[Editors] MIT Research Digest - January 2004

[MIT News Office]

MIT RESEARCH DIGEST - January 2004

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:  Robotic Personal Assistant   *  Weighing Atoms 
Detecting Bioagents   *  Ultracold Coup 
World's Largest Book   *  Brain Eliminations 
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ROBOTIC PERSONAL ASSISTANT
The Roman goddess of thresholds is getting 21st-century attention as 
the namesake for an MIT robot that could become the world's first 
humanoid personal assistant. "Just as personal computers have enabled 
tremendous information-processing productivity gains for individuals, 
we believe that building a physical cognitive assistant that can do 
physical things in the world will enable tremendous productivity gains 
for the individual, office worker or factory worker," said Rodney 
Brooks, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence 
Laboratory (CSAIL).
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/2003/nov05/cardea.html

WEIGHING ATOMS
MIT atomic physicists have developed a technique that compares the 
masses of single charged atoms with unprecedented accuracy--akin to 
measuring the distance between Boston and Los Angeles to within the 
width of a human hair. The work, led by David Pritchard, an MIT 
Professor of Physics and a principal investigator in the MIT-Harvard 
Center for Ultracold Atoms, opens the door to numerous applications, 
including testing E=mc2 and weighing chemical bonds for weakly bound or 
very rare ionic species.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/ions.html

DETECTING BIOAGENTS
Researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory are exploring ways to use the 
same Doppler radar that provides colorful weather pictures on TV to 
detect biological and chemical agents used in potential terrorist 
attacks. Lincoln Lab helped design the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar 
that provides automatic alerts of hazardous wind shear near airports. 
The goal is to use the 45 radar towers scattered at major airports 
around the country as an early warning system for chemical or 
biological agents disseminated by airplanes.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/2003/dec17/warning.html

ULTRACOLD COUP
In a step that might help explain the mystery of how high-temperature 
electrical superconductors work, three research groups around the 
globe--including one at MIT--have observed molecules form a collective 
identity at ultracold temperatures. This collective behavior in which 
the molecules act as one entity is called a Bose-Einstein condensate. 
Wolfgang Ketterle, MIT professor of physics, shared the 2001 Nobel 
Prize in physics for causing atoms to march in lockstep as a single 
entity, thus discovering a new form of matter.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/ketterle.html

WORLD'S LARGEST BOOK
Michael Hawley of the MIT Media Lab made publishing history recently 
with the release of the largest book ever published, as certified by 
Guinness World Records. "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last 
Himalayan Kingdom" weighs in at more than 130 pounds and stands at five 
by seven feet, nearly as big as a Ping-Pong table. The book features 
more than 100 pages of spectacular images of a country often referred 
to as "the last Shangri-la," and showcases a variety of new digital, 
photographic and printing techniques.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/hawley.html

BRAIN ELIMINATIONS
By discovering one of the first mechanisms through which brain synapses 
are dismantled, an MIT neuroscientist sheds new light on how our brains 
eliminate connections between neurons. Morgan Sheng, the Menicon 
Professor of Neuroscience in MIT's Picower Center for Learning and 
Memory, says this information may lead to drugs that could prevent or 
minimize synapse loss associated with neurodegenerative disease such as 
Alzheimer's.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/sheng.html

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Published by the News Office  *  Massachusetts Institute of Technology