[Editors] MIT Research Digest, April 2008

[Elizabeth Thomson]

For Immediate Release
TUESDAY, APR. 1, 2008
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office -- Phone: 617-258-5402  
-- Email: thomson at mit.edu

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MIT Research Digest, April 2008
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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: Physics of Ripping * Alternative Voting
Sorting Cells * Smart Pillbox * Detecting Anthrax
Microbial Mysteries * Understanding microRNA * Prosthetics Project
Drug Price Crisis * Thermoelectric Advance * Ancient Trading
Global Logistics * Future Banking * Novel Reactor
Astronomy via Internet * MIT in Africa * Googling for Planets
Mealtime Dash * Spider Silk's Strength

PHYSICS OF RIPPING
Frustrated by tape that won't peel off the roll in a straight line?  
Angry at wallpaper that refuses to tear neatly off the wall? A new  
study reveals why these efforts can be so aggravating. Wallpaper is  
not out to foil you--it's just obeying the laws of physics, according  
to a team of researchers from the Centre National de la Recherche  
Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, the Universidad de Santiago, Chile, and  
MIT. The report, published in the March 30 online issue of Nature  
Materials, sheds light on a phenomenon many people have experienced,  
which the researchers dubbed “the wallpaper problem.” This pattern,  
where two cracks propagate toward each other and meet at a point, is  
extremely robust. It applies not only to wallpaper but other  
adhesives such as tape, as well as nonadhesive plastic sheets such as  
the shrink-wrap that envelops compact discs. It even extends to  
fruit: The skin on a tomato or a grape typically forms a triangle  
when peeled off. The research was funded by FONDAP, CIMAT, France's  
Ministry of Research and MechPlant.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/peeling-0330.html
PHOTOS, VIDEO AVAILABLE

ALTERNATIVE VOTING
Traditional voting systems only allow people to make a single choice  
-- a limitation many voters find frustrating, particularly when there  
is a crowded field of candidates. But it doesn't have to be that way.  
Alternative voting systems, which allow people to rank their  
preferences in order instead of simply picking one, have been known  
for centuries, but have been devilishly difficult to implement and  
often result in a very slow tallying of results. A new computer  
software system developed by MIT researchers promises to make such  
ranking systems just as easy as traditional voting -- and to give  
results that leave more people satisfied. The system is about to get  
its first mass-market trial with the cable music network MTV.  
Benjamin Mako Hill, while he was a graduate student in the MIT Media  
Lab's Computing Culture group, created a system called Selectricity,  
which has been online as a free service since last fall and is about  
to unveil an upgraded version with more options. With this software,  
any user can go to the website (www.selectricity.org) and set up a  
"Quickvote" in just a few seconds, and users anywhere who have access  
to the Internet can then cast their votes, providing an instant tally.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/voting-tt0312.html

SORTING CELLS
Capitalizing on a cell's ability to roll along a surface, MIT  
researchers have developed a simple, inexpensive system to sort  
different kinds of cells - a process that could result in low-cost  
tools to test for diseases such as cancer, even in remote locations.  
Rohit Karnik, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering  
and lead author of a paper on the new finding appearing in the  
journal Nano Letters, said the cell-sorting method was minimally  
invasive and highly innovative. The method relies on the way cells  
sometimes interact with a surface (such as the wall of a blood  
vessel) by rolling along it. In the new device, a surface is coated  
with lines of a material that interacts with the cells, making it  
seem sticky to specific types of cells. The sticky lines are oriented  
diagonally to the flow of cell-containing fluid passing over the  
surface, so as certain kinds of cells respond to the coating they are  
nudged to one side, allowing them to be separated out. The work was  
funded by the NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cell-roll-tt0312.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

SMART PILLBOX
Tuberculosis has long been eradicated from the world's industrialized  
nations but continues to take a terrible toll in a few poor, rural  
regions of Asia and Africa. Every year, 10 million new cases are  
diagnosed and two million people die of the disease. It's not that  
new treatments are needed--medical science long ago figured out how  
to cure tuberculosis using a cocktail of antibiotics. The problem is  
getting the medicine to the people who need it and, most difficult,  
making sure they follow the six-month regimen of daily doses. "The  
problem is, how do you get people to take this complex regimen," says  
Manish Bhardwaj, a doctoral student in MIT's Department of Electrical  
Engineering and Computer Science who works in the Microsystems  
Technology Laboratories. After a year of hard work and about eight  
revisions, Bhardwaj and colleagues think they may have found the  
answer. It's a high-tech solution in a simple, inexpensive and easy- 
to-use-package. The first part of the two-component system is a kind  
of "smart" pillbox, called the uBox. It has 14 chambers that can each  
be loaded with several pills, which it dispenses from one chamber per  
day. To alert the patient that it's time to take the medicine, the  
box flashes its lights and sounds a buzzer. When the compartment is  
opened, the uBox records the exact time and prevents double-dosing by  
refusing to open again until the next treatment is due.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-india-tt0206.html
PHOTOS AVAILABLE

