
• Gunman fires 60 rounds on Memorial Drive (p. 1)
• MIT Mock Trial advances to Nationals for the first time (p. 1, 2)
• MIT Canvas goes down after Instructure breach (p. 1, 2)

WEATHER
• A beautiful weekend and very warm week ahead (p. 2)

CAMPUS LIFE
• Is life an optimization problem? (p. 3)
• Why MIT should preserve the tutorial style in humanities classes (p. 3)
• From non-runner to marathon runner (p. 4)

ARTS
• Award-winning author Celeste Ng discusses ‘Everything I Never Told You’ at MIT (p. 5)

SCIENCE
• From MIT to Veritasium (p. 6)
• The Marble Center celebrates its 10th anniversary, showcases success stories behind translating experiments to clinical products (p. 6, 8)

OPINION
• Why MIT needs to gradually and responsibly train its future doctors in the AI era (p. 7)

05/14/2026

NEWS — At 1:30 p.m. on Monday, May 11, less than a mile away from campus on Memorial Drive, a gunman sprayed nearly 60 rounds into traffic with a semiautomatic rifle, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a press conference.

The shooting occurred at the intersection of River Street and Memorial Drive. Two drivers were shot and were rushed to Boston hospitals with life-threatening injuries. The gunman Tyler Brown is in custody.

The gunman was previously involved in a 2020 shooting with police officers in South End and was released from prison.

Both Cambridge and Massachusetts State Police responded to the scene, and Ryan said that it was the combined effort of a civilian and a State trooper that took down the gunman.

“[The] trooper and civilian rather than going [away] went towards the suspect with their weapons to end the situation,” Ryan said. “Both the civilian and the trooper fired their weapons, and the suspect was struck multiple times.”

“What happened today cannot stand,” he added.

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Samuel Yuan ’29 has the story.
Photo courtesy of Kai De Leon DeJesus.

05/14/2026

NEWS — A three-way tie. Two more spots for Nationals.

Going into the awards ceremony at the Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) Tournament in New Rochelle, N.Y., the MIT A Mock Trial team was “full blind,” with no knowledge of their win/loss ratio. Their crucial final round was against the University of Maryland (UMD) — one of the best teams in the country — and would decide if they qualified for the National Championship Tournament.

For Kaitlin Yeoh ’28, time seemed to slow down as the first bid was announced.

It was MIT.

The eight-person team immediately leapt to their feet in excitement, screaming and hugging each other as they celebrated a long-awaited accomplishment.

“I was so happy. This year has truly felt like the culmination of all 11 years of hard work that members before us put into this program,” Yeoh said. “It’s such a storybook ending.”

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Grace Zhang ’28 has the story.
Photo courtesy of MIT Mock Trial.

05/14/2026

CAMPUS LIFE — When people ask me when I started running, they are often surprised to learn that I began during my freshman year at MIT.

Growing up, I hated running. The most I ran was 1.5 miles for my high school PE class. Although my mile time was above average, I found running to be an awfully boring, exhausting, and painful activity. I never understood why someone would enjoy running. I mean, what joy could come from physical exertion?

It wasn’t until my first year of undergrad that I became interested in running. During winter break, I reflected upon my relatively sedentary first semester. I decided to adopt a more active and healthier lifestyle for the new year. I began the year by running a mile at the local 400-meter track. I was slow, but at least I started somewhere. I continued doing short runs that were between one and two miles throughout IAP and the spring semester, but I did not have a regular running habit. What truly sparked my interest in running was an interesting conversation I had with a volunteer at the Happy Beaver Invitational, a running meet hosted by the MIT Running Club.

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Vivian Hir ’25 has the story.
Photo courtesy of Vivian Hir ’25.

05/07/2026

BREAKING NEWS — Shortly after 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 7, MIT students lost access to Canvas, the platform that hosts instructional material for nearly all courses, following a breach of the website’s parent company Instructure by cybercrime group ShinyHunters.

MIT is among thousands of universities that use Canvas as their primary instructional platform and are affected by the hack.

