[Editors] MIT Research Digest, September 2006
Elizabeth Thomson
thomson at MIT.EDU
Tue Sep 5 17:06:00 EDT 2006
MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www
======================================
MIT Research Digest, September 2006
======================================
For Immediate Release
TUESDAY, SEP. 5, 2006
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu
A monthly tip-sheet for journalists of recent research advances at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the latest MIT
research news, go to http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/research.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IN THIS ISSUE: Robotic Kayaks * Managing Nuclear Waste
How We Learn * New Cancer Treatment * Drug Safety
Earth History * Real Time Rome * e-Lens * Media Clash
Crab Nabbed * Exploring Alzheimer's * Definition: Planet
Perceptual Learning * Storing Carbon Dioxide
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ROBOTIC KAYAKS
MIT researchers are working toward the day when a team of robots
could be put into action like a team of Navy SEALs - doing such
dangerous work as searching for survivors after hurricanes or
sweeping harbors for mines. These engineers are taking small steps
toward the holy grail of robotics - cooperative autonomy - making
machines work together seamlessly to complete tasks with a minimum of
human direction. The tool they're using is the simple kayak. The
researchers are taking off-the-shelf, $500 plastic kayaks and fitting
them with onboard computers, radio control, propulsion, steering,
communications and more to create Surface Crafts for Oceanographic
and Undersea Testing (SCOUTs). Much of the technology being tested is
ultimately intended for use in underwater robots, or autonomous
underwater vehicles (AUVs), but testing software on AUVs can easily
become a multimullion-dollar experiment. "I want to have master's
students and Ph.D. students that can come in, test algorithms and
develop them on a shoestring budget," said Associate Professor John
J. Leonard of mechanical engineering. This research was funded by the
ONR and the MIT Sea Grant College Program. Acoustic communications
hardware for the project was provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/scout.html
MANAGING NUCLEAR WASTE
The Bush administration is eagerly pushing nuclear power as a way to
help solve the U.S. energy crisis. But in its new plan for nuclear
waste management, the administration is taking the wrong approach,
says an MIT professor who studies the nuclear energy industry. "My
hope is that over time, the administration will rethink its
priorities in this area," said Richard Lester, professor of nuclear
engineering and director of the Industrial Performance Center. In an
article published in Issues in Science and Technology, Lester argued
that the Bush administration's plan, known as GNEP (Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership), is not the best way to encourage further
development of nuclear energy. GNEP, which President Bush announced
earlier this year, is meant to stimulate the nuclear industry by
coming up with better ways to manage spent nuclear fuel. The plan
focuses on reprocessing spent fuel, but Lester believes the
administration should focus on finding regional storage facilities
for the nuclear waste.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/nuclear-storage.html
HOW WE LEARN
Finally confirming a fact that remained unproven for more than 30
years, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
report in the Aug. 25 issue of Science that certain key connections
among neurons get stronger when we learn. "We show what everyone has
always believed: LTP (long-term potentiation) is indeed induced in
the hippocampus when learning occurs," said Mark Bear, Picower
Professor of Neuroscience. "This is a big deal for neuroscientists
because such evidence has been absent for the 30-plus years we have
known about LTP." The findings described in the Bear paper and in a
second, separate paper in the same issue of Science "substantially
advance the case for LTP as a neural mechanism for memory," according
to a commentary accompanying the papers. This work is supported by
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/ltp.html
NEW CANCER TREATMENT
Scientists at MIT, collaborating with an industrial team, are
creating a proton-shooting system that could revolutionize radiation
therapy for cancer. The goal is to get the system installed at major
hospitals to supplement, or even replace, the conventional radiation
therapy now based on x-rays. The fundamental idea is to harness the
cell-killing power of protons -- the naked nuclei of hydrogen atoms
-- to knock off cancer cells before the cells kill the patient.
