[xkcd-sucks]

It's a department, and it's dedicated to the creation of media. Doing "cool nerd stuff" is strictly to support that mission.

Very postmodern and advanced if you think about it-- Most actual scientists are measured by how they produce papers (e.g. media). Which is also how the "replication crisis" and "p hacking" came to be. The Media Lab just recognizes it explicitly

[partialrecall]

So their objective was to create a media splash about 'food computers', rather than to actually advance ag technology? That somehow seems even weirder.