Happy Friday!

Yes, that is an Oberlin College-produced parody of Rebecca Black. And yes, that is our former Communications Director Ben Jones costarring in it!

I've been working all week rewriting some web content for the site and my brain is a bit melty. So, as a bit of a break, in the spirit (but without the inspiration) of Ben's big lists, and following up on Hamsika's blog about the Boston Globe special feature on MIT and this Guardian article about inventor culture at MIT, here is the Boston Globe's list of the top 50 "ideas, inventions and innovators that helped shape our world" and were associated with MIT.

50. 
    Gillette Co. & the Disposable Razor
49. 
    Wind tunnels (invented at MIT in 1896)
48. 
    Radar detection/navigation (perfected at MIT durign WWII)
47. 
    Texas Instruments (cofounded by Cecil Green '24)
46. 
    Kendall Square (w/ 130 high-tech tenants)
45. 
    E*Trade, cofounded by MIT Sloan alum William Porter
44. 
    Electrical, aeronautical, and nuclear engineering, all of which were pioneered at MIT
43. 
    Modern urban design
42. 
    The theory of cosmic inflation, developed by Professor Alan Guth '69
41. 
    Nuclear fission, pioneered by alumnus and Professor Manson Benedict
40. 
    One Laptop Per Child
39. 
    The Sloan Automotive Lab
38. 
    OpenCourseWare
37. 
    Zipcar
36. 
    PET Scans
35. 
    Katharine McCormick - biologist, birth control pioneer, and the second woman to graduate from MIT
34. 
    Robert Noyce '53, cofounder of Intel & inventor of the microchip
33. 
    Modern lithium-ion batteries
32. 
    Modern oil prospecting
31. 
    The first solar-powered house
30. 
    Genentech
29. 
    Refined oil
28. 
    iWalk bioprosthetics
27. 
    Big Dog
26. 
    HP, cofounded by William Hewlett '36
25. 
    The Executive MBA program at Sloan
24. 
    The first public health school in the nation
23. 
    The link between cancer and genetics
22. 
    Reverse transcription, discovered by David Baltimore, founder of the MIT Whitehead Institute
21. 
    Condensed soup
20. 
    Technicolor (itself named after MIT!)
19. 
    Inertial guidance systems for aircraft
18. 
    RSA encryption
17. 
    The first air-conditioned building
16. 
    The "memex" - which helped inspire the Internet - conceived of by former MIT President Vannevar Bush '16
15. 
    Akamai, the content delivery network that handles 30% of the world's Internet traffic
14. 
    The Internet Archive, maintained by Brewster Kahle '82
13. 
    The spreadsheet, designed by Dan Bricklin '73
12. 
    E-ink, invented at the MIT Media Lab
11. 
    Former MIT Professor and Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria
10. 
    Ivan Getting '33 was a primer developer of GPS
9. 
   Bose Corporation, founded by MIT Professor Amar Bose
8. 
   Ellen Swallow Richards, a public-sanitation and environmental chemistry expert and the first woman to graduate from MIT
7. 
   iRobot, founded by MIT alumni Helen Greneir and Colin Angle
6. 
   The first interactive minicomputer
5. 
   Biogen, founded by Philip Sharp, MIT Professor (and a lot more!) since 1974
4. 
   Email, invented by Ray Tomlinson '65
3. 
   Transistor radio, co-invented by William Shockley '36
2. 
   The Human Genome Project, for which MIT's Whitehead Institute, led by Professor Eric Lander, sequenced the most genes
1. 
   The World Wide Web, invented by MIT Professor Tim Berners-Lee

That's a pretty epic list! What will you do to make it on the MIT 200 retrospective?