Worldwide, the use of radiation treatment now depends mostly on beams
of x-rays, which do kill cancer cells but can also harm many normal
cells that are in the way. What the researchers envision -- and what
they're now creating -- is a room-size atomic accelerator costing far
less than the existing proton-beam accelerators that shoot subatomic
particles into tumors, while minimizing damage to surrounding normal
tissues. They expect to have their first hospital system up and
running in late 2007. Physicist Timothy Antaya, a technical
supervisor in MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), leads
the work. MIT is licensing the technology to Still River Systems. The
PSFC's magnet work, which is key to the new system, has been funded
by the DOE.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/proton.html
DRUG SAFETY
The MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation will work with the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration to develop ways to monitor the safety of
drugs that are already on the market. Currently, the FDA relies on
voluntary reporting to track the adverse effects of drugs. The Center
for Biomedical Innovation (CBI) will work to identify alternative
ways to monitor the safety and efficacy of new and well-established
pharmaceutical products and medical devices. In addition to voluntary
reports the FDA receives from patients and the health-care community,
CBI will use large sets of health-care data to recognize patterns
that indicate unexpected efficacy or problems with safety. "Over the
past year FDA has introduced several new policy and regulatory
initiatives to improve post-marketing surveillance and strengthen the
agency's oversight and protection of patients," said Dr. Scott
Gottlieb, deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs.
"This new partnership seeks to greatly enhance the ability of the FDA
and the pharmaceutical industry to quickly determine the safety,
efficacy or optimal use of a product."
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/biobash-fda.html
EARTH HISTORY
The mass extinction of dinosaurs occurred about 66 million years ago,
at the end of the Cretaceous Period (K) and the beginning of the
Tertiary Period, known as the K-T boundary. A massive asteroid
slammed into what is now the Gulf of Mexico about that time." About"
is the key word here. The correlation is close, but not close enough
for Samuel Bowring, a professor of geology in MIT's Department of
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Bowring, who thinks there
is a correlation between the two events, firmly believes that it may
be possible to more precisely date the sequence of events before,
during and after the extinction. In 2003 Bowring launched the
Earthtime initiative to bring together scientists from all over the
world to work together to calibrate and sequence Earth history
through the integration of high-precision geochronology and
quantitative chronostratigraphy. Now, Earthtime has more than 200
members, hailing from a variety of disciplines. Its official goal is
to bring dating accuracy to better than 0.1 percent. That means in
dating a 250-million-year-old fossil, results would be plus or minus
250,000 years.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/earthtime.html
REAL TIME ROME
Real Time Rome, a pioneering MIT project that promises to usher in a
new era of urban mapmaking, will have its worldwide debut at the
Venice Biennale, the prestigious biannual exhibition of contemporary
art and design that runs from Sept. 10 to Nov. 20. The MIT project
uses data gathered, in real time and at an unprecedented scale, from
cell phones and other wireless technologies, to better understand the
patterns of daily life in Rome, and to illustrate what ubiquitous
connectivity in an urban environment looks like. "In today's world,
wireless mobile communications devices are creating new dimensions of
interconnectedness between people, places and urban infrastructures,"
said project director Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab
at MIT. "The goal of Real Time Rome is to use this connectivity to
map the city in real time, which may ultimately lead to a deeper
understanding of how modern cities function." The principal sponsor
of Real Time Rome is Telecom Italia. Technical partners are the Rome
public transportation authority (ATAC), Google, Samarcanda Taxi and
the city of Rome.
IMAGES AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/realtime-rome.html
e-LENS
A walk down the street may someday be as rich with information as the
web, thanks to the emergence of location-aware technology. MIT is at
the vanguard of this movement with a project called Electronic Lens
(eLens), an initiative of the MIT Media Lab. Headed by Professor
William Mitchell and Visiting Scientist Federico Casalegno, eLens is
defined by its focus on benefits for local citizens. Several research
and commercial projects are also exploring the potential of
location-aware services. Most rely on a tagging system - for example,
physical tags attached to buildings - that can then be scanned and
read by mobile camera phones. eLens is exploring the next wave of
communications technology - building interactions that depend on
where you are and what you want to know or say. In the eLens team's
vision, you could aim your mobile phone at your child's school and
start a voice thread to discuss cuts in after-school programs. Or you
could let passersby know that the local folk music club serves great
vegetarian meals.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/elens.html
MEDIA CLASH
The exploding complexity of the media in today's society has set up a
clash between traditional media -- print, broadcast television, the
recording industry and the corporate giants that own and sponsor them
-- and the constantly mutating world of new media -- the Internet,
"game worlds" and ever more powerful mobile devices and software. As
MIT's Henry Jenkins explains in his new book, "Convergence Culture:
Where Old and New Media Collide" (New York University Press),
consumers are no longer content to be spoon-fed music, TV, movies and
literature. They want to play with it, interact with it, parody it
and analyze it -- with or without the by-your-leave of the primary
producers. The battle for turf between the Goliaths of Time Warner
and Fox and the masses of little Davids writing, playing and
programming in their bedrooms is unlikely to be resolved anytime
soon, Jenkins says.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/jenkins-media.html
CRAB NABBED
MIT researchers have confirmed the first sighting of a Dungeness crab
in the Atlantic Ocean. The male, whose species is common on North
America's West Coast, was caught off Thatcher Island, Massachusetts,
earlier this summer by Lou Williams, captain of the fishing vessel
Orin C. The origin of the crab is not known. One possibility is that
it may have been purchased from a live seafood market and released.
