<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div>For more information or to arrange interviews, contact:</div><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div class="MsoNormal">Patti Richards, MIT News Office</div><div class="MsoNormal">617.253.8923; <a href="mailto:prichards@mit.edu">prichards@mit.edu</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">================================</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>MIT researchers:</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>New Technologies for Tomorrow's Boom</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">================================</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">As the economy appears to falter, here's something to keep in mind: History is filled with examples of new technologies that have helped to usher in more prosperous times. (Case in point: Few people who experienced the recession of the early 1990s could have foreseen the emergence of the World Wide Web.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">With this in mind, we asked MIT researchers for their thoughts on potentially life-altering technologies that lie just around the corner.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">See brief versions of some of their answers below; the complete text can be found at <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/hope-horizon-0521.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/hope-horizon-0521.html</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Note: All MIT researchers are available for interviews. Please contact Patti Richards at 617.253.8923 or <a href="mailto:prichards@mit.edu">prichards@mit.edu</a> to arrange.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">================================</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Leslie Bromberg</b>: Using plasma to convert waste to fuel (imagine using garden and household waste to make energy).</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Rod Brooks:</b> Robots that are practical and affordable.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Neil Gershenfeld</b>: The digitization of fabrication, the consequence of which will be personalization -- allowing anyone to make almost anything anywhere.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Paula Hammond</b>: Electrochemical energy: The reduction and oxidation of materials to either generate energy or to store it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>William J. Mitchell</b>: Rebuilding our cities in "smart" sustainable form, with ubiquitous networking that will allow cities to respond like intelligent organisms to dynamic changes in the needs of their inhabitants. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Phil Sharp</b>: Merging engineering and biology, which will ultimately yield better medicines, agriculture and materials. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Michael Strano</b>: Embedding low-cost electronics into almost every object that we encounter on a day-to-day basis.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Mehmet Faith Yanik</b>: Significant extension of the human lifespan by disease-preventative and tissue-regenerative technologies.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Shuguang Zhang</b>: Low-cost, nanoscale solar cells.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">###</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div></div></span></b></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br></body></html>