[Editors] MIT Research Digest, August 2008
Elizabeth Thomson
thomson at MIT.EDU
Tue Aug 5 11:32:46 EDT 2008
For Immediate Release
TUESDAY, AUG. 5, 2008
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
T. 617-258-5402 E.: thomson at mit.edu
======================================
MIT Research Digest, August 2008
======================================
A monthly summary 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: Simple Insulation * Solar Windows * Fine Lines
Alzheimer’s Treatment * iShoe Insole * Touch-Based Illusion
Spinal Cord Stem Cells * Visualizing Mutations * Protective Armor
Protecting Patient Privacy * Solar at Night * Underwater Breathing
Satellite Communications * Adapting to Climate Change
Superconductivity Riddle * Nature-Nurture Link * Climate-Change Policy
Cellular ‘Parts List’ * Beyond the Solar System * Digitally Fabricated
House
Reprogrammed Cells * Detecting Novel Particles
SIMPLE INSULATION
Around the world, an estimated one billion people live in houses whose
roofs are nothing more than thin sheets of corrugated metal. These
houses become unbearably hot in the summer, freezing in the winter
(especially in high-altitude regions), and deafeningly noisy when
heavy rains pound on the bare metal. A group of students from MIT and
elsewhere think they have found a way to fix these problems all while
generating jobs and income for local people. This summer, they're
putting their ideas to the test. The basic concept is straightforward:
Use locally available agricultural waste, such as straw, held together
with a binder made of local resins, to make insulating panels that can
be installed right under the existing corrugated metal panels. The
panels, based on designs by MIT faculty and students from the Building
Technology lab, can be manufactured locally, providing a ready-made
way for local people to create businesses that will use readily
available materials, provide an inexpensive product to meet a major
local need, and keep the profits in the community. The concept grew
out of a class project last fall by MIT graduate student Zehra Ali,
along with Emmanuel Arnaud of the Kennedy School of Government and
Monica Le of the Harvard School of Public Health (who had both cross-
registered into the MIT class). The three were taking Developmental
Entrepreneurship, taught by MIT professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland and
research fellow Joost Bonsen.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-insulation-0701.html
SOLAR WINDOWS
Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate
rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building
they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing
the sun's energy that could allow just that. The work, reported in a
July issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel "solar
concentrator." "Light is collected over a large area [like a window]
and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges," explains Marc A. Baldo,
leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career
Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. As a
result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the
semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the
cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In
addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained
from each solar cell "by a factor of over 40," Baldo says. Because the
system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be
implemented within three years--even added onto existing solar-panel
systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal
additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of
solar electricity. This work was supported by the DOE and the NSF.
PHOTOS, VIDEO, GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/solarcells-0710.html
FINE LINES
MIT researchers have achieved a significant advance in nanoscale
lithographic technology, used in the manufacture of computer chips and
other electronic devices, to make finer patterns of lines over larger
areas than have been possible with other methods. Their new technique
could pave the way for next-generation computer memory and integrated-
circuit chips, as well as advanced solar cells and other devices. The
team has created lines about 25 nanometers (billionths of a meter)
wide separated by 25 nm spaces. For comparison, the most advanced
commercially available computer chips today have a minimum feature
size of 65 nm. Intel recently announced that it will start
manufacturing at the 32 nm minimum line-width scale in 2009, and the
industry roadmap calls for 25 nm features in the 2013-2015 time frame.
