[Editors] MIT Research Digest, August 2007

[Elizabeth Thomson]

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,  August 2007
======================================

For Immediate Release
FRIDAY, AUG. 3, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
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.

Latest research news: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/research.html
RSS -- research feed: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/mitresearch-rss.xml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IN THIS ISSUE: Scientific Mystery Solved * Energy Survey
Destroying Biofilms *  Mechanism Behind Fear * Inspecting Electrons
Sleek Spacesuit * Hi-Tech Hockey Uniform * Brain Tumor Advance
Fuel-Efficient Engine * Toward Targeted Medicine * Robofin
Catching Scallops * Crowd Farm * Robotic Ankle
Prostate Cancer Advance * Killer Cells * Water House
Key Genetic Link * Kids & Foster Care * Gene Control
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY SOLVED
Hey kids! Try this at home. Pour clean water onto a small plate. Wait  
for all the ripples to stop. Then mix a small amount of mineral oil  
with an even smaller amount of detergent. Squeeze a tiny drop of that  
mixture onto the water and watch in amazement as the oil appears to  
pump like a beating heart.  It's a simple experiment, but explaining  
what makes the drop of oil throb--and then stop when deprived of  
fresh air--has long mystified the scientific community. Now, in work  
that could have applications in fields from biology to environmental  
engineering, an MIT team has cracked the case. In the July 25 issue  
of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, MIT Professors Roman Stocker of  
civil and environmental engineering and John Bush of mathematics  
explain what happens when an oil drop containing a water-insoluble  
surfactant (or material that reduces the surface tension of a liquid,  
allowing easier spreading) is placed on a water surface.
PHOTO, VIDEO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cool-science-0717.html

ENERGY SURVEY
Americans' icy attitudes toward nuclear power are beginning to thaw,  
according to a new survey from MIT. The report also found a U.S.  
public increasingly unhappy with oil and more willing to develop  
alternative energy sources like wind and solar. Moreover, the  
national survey of 1,200 Americans' opinions on different types of  
energy indicated growing concern about global warming -- but an  
apparent reluctance to pay to fight it. Professor Stephen  
Ansolabehere, the MIT political scientist who conducted the survey  
through Knowledge Networks, a consumer information company, said he  
hopes that tracking Americans' attitudes toward energy will help  
policy-makers decide how to chart the United States' energy future.  
The report was funded by MIT's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy  
Systems.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/nuclear-public-0723.html

DESTROYING BIOFILMS
In one of the first potential applications of synthetic biology, an  
emerging field that aims to design and build useful biomolecular  
systems, researchers from MIT and Boston University are engineering  
viruses to attack and destroy the surface “biofilms” that harbor  
harmful bacteria in the body and on industrial and medical devices.  
They have already successfully demonstrated one such virus, and  
thanks to a “plug and play” library of “parts” believe that many more  
could be custom-designed to target different species or strains of  
bacteria. The work, reported in the Proceedings of the National  
Academy of Sciences, helps vault synthetic biology from an abstract  
science to one that has proven practical applications. “Our results  
show we can do simple things with synthetic biology that have  
potentially useful results,” said first author Timothy Lu, a doctoral  
student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology  
(HST). This work is supported by the DOE, the NSF, the Howard Hughes  
Medical Institute, and HST.
GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biofilm-0706.html

MECHANISM BEHIND FEAR
Researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have  
uncovered a molecular mechanism that governs the formation of fears  
stemming from traumatic events. The work could lead to the first drug  
to treat the millions of adults who suffer each year from persistent,  
debilitating fears - including hundreds of soldiers returning from  
conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. The team reported their results in  
the July 15 advance online publication of Nature Neuroscience. A  
study conducted by the Army in 2004 found that one in eight soldiers  
returning from Iraq reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress  
disorder (PTSD). According to the National Center for PTSD in the  
United States, around eight percent of the population will have PTSD  
symptoms at some point in their lives. Some 5.2 million adults have  
PTSD during a given year, the center reports. Li-Huei Tsai, Picower  
Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive  
Sciences, and colleagues show that inhibiting a kinase (kinases are  
enzymes that change proteins) called Cdk5 facilitates the extinction  
of fear learned in a particular context. Conversely, the learned fear  
persisted when the kinase's activity was increased in the  
hippocampus, the brain's center for storing memories. This work was  
supported by the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/trauma-0715.html

