J. Nathan Matias watched the clouds over the Charles and MIT in Cambridge this afternoon. Read more.

Cambridge Day reports MIT is going to try to turn Senior House, a freewheeling dorm with art on the walls, cats everywhere and "an eclectic assortment of students who may be low-income, first-generation, black, Asian or Latinx or LGBTQI" - and a traditionally low graduation rate - into a place where the emphasis is on mental health, physical fitness and learning how to cook one's own meals. Also: No cats. Students are not going down without a fight.

The Globe reports MIT researchers have developed pastas that can change their shapes when water is added.

WBZ reports.

A friend couldn't help but notice this ad in the March 23 issue of MIT's student paper, the Tech.

The MIT Media Lab is accepting applications through May 1 for a no-strings-attached $250,000 Disobedience Award:

This award will go to a person or group engaged in what we believe is an extraordinary example of disobedience for the benefit of society.

What does this mean? Societies and institutions lean toward order and away from chaos. While necessary for functioning, structure can also stifle creativity, flexibility, and productive change–and ultimately, society's health and sustainability. This is true from academia, to corporations, governments, the sciences, and our local communities.

With this award, we honor work that impacts society in positive ways, and is consistent with a set of key principles. These principles include non-violence, creativity, courage, and taking responsibility for one’s actions. This disobedience is not limited to specific disciplines; examples include scientific research, civil rights, freedom of speech, human rights, and the freedom to innovate.

H/t Wakefield.

MIT and a group called Conservation International yesterday announced a program to look at ways to use nature to help fight climate change:

The collaboration brings together MIT’s technical, scientific, and engineering expertise with Conservation International’s expansive environmental programs, to look for ways that forests, coastal ecosystems, and urban areas can be managed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.

The collaboration launches today with a one-day hackathon at MIT that invites participants to team up on ideation and early-state design of nature-based, technologically savvy solutions to climate challenges in developing world communities. The collaboration will involve MIT students in CI’s international fieldwork and will initially include four joint research projects in which scientists will focus directly on climate challenges already having an impact in places such as the Philippines and the Amazon Basin.

Elmer shows us the remains of ΖΨ fraternity's year-starting carbash, in which people take turns, well, bashing a car.

Wicked Local Cambridge reports on MIT's plans for new residences and retail space on what are now parking lots; will that be enough to transform the soulless collection of buildings into a neighborhood?