DETECTING ANTHRAX
Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory have developed a powerful  
sensor that can detect airborne pathogens such as anthrax and  
smallpox in less than three minutes. The new device, called PANTHER  
(for PAthogen Notification for THreatening Environmental Releases),  
represents a “significant advance” over any other sensor, said James  
Harper of Lincoln Lab's Biosensor and Molecular Technologies Group.  
Current sensors take at least 20 minutes to detect harmful bacteria  
or viruses in the air, but the PANTHER sensors can do detection and  
identification in less than three minutes. The technology has been  
licensed to Innovative Biosensors Inc. (IBI) of Rockville, Md.  
Earlier this year, IBI began selling a product, BioFlash, that uses  
the PANTHER technology. “There is a real need to detect a pathogen in  
less than three minutes, so you have time to take action before it is  
too late,” said Harper, the lead scientist developing the sensor. The  
PANTHER sensor uses a cell-based sensor technology known as CANARY  
(after the birds sent into mines to detect dangerous gases), and can  
pick up a positive reading with only a few dozen particles per liter  
of air. The research on PANTHER was funded by the Defense Threat  
Reduction Agency.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/canary-0303.html

MICROBIAL MYSTERIES
Microbes living in the oceans play a critical role in regulating  
Earth's environment, but very little is known about their activities  
and how they work together to help control natural cycles of water,  
carbon and energy. A team of MIT researchers led by Professors Edward  
DeLong and Penny Chisholm is trying to change that. Borrowing gene  
sequencing tools developed for sequencing the human genome, the  
researchers have devised a new method to analyze gene expression in  
complex microbial populations. The work, reported in a March issue of  
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded by the  
NSF, could help scientists better understand how oceans respond to  
climate change. “This project can help us get a better handle on the  
specific details of how microbes affect the flux of energy and matter  
on Earth, and how microbes respond to environmental change,” said  
DeLong, a professor of biological engineering and civil and  
environmental engineering.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/microbes-0303.html

UNDERSTANDING microRNA
Snippets of genetic material that have been linked to cancer also  
play a critical role in normal embryonic development in mice,  
according to a new paper from MIT cancer biologists. The work,  
reported in a March issue of Cell, shows that a family of microRNAs-- 
short strands of genetic material--protect mouse cells during  
development and allow them to grow normally. But that protective role  
could backfire: the researchers theorize that when these microRNAs  
become overactive, they can help keep alive cancer cells that should  
otherwise die - providing another reason to target microRNAs as a  
treatment for cancer. The lead author of the paper is Andrea Ventura,  
a postdoctoral associate in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer  
Research at MIT (formerly known as the Center for Cancer Research).  
The research was funded by the NIH.
PHOTO, IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/microrna-0307.html

PROSTHETICS PROJECT
In the United States, a typical prosthetics specialist who fits  
artificial legs for amputees might handle 15 or 20 such patients a  
year, fitting them with custom-built legs that can cost upwards of  
$6,000 apiece. Each patient then gets a series of followup visits to  
make sure the new limb was properly fitted. But in India, the Jaipur  
Foot Organization handles that many patients every day in each of its  
local centers. The charity is the world's largest provider of  
prosthetics. The artificial legs they provide, based on a locally  
developed design, cost about $40, and the company has little time or  
funding for followup consultations, or for developing new methods. A  
team of MIT students has been working on a new device that could  
greatly simplify the process of fitting these legs, producing a  
better fit while eliminating some steps in the process and reducing  
waste materials. The hand-powered system would also greatly simplify  
the fitting of legs in rural areas, where the present electrically  
powered fitting system requires bringing along a bulky generator.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-jaipur-tt0305.html

DRUG PRICE CRISIS
The mounting U.S. drug price crisis can be contained and eventually  
reversed by separating drug discovery from drug marketing and by  
establishing a non-profit company to oversee funding for new  
medicines, according to two MIT experts on the pharmaceutical  
industry. Stan Finkelstein, M.D., senior research scientist in MIT's  
Engineering Systems Division, and Peter Temin, Elisha Gray II  
Professor of Economics, present their research and detail their  
proposal in their new book, “Reasonable Rx: Solving the Drug Price  
Crisis,” published by Financial Times Press. Finkelstein and Temin  
address immediate national problems--the rising cost of available  
medicines, the high cost of innovation and the 'blockbuster' method  
of selecting drugs for development--and predict worsening new ones,  
unless bold steps are taken.
BOOK AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/rx-crisis-plan-0317.html