INSPECTING ELECTRONS
MIT physicists have developed a spectroscopy technique that allows  
researchers to inspect the world of electrons confined to a two- 
dimensional plane more clearly than ever before. Two-dimensional  
electron systems, in which electrons are walled in from above and  
below but are free to move in a plane as if they were placed on a  
sheet of paper, are rarely observed in the natural world.  However,  
they can be created in a laboratory and used, for example, in high- 
frequency amplifiers found in cell phones. The new spectroscopy  
technique measures electron energy levels with 1,000 times greater  
resolution than previous methods, an advance that has “tremendous  
power to tell you what the electrons are doing,” said MIT physics  
professor Ray Ashoori, author of a paper on the work published in  
Nature. This technique has already revealed some surprising behavior,  
and the researchers believe it will shed new light on many physical  
phenomena involving electrons. The research was conducted in  
collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent Bell Laboratories and funded by the  
ONR and the NSF.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/spectroscopy-0720.html

SLEEK NEW SPACESUIT
In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits  
they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized  
outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant  
mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility. Dava Newman, a  
professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at  
MIT, wants to change that. Newman is working on a sleek, advanced  
suit designed to allow superior mobility when humans eventually reach  
Mars or return to the moon. Her spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your  
grandfather's spacesuit--think more Spiderman, less John Glenn.  
Traditional bulky spacesuits “do not afford the mobility and  
locomotion capability that astronauts need for partial gravity  
exploration missions. We really must design for greater mobility and  
enhanced human and robotic capability,” Newman said. Newman, her  
colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm, Trotti  
and Associates, have been working on the project for about seven  
years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space travel, but  
demonstrate what they're trying to achieve--a lightweight, skintight  
suit that will allow astronauts to become truly mobile lunar and Mars  
explorers. The project was initially funded by NASA.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit-0716.html

HI-TECH HOCKEY UNIFORM
Testing done at MIT is helping players in the National Hockey League  
(NHL) improve their game, and possibly their image. Dr. Kim Blair, an  
MIT research affiliate in Sports Innovation, was tasked to test the  
snappy new NHL uniform, designed and manufactured by Reebok. He  
subjected three prototypes and the old uniform to wind-resistance  
testing in MIT's powerful wind tunnel and supervised their thermal  
testing at Central Michigan University. He was able to determine  
which of the prototypes was lighter, less bulky, and less prone to  
retaining moisture than its predecessor. The Boston Bruins became the  
first team to show off the new outfit in June; it will be adopted by  
the rest of the league in the upcoming season. As Blair explained in  
a recent interview, "Reebok decided they wanted to take the hockey  
uniform to the next level of technology, and basically revolutionize  
it." The old uniforms were big and bulky and the players were still  
wearing wool socks. The gear gathered moisture and therefore weight  
as a game wore on. "[Reebok] really felt that by using current state- 
of-the-art textiles and fabrication techniques that they could allow  
the athlete to perform at a higher level," said Blair.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/hockey-0702.html

BRAIN TUMOR ADVANCE
MIT researchers have identified a critical link between two proteins  
found in brain tumors, a discovery that could eventually help treat a  
form of brain cancer that kills 99 percent of patients. Glioblastoma  
multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive brain tumor in adults, strikes  
about 15,000 people in the United States each year. GBM is currently  
treated with a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy,  
but those treatments have proven ineffective. Most patients die  
within a year. Now, MIT scientists have uncovered a connection  
between two proteins found in the tumor cells, and they have  
demonstrated that attacking both of those proteins kills tumor cells  
much more effectively than targeting either one alone. The  
researchers, led by Forest White, MIT associate professor of  
biological engineering, reported their findings in the Proceedings of  
the National Academy of Sciences. This work was performed in  
collaboration with researchers at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer  
Research (San Diego Branch).  The research was funded by the National  
Cancer Institute, the NIH and the Goldhirsh Foundation.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE:

