[Editors] MIT Research Digest - October 2003

[MIT News Office]

MIT RESEARCH DIGEST - October 2003

A monthly tip-sheet for journalists of recent research
advances at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Web version: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/rd
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For more information on Research Digest items, contact:
Elizabeth Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: (617) 258-5402  *  mailto:thomson at mit.edu

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IN THIS ISSUE:  RoboSnail  *  Systems Biology
Detecting Precancerous Cells  *  Mystery Solved
Cool Stuff  *  Nuclear Energy's Future
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ROBOSNAIL
The humble snail, trailed by its ribbon of slime, now has its first 
robotic counterparts in research at MIT that could lead to new forms 
of locomotion for future machines. RoboSnails I and II each consist 
of electronics aboard a rubber "foot" about six inches long by one 
inch wide. The robots glide over a thin film of "mucus," or silicon 
oil. Snails "can maneuver over a range of complex terrains -- even 
across ceilings -- and they're very mechanically simple," said 
Assistant Professor Anette "Peko" Hosoi of the Department of 
Mechanical Engineering, principal investigator for the work.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/robosnail.html

SYSTEMS BIOLOGY
Human health is dependent on complex biological circuits that control 
everything from the development of organs to cancer. Now a five-year, 
$16 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will aid MIT 
efforts to better understand those circuits through analysis and 
computational modeling of overall systems rather than individual 
components. It will establish the MIT Center of Excellence in Cell 
Decision Processes, which will be part of a larger program at MIT, 
the MIT Computational and Systems Biology Initiative.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/nih.html

DETECTING PRECANCEROUS CELLS
An MIT interdepartmental laboratory has received $7.2 million from 
the National Institutes of Health to further its work on devices that 
can detect and image precancerous cells as noninvasively as shining a 
tiny beam of light onto a patient's tissue. The George R. Harrison 
Spectroscopy Laboratory in the School of Science has been awarded a 
Bioengineering Research Partnership grant to develop and implement 
spectroscopic techniques for imaging and diagnosing dysplasia -- the 
precursor to cancer -- in the uterine cervix and the oral cavity.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/spectroscopy.html

MYSTERY SOLVED
Astronomers led by an MIT team have solved the mystery of why nearly 
two-thirds of all gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in 
the universe, seem to leave no trace or afterglow. It turns out the 
scientists just weren't looking fast enough. New analysis from the 
speedy High Energy Transient Explorer, which locates bursts and 
directs other satellites and telescopes to the explosion within 
minutes (and sometimes seconds), reveals that most gamma-ray bursts 
likely have some afterglow after all.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/hete3.html

COOL STUFF
MIT physicists have cooled a sodium gas to the lowest temperature 
ever recorded -- only half-a-billionth of a degree above absolute 
zero. The work, reported in Science, bests the previous record by a 
factor of six, and is the first time that a gas was cooled below 1 
nanokelvin (one-billionth of a degree). "To go below one nanokelvin 
is a little like running a mile under four minutes for the first 
time," said Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, co-leader of the team 
and a professor of physics.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/cooling.html

NUCLEAR ENERGY'S FUTURE
A team of researchers from MIT and Harvard has released an 
interdisciplinary study on barriers and solutions for nuclear power 
as a means of reducing greenhouse gases. Institute Professor John 
Deutch of MIT, co-chair of the study, called it "the most 
comprehensive, interdisciplinary study ever conducted on the future 
of nuclear energy." The report maintains that "the nuclear option 
should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free 
source of power."
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/nuclear.html

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Published by the News Office  *  Massachusetts Institute of Technology