THERMOELECTRIC ADVANCE
Researchers at Boston College and MIT have used nanotechnology to  
achieve a major increase in thermoelectric efficiency, a milestone  
that paves the way for a new generation of products - from  
semiconductors and air conditioners to car exhaust systems and solar  
power technology  - that run cleaner. The team's low-cost approach,  
details of which are published in the journal Science, involves  
building tiny alloy nanostructures that can serve as micro-coolers  
and power generators. The researchers said that in addition to being  
inexpensive, their method will likely result in practical, near-term  
enhancements to make products consume less energy or capture energy  
that would otherwise be wasted. The research was supported by the DOE  
and the NSF.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/thermoelectric-0320.html
PHOTOS AVAILABLE

ANCIENT TRADING
Oceangoing sailing rafts plied the waters of the equatorial Pacific  
long before Europeans arrived in the Americas, and carried tradegoods  
for thousands of miles all the way from modern-day Chile to western  
Mexico, according to new findings by MIT researchers in the  
Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Details of how the  
ancient trading system worked more than 1,000 years ago were  
reconstructed largely through the efforts of former MIT undergraduate  
student Leslie Dewan, working with Professor of Archeology and  
Ancient Technology Dorothy Hosler, of the Center for Materials  
Research in Archaeology and Ethnology. The findings are reported in  
the Spring 2008 issue of the Journal of Anthropological Research.
PHOTO, DRAWING AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/raft-tt0319.html

GLOBAL LOGISTICS
MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics (MIT-CTL) has announced  
the creation of the MIT Global SCALE Network, an international  
alliance of leading research and education centers dedicated to the  
development of supply chain and logistics excellence through  
innovation. The Global SCALE (Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence)  
Network spans North America, Latin America and Europe, with plans to  
expand into Asia and Africa. The network currently includes the MIT- 
CTL in Cambridge, Mass.; the Zaragoza Logistics Center in Zaragoza,  
Spain; and the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation in  
Bogotá, Colombia. The network will allow faculty, researchers,  
students and affiliated companies from all three centers to pool  
their expertise and collaborate on projects that will create supply  
chain and logistics innovations with global applications and help  
companies to compete in an increasingly complex business environment.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/scale-0327.html

FUTURE BANKING
The MIT Media Laboratory and Bank of America have announced the  
creation of the Center for Future Banking, a five-year collaboration  
to which Bank of America has committed $3-5 million annually. The new  
research center, which will be located at the Media Lab on the MIT  
campus, will serve as an innovation engine that will seek to  
transform the ways banking will be conducted in a world of rapidly  
changing social, economic, and information landscapes. It will  
explore new ideas in banking by inventing technologies that reveal  
and leverage insights across a wide range of physical and social  
scales, from one-on-one customer interactions to global transactions.  
Researchers will address such questions as: "How can every customer  
be empowered with the knowledge and tools to take better control of  
their financial futures?" and "How will banking interactions evolve  
as a customer's physical and virtual worlds become completely  
intertwined?"
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/banking-0331.html

NOVEL REACTOR
An MIT and Columbia University team has successfully tested a novel  
reactor that could chart a new path toward nuclear fusion, which  
could become a safe, reliable and nearly limitless source of energy.  
The Levitated Dipole Experiment, or LDX, uses a unique configuration  
where its main magnet is suspended, or levitated, by another magnet  
above. The system began testing in 2004 in a "supported mode" of  
operation, where the magnet was held in place by a support structure,  
which causes significant losses to the plasma--a hot, electrically  
charged gas where the fusion takes place. LDX achieved fully  
levitated operation for the first time last November. A second test  
run was performed on March 21-22 of this year, in which it had an  
improved measurement capability and included experiments that  
clarified and illuminated the earlier results. These experiments  
demonstrate a substantial improvement in plasma confinement-- 
significant progress toward the goal of producing a fusion reaction--  
and a journal article on the results is planned. The work is funded  
by the DOE.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ldx-tt0319.html

ASTRONOMY VIA INTERNET
MIT graduate student Cristina Thomas has been making observations of  
asteroids using a large NASA telescope in Hawaii, at least once a  
month for more than three years now. Doing this kind of astronomical  
research has traditionally required a lot of time and money for  
travel, but Thomas usually can get to the telescope just by walking  
down the hall. Like dozens of students in Professor Richard Binzel's  
astronomy classes, Thomas gets to operate one of the world's leading  
infrared telescopes, perched 14,000 feet above sea level on the  
summit of Hawaii's extinct volcano Mauna Kea, without ever leaving  
the MIT campus. NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, a three-meter  
telescope fitted with a variety of electronic cameras and  
spectrographs, is one of just a few in the world's prime astronomical  
locations that has been set up so that it can be controlled from  
anywhere in the world through a high-speed Internet connection.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/asteroids-tt0319.html

