[Editors] MIT Research Digest, September 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

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MIT Research Digest, September 2007
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For Immediate Release
THURSDAY, SEP. 6, 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

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IN THIS ISSUE: Wiki City Rome * Mature Memories
Retirement Wealth * MicroRNA Tool * Clutter Detector
Cells in 3D * Optimizing Chips * Red Tide Toxins
Lab on a Chip * Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch Changes * Parasitic Battles
The Jihad Effect * No on Nanofluids * Cancer Stem Cells
Urban Challenge
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WIKI CITY ROME
Residents of Italy's capital will glimpse the future of urban  
mapmaking next month with the launch of "Wiki City Rome," a project  
developed at MIT that uses data from cellphones and other wireless  
technology to illustrate the city's pulse in real time. The project  
will debut Sept. 8 during Rome's "Notte Bianca" or white night, an  
all-night festival of events across the capital city. During that  
night, anyone with an Internet connection will be able to see a  
unique map of the Italian capital that shows the movements of crowds,  
event locations, the whereabouts of well-known Roman personalities,  
and the real-time position of city buses and trains. The map will  
also be broadcast on a big-screen display in one of Rome's main  
squares in the city center, giving Romans real-time feedback on the  
human dynamics in their immediate surroundings. Wiki City Rome stems  
from MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory, an initiative directed by Carlo  
Ratti that studies the impact of new technologies on cities.
GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/wikicity-0830.html

MATURE MEMORIES
MIT neuroscientists exploring how memory formation differs between  
children and adults have found that although the two groups have much  
in common, maturity brings richer memories. In an August advance  
online edition of Nature Neuroscience, the MIT team reports that  
children rival adults in forming basic memories, but adults do better  
at remembering the rich, contextual details of that information. The  
MIT study provides new insights into how children learn that are not  
only theoretically important, but could also inform practical  
learning in everyday settings. The work was led by Professor John  
Gabrieli of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department  
of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Harvard-MIT Division of Health  
Sciences and Technology. The study was funded by the National  
Institute of Mental Health.
PHOTO, GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/memory-0805.html

RETIREMENT WEALTH
The average value of Americans' 401(k) plans will be substantially  
higher in real terms by the year 2040 even if stock market returns  
fall short of their historical values, according to research by a  
team of economists from MIT, Harvard and Dartmouth. In a study  
published in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the  
National Academy of Sciences, James Poterba of MIT, Steven Venti of  
Dartmouth College and David Wise of Harvard University looked at how  
changes in types of pension plans and in demographic structure will  
affect the wealth of future retirees. They found that if the average  
return on stocks for the next 35 years is three percentage points  
below its historical value, then the average value of 401(k) plan  
balances would increase from $29,700 in 2000 to $269,000 by 2040. If  
equity returns continue at their historical level, the average plan  
balance in 2040 would be even greater: $452,000 by 2040. All dollar  
values are measured in constant 2000 prices. The findings challenge  
some bearish projections that retirement assets will drop in value in  
coming decades as baby-boomers cash out their holdings. The work was  
funded by the Social Security Administration, the National Institute  
of Aging and the NSF.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/retirement-0806.html

MicroRNA TOOL
MIT researchers have developed a new way to study the function of  
microRNA, tiny strands of genetic material that help regulate at  
least 25 percent of a cell's genes. The new technique could shed  
light on microRNA's hypothesized role in tumor development.  
Malfunctions in microRNA have been linked with cancer, but very few  
direct relationships have been established between specific microRNAs  
and the genes they regulate. That could change, however, now that MIT  
Institute Professor and Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp and his  
colleagues have found a way to inhibit the activity of microRNA by  
genetically altering cells. The technique, described in an August  
online issue of Nature Methods, could "provide a tool to identify  
specific genes that are being regulated by microRNAs," said Sharp.  
The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the NIH, a  
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship, a Paul and  
Cleo Schimmel Scholarship, and the Cancer Research Institute.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cancer-0812.html

CLUTTER DETECTOR
The danger of clutter--especially on a visual screen--is that it  
causes confusion that affects how well we perform tasks. To that end,  
visual clutter is a challenge for fighter pilots picking out a  
target, for people seeking important information in a user interface,  
and for web site and map designers, among others. Now, a team of MIT  
scientists has identified a way to measure visual clutter. Their  
research, published in the Journal of Vision, could lead to more user- 
friendly displays and maps, as well as tips for designers seeking to  
add an attention-grabbing element to a display. "We lack a clear  
understanding of what clutter is, what features, attributes and  
factors are relevant, why it presents a problem and how to identify  
it," said Ruth Rosenholtz, principal research scientist in MIT's  
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the paper's lead  
author. Rosenholtz provides free software to anyone interested in  
generating color and contrast "clutter maps" to gauge the clutter  
level of a display. The tool is available at hdl.handle.net/ 
1721.1/37593. This work was supported by the ONR and the NSF.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/clutter-0821.html