The size of the crab (18 cm) and its gender suggest it most likely
arrived as an adult exotic species. Also known as invasive species or
bioinvaders, exotic species are of concern because they can establish
themselves in a new ecosystem, where they can proliferate and push
out native species. The crab was caught while Williams was
gillnetting for groundfish at 45 fathoms. Suspecting the crab to be a
Dungeness, he took it to Brandy Wilbur, aquaculture specialist for
MIT Sea Grant, and Eric Sabo, educator at the Gloucester Maritime
Heritage Center, for verification. After distributing photographs of
the crab to several scientists, the researchers received confirmation
of the species, Cancer magister, from several experts.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/crab.html
EXPLORING ALZHEIMER'S
Some people live to be 100 without falling victim to Alzheimer's
disease. Li-Huei Tsai, who joined MIT this spring as Picower
Professor of Neuroscience, wants to know why. Amyloid beta or Abeta
(a protein fragment that accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's
patients) is a telltale sign of the disease, which affects 4 million
Americans, most over age 65. Normally, the body manages to break down
and eliminate these fragments, but in the aging brain, they tend to
form insoluble plaques. To add to the mystery, some people function
relatively normally with plaques nestled among their neurons, while
others are virtually incapacitated. "There are people with a
significant plaque load who can keep up with their daily lives," said
Tsai, who has appointments in the Department of Brain and Cognitive
Sciences and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.
"Obviously, other factors are determining whether they have
full-blown Alzheimer's." Tsai, who as a child in Taipei witnessed her
grandmother's descent into dementia, is determined to unravel the
thorny questions associated with neurodegenerative and psychiatric
disorders.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/alzheimers-abeta.html
DEFINITION: PLANET
The "United Nations" of astronomers has announced a new definition of
what a planet is, slightly revising the description preferred by an
international panel including an MIT professor that was tasked with
the challenge. Members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
voted on August 24 to define a planet as an object that is in orbit
around the sun, is large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a
nearly spherical shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its
orbit -- in other words, it has no other large bodies crossing its
path. The third condition was added to the draft definition of a
planet submitted to the IAU about a week earlier by MIT's Richard
Binzel and colleagues. Binzel, a professor of planetary science in
the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences,
presented the final version of the resolution at the time of the
final vote. The new definition means that Pluto will still be
considered a planet. Technically, however, it will be a dwarf planet
because it is smaller than Mercury.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/pluto-new.html
PERCEPTUAL LEARNING
The artist's trained eye can detect distinctions others can't;
musicians pick up subtle changes in tone lost on the nonmusical.
Brain researchers call these abilities perceptual learning. Following
up on an accidental finding, MIT researchers at the Picower Institute
for Learning and Memory and colleagues have uncovered a mechanism for
this phenomenon. "Understanding this type of perceptual learning is
important because it can reveal mechanisms of implicit memory
formation and might be exploited to promote rehabilitation after
brain damage. Detailed knowledge of how practice changes brain
chemistry is likely to suggest new pharmacological and behavioral
therapies to facilitate these changes," said Professor Mark Bear. The
study, which appeared in an August issue of Neuron, was supported by
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Eye Institute.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/perception.html
STORING CARBON DIOXIDE
Deep-sea sediments could provide a virtually unlimited and permanent
reservoir for carbon dioxide, the gas that has been a primary driver
of global climate change in recent decades, according to a team of
scientists that includes a professor from MIT. The researchers
estimate that seafloor sediments within U.S. territory are vast
enough to store the nation's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for
thousands of years to come. "The exciting thing about this paper is
that we show that CO2 injected beneath the seafloor is sequestered
permanently," said Charles Harvey, an associate professor in MIT's
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Harvey is a
co-author of a paper on the work that appears in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences. The leader of the work, Daniel
Schrag, is at Harvard University. The research was funded by the DOE,
the Merck Fund of the New York Community Trust and the Link
Foundation.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/co2.html
--END--
--
=================================
Elizabeth A. Thomson
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>
<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
=================================
More information about the Editors
mailing list