M.I.T. Scientist Wins $6 Million in Sexual Harassment Defamation Suit [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

A prominent Massachusetts Institute of Technology biology professor forced out of his job over sexual harassment allegations won a defamation case against his accuser on Friday, along with a $6 million award.

The biologist, David Sabatini, was among the most prominent scientists in his field, and ran a research lab at the Whitehead Institute, in Cambridge, for 24 years. His lab studied cellular biology to better understand neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, diabetes, and aging.

He was forced out of his lab in 2021 after an internal Whitehead investigation concluded he had a past sexual relationship with a younger and less experienced colleague, Kristin Knouse, over whom he had a career-influencing role. The investigation also found that his lab had maintained a sexualized atmosphere. Dr. Knouse said that the relationship was coerced.

But Dr. Sabatini denied his lab had an improper atmosphere. He maintained that his relationship with Dr. Knouse had been consensual and that Dr. Knouse had schemed to get him fired and disgraced after he became interested in another woman. . . .      

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/us/mit-scientist-sexual-harassment-defamation-lawsuit-david-sabatini.html

Why small colleges are closing and the toll on students and communities [ PBS NewsHour ]

Santa Monica College offers affordable Bachelor of Science degrees [ CBS LA ]

I am sad about AI in maths... [ Sophie Maclean ]

TCU Showgirls - WOW (10/3/2026 - BYU)

The woman with the mattress: the radical, rage-fuelled history of anti-rape art [ The Guardian ]

The flava:

In September 2014, Emma Sulkowicz began to carry a blue mattress weighing 23kg around her university campus. The mattress was similar to the ones New York’s Columbia University used in its dorm rooms, where Sulkowicz said she had been raped by a fellow student two years earlier. Her performance/endurance artwork constituted her visual art senior thesis, drawing attention to the lack of criminal charges brought against her alleged attacker and his continued presence at the university. As she hauled it across campus, others could choose to assist her with her burden. Many did. She recorded responses to the piece in a diary. . . .    

The article:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/oct/08/anti-rape-art-history-cornell-mattress-performance

The wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_That_Weight)

The Former NFL Lineman Who Solved a Decades-Old Math Problem [ WSJ ]

The flava:

A former NFL player named John Urschel decided to do some light reading this week, and for him that meant leafing through the latest math papers from OpenAI about topics such as the Riemann hypothesis. 

“Oh my lord,” he thought. “I was absolutely floored.” 

Urschel was blown away by the findings because he happened to understand the hundreds of proofs better than nearly any human on the planet. Nine years ago, he traded the National Football League for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And Monday, instead of studying abstract play designs, he was publishing some impenetrable language of his own to prove a decades-old mathematical conjecture.

Urschel’s paper, titled “On the Growth Factor of Random Matrices,” is one in a deluge of AI-assisted proofs that mathematicians have achieved in this new era when they can combine their genius with supercomputing power. But within this community of brainiacs, there isn’t a single person quite like the 35-year-old Urschel. After three years with the Baltimore Ravens, the offensive lineman who was listed at 6-foot-3 and 313 pounds ditched his helmet to become a professional egghead in 2017. And he hasn’t regretted it for a moment since. . . .      

The article:

https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/john-urschel-math-nfl-mit-ravens-38b6ca11

Generative AI in Higher Education: Evidence from an Elite College [ Zara Contractor & Germán Reyes ]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.00717v2

Karl Deisseroth on winning the 2026 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine [ Stanford ]

Inside the Enrollment Cliff Hitting US Colleges [ Bloomberg Television ]