FUEL-EFFICIENT ENGINE
In an advance that could help curb global demand for oil, MIT  
researchers have demonstrated how ordinary spark-ignition automobile  
engines can, under certain driving conditions, move into a spark-free  
operating mode that is more fuel-efficient and just as clean. The  
mode-switching capability could appear in production models within a  
few years, improving fuel economy by several miles per gallon in  
millions of new cars each year. Over time, that change could cut oil  
demand in the United States alone by a million barrels a day.  
Currently, the U.S. consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil a  
day. The MIT team presented their latest results on July 23 at the  
Japan Society of Automotive Engineers (JSAE)/Society of Automotive  
Engineers (SAE) 2007 International Fuel and Lubricants Meeting. The  
work, led by Professor William Green, Jr., of the Department of  
Chemical Engineering, was supported by Ford Motor Company and the  
Ford-MIT Alliance, with additional support from BP.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/engine-0723.html

TOWARD TARGETED MEDICINE
MIT researchers have developed a model that could predict how cells  
will respond to targeted drug therapies. Models based on this  
approach could help doctors make better treatment choices for  
individual patients, who often respond differently to the same drug,  
and could help drug developers identify the ideal compounds on which  
to focus their research. In addition, the model could help test the  
effectiveness of drugs for a wide range of diseases, including  
various kinds of cancer, arthritis and immune system disorders,  
according to Douglas Lauffenburger, MIT professor of biological  
engineering and head of the department. Lauffenburger is senior  
author of a paper on the new model that appeared in the Aug. 2 issue  
of Nature. The model is based on similarities in the signaling  
pathways cells use to process information. Those pathways translate  
cells' environmental stimuli, such as hormones, drugs or other  
molecules, into action. The research was funded by the National  
Institute of General Medical Sciences, the University of California  
at Santa Barbara-CalTech-MIT Institute for Collaborative  
Biotechnologies and the MIT Biotechnology Process Engineering Center.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/drugs-0726.html

ROBOFIN
Inspired by the efficient swimming motion of the bluegill sunfish,  
MIT researchers are building a mechanical fin that could one day  
propel robotic submarines. The propeller-driven submarines, or  
autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), currently perform a variety of  
functions, from mapping the ocean floor to surveying shipwrecks. But  
the MIT team hopes to create a more maneuverable, propeller-less  
underwater robot better suited for military tasks such as sweeping  
mines and inspecting harbors--and for that they are hoping to mimic  
the action of the bluegill sunfish. “If we could produce AUVs that  
can hover and turn and store energy and do all the things a fish  
does, they'll be much better than the remotely operated vehicles we  
have now,” said James Tangorra, an MIT postdoctoral associate working  
on the project. The researchers chose to copy the bluegill sunfish  
because of its distinctive swimming motion, which results in a  
constant forward thrust with no backward drag. In contrast, a human  
performing the breaststroke inevitably experiences drag during the  
recovery phase of the stroke. Tangorra and others in the Bio- 
Instrumentation Systems Laboratory, led by Professor Ian Hunter of  
the Department of Mechanical Engineering, have built several  
prototypes of a mechanical fin that successfully mimics the sunfish  
fin. They reported the successful testing of their most recent fin,  
which is made of a cutting-edge polymer that conducts electricity, in  
the Bioinspiration & Biomimetics journal. This research is funded by  
the ONR.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/robofin-0730.html

CATCHING SCALLOPS
Cliff Goudey's version of the better mousetrap is the better scallop  
dredge. The director of MIT Sea Grant's Center for Fisheries  
Engineering Research wants to build a better dredge--even though he's  
the first to admit that current dredges do a fine job of catching the  
creatures. What current dredges don't do, said Goudey, is take into  
consideration unintended consequences, such as damaging bottom  
habitat. The standard dredge used to harvest scallops consists of a  
heavy steel towing frame and a chain bag that drags along the sea  
floor behind the frame. The dredge includes a cutting bar, which has  
little effect on a perfectly level bottom. However, on a more typical  
sea bottom with sand waves or humps and valleys, the cutting bar  
levels the bottom so that the chain bag can scoop up scallops in its  
path. But along with the scallops, said Goudey, other organisms  
living on and buried just below the surface can get caught or  
damaged. Is there a way to catch scallops without leveling the bottom  
in front of the dredge?  Goudey figured that would require disturbing  
or lifting the scallops, in preparation for the chain bag, without  
physically contacting the ground. The best option for that, he  
decided, was to use jets of water. So Goudey experimented with  
devices of different shapes and sizes to see how they affected  
scallop shells placed on the bottom of MIT's towing tank. The most  
promising results were implemented in a prototype dredge.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/scallop-0731.html

