On view October 1 -- December 11, 2025This exhibition draws on archival materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC) to explore a century of cultural heritage preservation in Aleppo, Syria. It takes as its point of departure the work of Kamil al-Ghazzi (1853–1933), the pioneering Aleppine historian whose influential three-volume chronicle, Nahr al-Dhahab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (The River of Gold in the History of Aleppo), was published between 1924 and 1926.Ink, Stone, and Silver Light presents three modes of documentation—manuscript, built form, and photography—through which Aleppo’s urban memory has been recorded and preserved. Featuring figures such as Michel Écochard and Yasser Tabbaa alongside al-Ghazzi, the exhibition traces overlapping efforts to capture the spirit of a city shaped by commerce, craft, and coexistence. At a time when Syria again confronts upheaval and displacement, these archival fragments offer models for preserving the past while envisioning futures rooted in dignity, knowledge, and place.

Using citation management software to create and maintain a collection of references or PDFs is common and important in today’s academic world. These tools will help you to save citations from your favorite databases and websites, store related PDFs or attachments, annotate PDFs, and quickly build a bibliography for your papers and publications. We’ll focus on how to use Zotero, but will also discuss other options, such as Mendeley.

Speaker: Kishwar Shafin (Google)Title: Creating the next generation of genome analysis tools with deep learningAbstract: Deep learning is fueling a revolution in genomics, enabling the development of a new generation of analysis tools that offer unprecedented accuracy. This talk presents a suite of deep learning models designed to address fundamental challenges in variant calling and generating high-quality genome assemblies. We begin with DeepVariant, a convolutional neural network that redefined the standard for germline variant calling, and its extension, DeepSomatic, which adapts this technology to the critical task of identifying low-frequency somatic mutations in cancer genomes. Moving from variant analysis to genome construction, we introduce DeepPolisher. This tool leverages a powerful Transformer-based architecture to significantly reduce errors in genome assemblies, providing a more accurate and reliable foundation for downstream research. Finally, we explore the future of variant calling by integrating these methods with emerging pangenome references. We demonstrate how a pangenome-aware approach allows for a more comprehensive survey of human genetic diversity, resolving variation in previously intractable regions of the genome. Together, these tools represent a cohesive framework that is building the next generation of genomic analysis, transforming our ability to accurately read and interpret the code of life.In person or on Zoom at https://mit.zoom.us/j/93513735220

Looking for an interesting read?The Book Discussion group will host virtual meetings via Zoom. Please write to Maxine Jonas (jonas_m@mit.edu) to be added to their mailing list. They (almost always) meet on the fourth Wednesday of the month, at 11:30am – 1pm.Our book line-up this year will be:September 24: Kristin Hannah, The Women October 22: Asmaa Alghoul, A Rebel in Gaza December 10: Edwidge Danticat, Brother I'm Dying January 28: Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men February 25: Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca March 25: Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence April 22: Percival Everett, James May 27: Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Professor Michael Horowitz from the University of Pennsylvania will speak at the MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar.Summary: In this seminar, Professor Horowitz will address the question: are nuclear weapons useful for coercion, and, if so, what factors increase the credibility and effectiveness of nuclear threats? While prominent scholars like Thomas Schelling argue that nuclear brinkmanship, or the manipulation of nuclear risk, can effectively coerce adversaries, others contend nuclear weapons are not effective tools of coercion, especially coercion designed to achieve offensive and revisionist objectives. Simultaneously, there is broad debate about the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into military systems, especially nuclear command and control. We develop a theoretical argument that explicit nuclear threats implemented with automated nuclear launch systems are potentially more credible compared to ambiguous nuclear threats or explicit nuclear threats implemented via non-automated means. By reducing human control over nuclear use, leaders can more effectively tie their hands and thus signal resolve. While automated nuclear weapons launch systems may seem like something out of science fiction, the Soviet Union deployed such a system during the Cold War and the technology necessary to automate the use of force has developed considerably in recent years due to advances in AI. Preregistered survey experiments on an elite sample of United Kingdom Members of Parliament and two public samples of UK citizens provide support for these expectations, showing that, in a limited set of circumstances, nuclear threats backed by AI integration have credibility advantages, no matter how dangerous they may be. The findings Professor Horowitz will discuss in this seminar contribute to the literatures on coercive bargaining, weapons of mass destruction, and emerging technology.

Do you have intermediate to advanced skills in Python? Are you interested in learning how to work with geospatial data in your research? In this workshop, you will learn how to work with both vector and raster data using Python. You will explore how to import, visualize, crop, and assess spatial datasets to focus on areas of interest. You will conduct a hands-on case study analyzing the impact of the 2023 wildfire on Rhodes, Greece, working with real-world satellite and topographical data, calculating NDVI, identifying scorched areas, and comparing pre- and post-disaster landscapes. This session will help integrate powerful spatial tools into your data science or research workflows.