[Editors] MIT Research Digest - September 2003

[MIT News Office]

MIT RESEARCH DIGEST - September 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:  Water Striders  *  Biotech for the Army
Sight Unseen  *  The Brain and Blindness
Plankton Blueprints  *  Gamma-Ray Bursts
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WATER STRIDERS
MIT researchers report that they now understand how the insects known 
as water striders skim effortlessly across the surface of ponds and 
oceans. In addition, the researchers created Robostrider -- a 
mechanical water strider that uses those same fluid dynamics to move. 
John W.M. Bush, associate professor of mathematics at MIT and author 
of the  study, worked with colleagues using mathematics, high-speed 
photography and a variety of flow visualization techniques to 
discover that the insects propel themselves forward using a sculling 
technique with their middle set of legs.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/robostrider.html

BIOTECH FOR THE ARMY
Angela Belcher, associate professor of materials science and 
engineering and biological engineering, will head the MIT component 
of the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB), a 
three-university consortium that aims to understand and harness 
biological mechanisms for the fabrication of new materials and 
devices to equip the soldier of the 21st century. The ICB aims to 
study and replicate processes in nature that are able to create 
high-performance materials at the nanoscale with a level of precision 
currently beyond human capability.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/icb.html

SIGHT UNSEEN
MIT professor Pawan Sinha is bringing his cognitive sciences 
expertise to India, in an effort to help children who have had their 
eyesight restored with a simple cataract operation learn to see 
again. Project Prakash is Sinha's ambitious scientific and 
humanitarian effort to look at how individuals who are born blind and 
then gain some vision perceive objects and faces. As part of the 
project, Sinha, who grew up in New Delhi, will fund the cataract 
operation for some children, and will work with Indian health care 
workers to provide effective follow-up care.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/sinha.html

THE BRAIN AND BLINDNESS
An MIT researcher explains in Nature Neuroscience how temporarily 
depriving one eye of vision soon after birth induces a long-lasting 
loss of synapses that causes blindness. The same brain mechanisms are 
used for normal development and may go awry in conditions that cause 
developmental delays in humans, and may reappear in old age and 
contribute to synaptic loss during Alzheimer's disease.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/sight.html

PLANKTON BLUEPRINTS
The world's smallest photosynthetic organisms, microbes that can turn 
sunlight and carbon dioxide into living biomass like plants do, were 
in the limelight in mid-August. Three international teams of 
scientists, including a group from MIT, announced the genetic 
blueprints for four closely related forms of these organisms, which 
numerically dominate the phytoplankton of the oceans. A better 
understanding of phytoplankton will aid studies on global climate 
change and sustainable energy production.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/plankton.html

GAMMA-RAY BURSTS
An MIT researcher estimates that there are roughly 450 gamma-ray 
bursts or X-ray flashes occurring in the observable universe for 
every 1 detectable by orbiting satellites. Shining as brightly as a 
million trillion suns yet seldom lasting even one minute, gamma-ray 
bursts were a great astronomical mystery only recently solved when 
they were conclusively shown to be linked to cataclysmic explosions 
called supernovae that mark the deaths of very massive stars. The 
current work showing that many gamma-ray bursts go undetected was led 
by Maurice van Putten, assistant professor of applied mathematics.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/grbmath.html

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Published by the News Office  *  Massachusetts Institute of Technology