CROWD FARM
Two graduate students at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning  
want to harvest the energy of human movement in urban settings, like  
commuters in a train station or fans at a concert. The so-called  
"Crowd Farm," as envisioned by James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk,  
would turn the mechanical energy of people walking or jumping into a  
source of electricity. Their proposal took first place in the Japan- 
based Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition this  
year. A Crowd Farm in a railway terminal would work like this: A  
responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress  
slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath  
the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one  
another as people walked would generate power through the principle  
of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that  
of an electric current. The electric current generated by the Crowd  
Farm could then be used for educational purposes, such as lighting up  
a sign about energy. "We want people to understand the direct  
relationship between their movement and the energy produced," said  
Juscyzk.
IMAGE, PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/crowdfarm-0725.html

ROBOTIC ANKLE
An Army veteran who lost part of his leg in Iraq walked with more  
spring in his step recently as he unveiled the world's first robotic  
ankle -- an important advance for lower-limb amputees that was  
developed by a team at MIT. Garth Stewart, 24, who lost his left leg  
below the knee in an explosion in Iraq, demonstrated the new powered  
ankle-foot prosthesis during a ceremony at the Providence, R.I.,  
Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Stewart walked in the device, which,  
unlike any other, propels users forward using tendon-like springs and  
an electric motor. The prototype device reduces fatigue, improves  
balance and provides amputees with a more fluid gait. It could become  
commercially available as early as the summer of 2008. MIT Media Lab  
Professor Hugh Herr and his team of researchers developed the ankle- 
foot. Herr, head of the biomechatronics research group at the Media  
Lab, is a VA research investigator. He is also a double amputee who  
tested his invention: "This design releases three times the power of  
a conventional prosthesis to propel you forward and, for the first  
time, provides amputees with a truly humanlike gait," Herr said. He  
created the device through the Center for Restorative and  
Regenerative Medicine, a collaborative research initiative that  
includes the Providence VA Medical Center, Brown University and MIT.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/robot-ankle-0723.html

PROSTATE CANCER ADVANCE
A protein whose function is lost in a broad array of cancers normally  
suppresses the spread of prostate cancer, MIT researchers and  
colleagues have shown. As a result, testing for loss of the protein,  
called Protein 4.1B, could help clinicians predict which cancers are  
likely to spread, or metastasize. "If you determine that a tumor  
shows reduced levels of Protein 4.1B, one would know to worry more  
about it metastasizing and plan treatment accordingly," said Richard  
O. Hynes, a professor of biology at MIT and a Howard Hughes Medical  
Institute investigator. Hynes and colleagues published their findings  
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was  
supported by the NIH, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer  
Research, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the National Cancer  
Institute, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National  
Institute of General Medical Sciences, and a David H. Koch Research  
Fellowship from MIT's Center for Cancer Research.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/prostate-0720.html

KILLER CELLS
Biology textbooks are blunt--neutrophils are mindless killers. These  
white blood cells patrol the body and guard against infection by  
identifying and destroying any bacteria or fungi that cross their  
path. But new evidence, which may lead to better drugs to fight  
deadly pathogens, indicates that neutrophils might actually  
distinguish among their targets. A scientist in the lab of MIT  
biology professor and Whitehead Institute Member Gerald Fink has  
discovered that neutrophils recognize and respond to a specific form  
of sugar called beta-1,6-glucan on the surface of fungi. This sugar  
comprises just a small fraction of the fungal cell wall, much less  
than another sugar with a slightly different chemical conformation.  
Because the scarce form of the sugar elicits a much stronger reaction  
from neutrophils than the abundant one, it appears that these immune  
cells can distinguish between two nearly identical chemicals. "These  
results show that engulfment and killing by neutrophils varies,  
depending on cell wall properties of the microbe," explained  
Whitehead postdoctoral researcher Ifat Rubin-Bejerano, first author  
on the paper, which appeared in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. "We  
showed that neutrophils respond in a completely different way to  
slight changes in sugar composition. If we are able to use this  
unique sugar to excite the immune system, it may help the human body  
fight infection." Additional authors of the paper are from the  
Whitehead Institute and the Goldman School of Dental Medicine in  
Boston. The work was supported by the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/infection-0711.html