CELLS IN 3D
A new imaging technique developed at MIT has allowed scientists to  
create the first 3D images of a living cell, using a method similar  
to the X-ray CT scans doctors use to see inside the body. The  
technique, described in a paper published in Nature Methods, could be  
used to produce the most detailed images yet of what goes on inside a  
living cell without the help of fluorescent markers or other  
externally added contrast agents, said Michael Feld, director of  
MIT's George R. Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory and a professor of  
physics. "Accomplishing this has been my dream, and a goal of our  
laboratory, for several years," said Feld. "For the first time the  
functional activities of living cells can be studied in their native  
state." Using the new technique, his team has created three- 
dimensional images of cervical cancer cells, showing internal cell  
structures. They've also imaged C. elegans, a small worm, as well as  
several other cell types. The research was funded by the NIH and  
Hamamatsu Corporation.
PHOTO, GRAPHIC, VIDEO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cells-0812.html

OPTIMIZING CHIPS
The computer chips inside high-speed communication devices have  
become so small that tiny variations that appear during chip  
fabrication can make a big difference in performance. Those  
variations can cause fluctuations in circuit speed and power so the  
chips don't meet their original design specifications, says MIT  
Professor Duane Boning, whose research team is working to predict the  
variation in circuit performance and maximize the number of chips  
working within the specifications. The researchers have recently  
developed a model to characterize the variation in one kind of chip.  
The model could be used to estimate the ability to manufacture a  
circuit early in the development stages, helping to optimize chip  
designs and reduce costs. "It's becoming much more difficult to  
reduce variation in the manufacturing process, so we need to be able  
to deal with variation and compensate for it or correct it in the  
design," says Boning, a professor of electrical engineering and  
computer science and associate head of the department. The research  
was funded by the MARCO/DARPA Focus Center Research Program's  
Interconnect Focus Center and Center for Circuits and Systems  
Solutions, and by IBM, National Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/circuit-0816.html

RED TIDE TOXINS
In work that could one day help prevent millions of dollars in  
economic losses for seaside communities, MIT chemists have  
demonstrated how tiny marine organisms likely produce the red tide  
toxin that periodically shuts down U.S. beaches and shellfish beds.  
In the Aug. 31 cover story of Science, the MIT team describes an  
elegant method for synthesizing the lethal components of red tides.  
The researchers believe their method approximates the synthesis used  
by algae, a reaction that chemists have tried for decades to  
replicate, without success. Understanding how and why red tides occur  
could help scientists figure out how to prevent the blooms, which  
cause significant ecological and economic damage. The discovery by  
MIT Associate Professor Timothy Jamison and graduate student Ivan  
Vilotijevic not only could shed light on how algae known as  
dinoflagellates generate red tides, but could also help speed up  
efforts to develop cystic fibrosis drugs from a compound closely  
related to the toxin. The research was funded by the National  
Institute of General Medical Sciences, Merck Research Laboratories,  
Boehringer Ingelheim, and MIT.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/red-tide-0830.html

LAB ON A CHIP
Genetic studies on whole animals can now be done dramatically faster  
using a new microchip developed by engineers at MIT. The new "lab on  
a chip" can automatically treat, sort and image small animals like  
the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and  
eliminating human error, said Mehmet Yanik, MIT assistant professor  
of electrical engineering and computer science. Yanik and his  
colleagues described their device in an advance online issue of the  
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Lab on a chip"  
technologies are being developed to sort and image individual cells,  
but this is the first device that can be used to study whole animals.  
The research was funded by MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics,  
the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council and  
the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.
PHOTO, GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/chip-0820.html

CH-CH-CH-CH CHANGES
It is well established that a child's brain has a remarkable capacity  
for change, but controversy continues about the extent to which such  
plasticity exists in the adult human primary sensory cortex. Now,  
neuroscientists from MIT and Johns Hopkins University have used  
converging evidence from brain imaging and behavioral studies to show  
that the adult visual cortex does indeed reorganize--and that the  
change affects visual perception. The study appears online Sept. 5 in  
an advance publication of the Journal of Neuroscience. The authors  
believe that as scientists find ways to use this adaptive ability,  
the work could have relevance to topics ranging from learning to  
designing interventions for improving recovery following stroke,  
brain injury, or visual disorders. This work was supported by the NSF  
and the NIH.
GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/vision-0905.html