MIT IN AFRICA
The west African country of Cameroon is one of the few to have been  
colonized by both England and France, and as a result English and  
French are both official languages of the independent nation today.  
MIT sophomore Edison Achelengwa, a student in electrical engineering  
and computer science, comes from the English-speaking minority in  
Cameroon, and spent his first year of college in the French-speaking  
University of Yaounde, in the nation's capital. Like many  
Cameroonians, he speaks both French and English, as well as a couple  
of the local languages. This year, with a grant from MIT's Public  
Service Center, he returned to his home country during January to  
work on installing MIT's OpenCourseWare on computers in that school  
as well as the University of Buea, the country's only English- 
speaking university. Though Open CourseWare is available through the  
Internet, most African universities, including these two, do not have  
Internet connections, so students would have to go out to an Internet  
café to access the material. By installing it on a local server,  
however, all 1,800 courses of the material became available to every  
computer on campus through a local-area network.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-cameroon-tt0319.html

GOOGLING FOR PLANETS
MIT scientists are designing a satellite-based observatory that could  
for the first time provide a sensitive survey of the entire sky to  
search for planets outside the solar system that appear to cross in  
front of bright stars. The system could rapidly discover hundreds of  
planets similar to the Earth. Google, the Internet search powerhouse,  
provided a small seed grant to fund development of the wide-field  
digital cameras needed for the satellite. Because of the huge amount  
of data that will be generated by the satellite, Google has an  
interest in working on the development of ways of sifting through  
that data to find useful information. Dubbed the Transiting Exoplanet  
Survey Satellite (TESS), the satellite could potentially be launched  
in 2012. "Decades, or even centuries after the TESS survey is  
completed, the new planetary systems it discovers will continue to be  
studied because they are both nearby and bright," says George R.  
Ricker, senior research scientist at the Kavli Institute for  
Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT and leader of the project.
IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/google-planets-tt0319.html

MEALTIME DASH
Goldfish in an aquarium are able to dash after food flakes at  
mealtime, reaching them before they sink or are eaten by other fish.  
MIT researchers recently proved that marine bacteria, the smallest  
creatures in the ocean, behave in a similar fashion at mealtime,  
using their swimming skills to reach tiny food patches that appear  
randomly in the ocean blue. The behavior of bacteria at these small  
scales could have global implications, possibly even impacting the  
oceans' health during climate change. Scientists in the Department of  
Civil and Environmental Engineering demonstrated for the first time  
in lab experiments that the 2-micron-long, rod-shaped marine  
bacterium P. haloplanktis is able to locate and exploit nutrient  
patches extremely rapidly, thanks to its keen swimming abilities.  
"Our experiments have shown that marine bacteria are able to home in  
very rapidly on short-lived nutrient patches in the ocean," said  
Roman Stocker, the Doherty Assistant Professor of Ocean Utilization  
and lead author of a paper on the work in the Proceedings of the  
National Academy of Sciences. The NSF, DOE, Woods Hole Center for  
Ocean and Human Health, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation  
funded this research.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/mealtime-tt0312.html

SPIDER SILK'S STRENGTH
The strength of a biological material like spider silk lies in the  
specific geometric configuration of structural proteins, which have  
small clusters of weak hydrogen bonds that work cooperatively to  
resist force and dissipate energy, MIT researchers have revealed.  
This structure makes the lightweight natural material as strong as  
steel, even though the "glue" of hydrogen bonds that hold spider silk  
together at the molecular level is 100 to 1,000 times weaker than the  
powerful glue of steel's metallic bonds. Based on theoretical  
modeling and large-scale atomistic simulation implemented on  
supercomputers, this new understanding of exactly how a protein's  
configuration enhances a material's strength could help engineers  
create new materials that mimic spider silk's lightweight robustness.  
"Our hope is that by understanding the mechanics of materials at the  
atomistic level, we will be able to one day create a guiding  
principle that will direct the synthesis of new materials," said  
Professor Markus Buehler, lead researcher on the work and a professor  
in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The work,  
reported in Nano Letters, was supported by an MIT Presidential  
Graduate Fellowship, the Army Research Office, the NSF, the Solomon  
Buchsbaum AT&T Research Fund, and the San Diego Supercomputing Center.
IMAGE, VIDEO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/rd-spiders-tt0319.html

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