WATER HOUSE
Imagine a building made of water. It features liquid curtains for  
walls - curtains that not only can be programmed to display images or  
messages but can also sense an approaching object and automatically  
part to let it through. MIT architects and engineers have designed  
such a building, and it will be unveiled at next year's international  
exhibition in Spain. The "digital water pavilion" - an interactive  
structure made of digitally controlled water curtains - will be  
located at the entrance to Expo Zaragoza 2008, in front of a new  
bridge designed by Zaha Hadid. The structure will contain an  
exhibition area, a cafe and various public spaces. "To understand the  
concept of digital water, imagine something like an inkjet printer on  
a large scale, which controls droplets of falling water," explained  
Carlo Ratti, head of MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory.
IMAGES AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/waterbuilding-0711.html

KEY GENETIC LINK
A group of enzymes known as sirtuins have gained fame in recent years  
for their ability to slow the aging process. Now, researchers at  
MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Harvard Medical  
School report that one particular sirtuin-producing gene is a link  
between aging and human neurodegenerative disorders. The work may  
lead to new drugs against Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral  
sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and other debilitating  
neurological diseases. The SIR2 (silent information regulator) gene  
and sirtuin, the enzyme it produces, promote longevity in a variety  
of organisms and may be tied to the health benefits of caloric  
restriction, which delays aging and neurodegeneration in mammals. In  
work published in the European Molecular Biology Organization, Li- 
Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of  
Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and colleagues reported that SIRT1, the  
analogous human version of SIR2, "constitutes a unique molecular link  
between aging and human neurodegenerative disorders and provides a  
promising avenue for therapeutic intervention." This work was  
supported by the NIH, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and  
the Paul F. Glenn Foundation for Medical Research.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/aging-0709.html

KIDS & FOSTER CARE
An MIT Sloan School of Management professor has for the first time  
used the analytic tools of applied economics to show that children  
faced with two options - being allowed to stay at home or being  
placed into foster care - have generally better life outcomes when  
they remain with their families. "While much has been written about  
the trade-off between family preservation and child protection,  
little empirical work has been able to support a greater emphasis on  
either one," said Joseph Doyle Jr., assistant professor of applied  
economics at Sloan. "My research suggests that children on the margin  
of foster care placement have better employment, delinquency, and  
teen motherhood outcomes when they remain at home." Doyle said his  
study is the first to empirically demonstrate causal effects between  
placement decisions and long-term outcomes. "The child welfare system  
directly impacts millions of children at risk of poor life outcomes  
each year, yet much of the previous evidence on the effect of foster  
care on outcomes looked at correlations, not causal effects," he  
said. "But if you find that 28 percent of homeless people were once  
in foster care, it doesn't mean they are homeless because of foster  
care."
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/sloan-fostercare- 
study-0703.html

GENE CONTROL
Biologists have long thought that a simple on/off switch controls  
most genes in human cells. Flip the switch and a cell starts or stops  
producing a particular protein. But new evidence suggests that this  
model is too simple and that our genes are more ready for action than  
previously thought. Scientists in the lab of MIT biology professor  
and Whitehead Institute member Richard Young have discovered that  
many human genes hover between "on" and "off" in any given cell.  
According to the study, which appeared in Cell, these genes begin  
making RNA templates for proteins but fail to finish. The templates  
never materialize, and the proteins never appear. "Surprisingly,  
about one-third of our genes, including all the regulators of cell  
identity, fall into this new class," said Young. This research is  
funded by the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cells-0712.html

--MIT--