PARASITIC BATTLES
Scientists at MIT and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology  
have for the first time recorded the entire genomic expression of  
both a host bacterium and an infecting virus over the eight-hour  
course of infection. The work, reported in the Sept. 6 issue of  
Nature, likely will encourage scientists in several fields to rethink  
their approach to the study of host-virus systems. Such systems are  
believed to play a key evolutionary role by facilitating the transfer  
of genes between species. Professors Debbie Lindell of the Technion  
and Sallie Chisholm of MIT and co-authors say that their study of a  
system involving the marine bacteria, Prochlorococcus, leads them to  
speculate that viral infection may play a role in shaping the genetic  
repertoire of families of bacteria, even though individual infected  
bacteria die.  Funding for this research came from the DOE, the  
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the NSF.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/host-virus-0905.html

THE JIHAD EFFECT
An MIT graduate student has received a fellowship from a U.S.  
Department of Homeland Security-funded research center to study the  
"jihad effect" - that is, how wars impact the trajectory of terrorist  
movements. Stephanie Kaplan, a Ph.D. candidate in political science,  
plans to use the funds she receives from the National Consortium for  
the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) to support  
her work on the relationship between armed conflicts and terrorism.  
Kaplan is particularly interested in the way the Iraq war has shaped  
and will shape the future of al Qaeda. Ultimately, she hopes to  
contribute to improving the formulation and practice of U.S.  
counterterrorism policy. "Regardless of how the war ends, whether the  
United States leaves Iraq now or stays in the months and years ahead,  
we must understand how the conflict has mobilized new assets on  
behalf of our enemies--skilled people, weapons, money, social bonds  
and legitimacy--and to what end those assets will be deployed in the  
future," Kaplan says.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/kaplan-0829.html

NO ON NANOFLUIDS
MIT engineers have shown that nanofluids, which once held promise as  
a super-coolant, do not have the theoretical cooling capabilities  
many scientists believed they had. Nanofluids are suspensions of tiny  
particles on the nanometer, or billionth of a meter, scale. When  
nanofluids were first engineered in the early 1990s, experiments  
showed that their thermal conductivity--a measure of their heat- 
removing capability--was much higher than expected. Several new  
theories were offered in recent years to explain this anomalous  
behavior. Among them, the "microconvection" theory predicted an  
astonishing increase of several orders in the thermal conductivity of  
the fluid just by adding light nanoparticles less than ten nanometers  
in size. MIT researchers recently conducted experiments to test the  
microconvection effect and found that nanofluids in fact do not have  
the advanced cooling properties ascribed to them. The team reports  
its findings in the Aug. 31 issue of Physical Review Letters. The  
research was funded by the NSF and the MIT/Politecnico Progetta Rocca.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/nanofluid-0829.html

CANCER STEM CELLS
MIT scientists and colleagues have found a way to create in the lab  
large amounts of cancer stem cells, or cells that can initiate  
tumors. The work, reported in Cancer Cell, could be a boon to  
researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow  
them for use in experiments. The findings also contradict an  
assumption about the trajectory of cancer cells. According to current  
cancer models, any normal cell can evolve toward a malignant state  
through a series of alterations, including mutations. Given the right  
alterations, any cell could eventually acquire the ability to invade  
other tissues. But the new study suggests that some normal cells are  
more prone to become tumor-initiating and have a higher potential to  
metastasize, or spread to other tissues. This research is funded by  
the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the NIH.
IMAGES AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/breast-cancer-0813.html

URBAN CHALLENGE
An MIT vehicle that effectively drives itself has been selected as a  
semifinalist in this year's DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition for  
cars and trucks that run without human help. DARPA is the central  
research and development organization for the Department of Defense.  
The announcement means the MIT vehicle and its team of student and  
faculty developers will travel to an urban military training facility  
in Victorville, Calif., in late October to compete against 35 other  
robotic vehicles from across the country. In the semifinals and the  
finals in early November, the robots will have to execute simulated  
military supply missions in a mock urban area while obeying  
California traffic laws--without any human intervention. "Our team is  
delighted to move forward to the next stage of the competition," said  
team leader John Leonard, professor of mechanical and ocean  
engineering at MIT. The sponsors of Team MIT include the MIT School  
of Engineering, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence  
Lab, the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer  
Science, the C.S. Draper Laboratory, the Ford-MIT Alliance, Land  
Rover, Quanta Computer, BAE Systems, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, MIT  
Information Services and Technology, South Shore Tri-Town Development  
Corporation, Delphi, Applanix, Mobileye, Nokia and Australia National  
University.
PHOTOS, VIDEO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/robocar-semifinals-0809.html

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