The breach comes just as students are wrapping up their final assignments. According to the MIT Registrar, no assignment may fall due after May 8 for subjects with final exams. It also comes just before MIT’s final exams period, which is from May 15 to 20.

MIT’s Information and Systems Technology (IS&T) is aware of the data breach and has issued an announcement on its website. The notice reads, “MIT is actively monitoring the situation and coordinating with the vendor as they work to restore service. This issue originates with the vendor environment and is not the result of an issue within MIT’s local systems.”

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Samuel Yuan ’29 and Grace Zhang ’28 have the story.
Photo courtesy of The Tech News Staff.

05/07/2026

Last week’s issue (No. 7) has been out for distribution across campus and on The Tech website (https://thetech.com/issues/146/7/pdf).

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NEWS
• Green Building Tetris hack returns after 10 years (p. 1, 3)
• MIT Spokes will bike 75 days to teach in rural towns (p. 1, 3)
• MIT List Visual Arts Center celebrates 40 years (p. 1, 2)
• BRIEF: MIT announces Co-op Planning Committee (p. 2)
• BRIEF: New Kendall/MIT station entrance opens (p. 3)
• 1,016 admitted students attend CPW 2026 (p. 12)

WEATHER
• Cool and rainy weekend before nice weather returns next week (p. 2)

CAMPUS LIFE
• An ode to the SAB (p. 4)
• For the love of the game (p. 5)
• Call a boomer (p. 6)
• An unrigorous investigation into food chain consistency (p. 6)

ARTS
• Bestselling author Patrick Radden Keefe presents ‘London Falling’ at WBUR CitySpace (p. 7)
• Bob Odenkirk and Derek Kolstad on ‘Normal’ (p. 8)
• A collage of Baroque dances and celebrations (p. 8)

SCIENCE
• A brighter future for the people of Africa: MIT Africa Innovate Conference pushes new plans for uplifting the African continent (p. 9)
• Sleeping cancer cells hijack the wound healing pathway to wake up (p. 10)

05/07/2026

SCIENCE — Breaking down the science of superglue and its applications to everything from wound treatment to preventing microplastic pollution. Traveling to the Netherlands to look inside the machine responsible for some of the tiniest, most delicate parts of modern computers. Illuminating a logical paradox so divisive that experts around the world — and in the YouTube comment section — can’t agree on the optimal solution.

In the two years since Leah “Sulli” Yost ’22 began working as a writer and director for the science YouTube channel Veritasium, she has gone deep down many scientific rabbit holes. Her videos have been published in seven different languages, reaching Veritasium’s over 20 million subscribers.

Though Yost says she’s “always really loved” stories of many forms — including movies, books, and interactive infographics — her path to YouTube was not exactly linear. Originally a mathematics (Course 18) and writing (Course 21W) double major, Yost only began working on science videos after Veritasium hired her. She was able to navigate the change because of her love for writing and her MIT education.

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Veronika Moroz ’28 has the story.
Photo courtesy of Leah Yost.

05/07/2026

ARTS — On April 28, award-winning author Celeste Ng discussed her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, at an MIT Libraries community event titled “Hidden Truths & Human Ties.” Associate Professor of Literature Sandy Alexandre moderated the discussion. MIT Reads, an MIT Libraries program that aims to foster community book discussion, selected Everything I Never Told You as the book for spring 2026.

Ng is the author of three bestselling novels — Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts. Her accolades include the Pushcart Prize and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She majored in English at Harvard and received an MFA from the University of Michigan.

Everything I Never Told You is about the multiracial Asian/white family of James and Marilyn Lee in 1970s small-town Ohio. When teenage daughter Lydia’s body is suddenly found in the local lake, her unexpected death causes the family to unravel, as they each grieve differently and struggle to understand one another. The novel explores many complex themes that center around family conflict, including secrets and generational differences.

Click on the link in ’s bio to learn more.

Vivian Hir ’25 has the story.
Photo courtesy of Bryce Vickmark.

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