The MIT team includes Mark Schattenburg and Ralf Heilmann of the MIT
Kavli Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research. Their results have
been accepted for publication in the journal Optics Letters and were
recently presented at the 52nd International Conference on Electron,
Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/nanochips-0708.html
ALZHEIMER’S TREATMENT
An Alzheimer's treatment based on MIT research has shown promise in
its first clinical trials, according to results announced July 29 at
the 2008 Alzheimer's Association International Conference on
Alzheimer's Disease. The results indicate that Souvenaid, a nutrient-
rich drink made by French food-products company Danone (known in the
U.S. as Dannon), may offer a new option in the management of patients
with mild Alzheimer's disease. The new clinical study, performed by
Philip Scheltens of the Alzheimer Center of the VU University Medical
Centre, Amsterdam, and sponsored by Danone Research, assessed the
affects of the nutritional supplements in a randomized, double-blind,
controlled study of 212 patients with mild Alzheimer's. The
investigators found a statistically significant benefit in mild
Alzheimer's patients on the delayed verbal memory task in a group
receiving the treatment, and also a significant effect in the subgroup
of very mild patients. The concept behind the treatment, a cocktail of
three dietary supplements normally found in the bloodstream, was
developed by MIT's Richard Wurtman, the Cecil H. Green Distinguished
Professor of Neuropharmacology.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/alzheimers-humans-0729.html
ISHOE INSOLE
Your grandmother might have little in common with an astronaut, but
both could benefit from a new device an MIT graduate student is
designing to test balancing ability. The iShoe insole could help
doctors detect balance problems before a catastrophic fall occurs,
says Erez Lieberman, a graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of
Health Sciences and Technology who developed the technology as an
intern at NASA. Falls among the elderly are common and can be deadly:
In 2005, nearly 300,000 Americans suffered hip fractures after a fall,
and an average of 24 percent of hip-fracture patients aged 50 and over
die in the year following their fracture, according to the National
Osteoporosis Foundation. Lieberman is now testing the iShoe technology
in a small group of patients. The current model is equipped to
diagnose balance problems, but future versions could help correct such
problems, by providing sensory stimulation to the feet when the wearer
is off-kilter. "By doing that we can replace the sense and thus
improve people's balance," Lieberman says. Lieberman and other iShoe
team members have applied for a patent on the technology, to be
jointly held by MIT, Harvard and NASA.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/i-shoe-0716.html
TOUCH-BASED ILLUSION
Anyone who has seen an optical illusion can recall the quirky moment
when you realize that the image being perceived is different from
objective reality. Now, a team of scientists from MIT, Harvard and
McGill has designed a new illusion involving the sense of touch, which
is helping to glean new insights into perception and how different
senses--such as touch and sight--work together. Ambiguous visual
images are fascinating because it is often difficult to imagine seeing
them any other way--until something flips within the brain and the
alternative perception is revealed. This phenomenon, known as
perceptual rivalry, is of great interest to neuroscience. Because
rivalrous illusions produce changes in perception that are independent
of changes in the stimulus itself, they may help to understand how the
brain gives rise to conscious experience. "The most familiar illusions
involve vision," explains Christopher Moore, a principal investigator
at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and an assistant
professor in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. "But
we're interested in discovering general principles of perception, and
we wanted to see whether similar illusions can occur in the tactile
domain." Moore is senior author of a paper on the new illusion
published on the Current Biology web site in July. This work was
funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of
Australia, the U.S. Department of Defense, McGill University, the
National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Mitsui Foundation.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/touch-0717.html
SPINAL CORD STEM CELLS
A researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has
pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that, if persuaded to
differentiate into more healing cells and fewer scarring cells
following an injury, may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for
debilitating spinal-cord injuries. The work, reported in the July
issue of the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology, is by
Konstantinos Meletis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Picower Institute,
and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Their results
could lead to drugs that might restore some degree of mobility to the
30,000 people worldwide afflicted each year with spinal-cord injuries.
This study was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish
Cancer Society, the Foundation for Strategic Research, the Karolinska
Institute, EuroStemCell and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
IMAGES AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/spine-0721.html
VISUALIZING MUTATIONS
MIT biological engineers have developed a new imaging system that
allows them to see cells that have undergone a specific mutation. The
work, which could help scientists understand how precancerous
mutations arise, marks the first time researchers have been able to
pinpoint the number and location of mutant cells--cells with a
particular mutation--in intact tissue. In this case, the researchers
worked with mouse pancreatic cells. "Understanding where mutations
come from is fundamental to understanding the origins of cancer," said
Bevin Engelward, associate professor of biological engineering, member
of MIT's Center for Environmental Health Sciences, and an author of a
paper on the work appearing in a July online edition of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was
funded by the NIH, the DOE and the Singapore-MIT Alliance.
IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/mutation-0721.html
PROTECTIVE ARMOR
Scientists seeking to protect the soldier of the future can learn a
lot from a relic of the past, according to an MIT study of a primitive
fish that could point to more effective ways of designing human body
armor. The creature in question is Polypterus senegalus, a fish whose
family tree can be traced back 96 million years and who still inhabits
freshwater pools in Africa. Unlike the vast majority of fish today, P.
senegalus sports a full-body armored “suit” that most fish would have
had millions of years ago. It was known that the fish’s individual
armored scales were comprised of multiple material layers—each of them
about 100 millionths of a meter thick. But in a U.S. Army-funded study
carried out through the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies and
published in the July 27 online issue of Nature Materials, a team of
MIT engineers unraveled exactly how the layers complement one another
to protect the soft tissues inside the fish body—particularly from a
penetrating biting attack. This research will help to better
understand the relationship between a specific threat and the
corresponding design of a protective armor, the team said. The work
was led by Christine Ortiz, an associate professor in MIT's Department
of Materials Science and Engineering.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/fish-armor-0727.html
PROTECTING PATIENT PRIVACY
Newly developed MIT software will help to allay patients’ fears about
who has access to their confidential records, facilitating the use of
that data for medical research. In the July 24 issue of the journal
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, a team of MIT researchers
describes a computer program capable of automatically deleting details
from medical records that may identify patients, while leaving
important medical information intact. Patient records that are to be
shared within the research community must have any identifying
information removed, according to the U.S. Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). However, manual removal of
identifying information is prohibitively expensive, time consuming and
prone to error—constraints that have prompted considerable research
toward developing automated techniques for “de-identifying” medical
records. “We’ve developed a free and open-source software package to
allow researchers to accurately de-identify text in medical records in
a HIPAA-compliant manner,” said Gari D. Clifford, a principal research
scientist in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and
Technology (HST) who led the work with Principal Investigator Roger G.
Mark, a professor in HST and MIT’s Department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science. The work was funded by the National
Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/robo-censor-0723.html
SOLAR AT NIGHT
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a
marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT
researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power:
storing energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine. Until now, solar
power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra
solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly
inefficient. The MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive,
highly efficient process for storing solar energy. Requiring nothing
but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock
the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. “This is
the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said Nocera,
the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a
paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. The new
process allows the sun’s energy to be used to split water into
hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be
recombined inside a fuel cell, creating electricity to power your
house or your electric car, day or night. The key component in the
process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another
catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst works at
room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it’s easy to set up, Nocera
said. This project was funded by the NSF and by the Chesonis Family
Foundation.
PHOTOS, GRAPHIC, VIDEO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
UNDERWATER BREATHING
Hundreds of insect species spend much of their time underwater, where
food may be more plentiful. MIT mathematicians have now figured out
exactly how those insects breathe underwater. By virtue of their
rough, water-repellent coat, when submerged these insects trap a thin
layer of air on their bodies. These bubbles not only serve as a finite
oxygen store, but also allow the insects to absorb oxygen from the
surrounding water. “Some insects have adapted to life underwater by
using this bubble as an external lung,” said John Bush, associate
professor of applied mathematics and a co-author of a paper on the
work in the Aug. 10 issue of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Thanks to
those air bubbles, insects can stay below the surface indefinitely and
dive as deep as about 30 meters. This phenomenon was first observed
many years ago, but the MIT researchers are the first to calculate the
maximum dive depths and describe how the bubbles stay intact as
insects dive deeper underwater, where pressure threatens to burst
them. The research was funded by the NSF.
PHOTOS, VIDEO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/underwater-0729.html
SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS
The enhanced capabilities of a new global satellite communications
(SATCOM) system were successfully tested recently by MIT Lincoln
Laboratory, representing a major step forward in improving
communications among U.S. Department of Defense commands around the
world. Earlier this year, Lincoln Laboratory completed its portion of
the on-orbit testing of the first Widespread Global Satellite
Communications (WGS) system, a constellation of geosynchronous
satellites orbiting 22,300 miles above the equator, which provides
worldwide high-capacity military satellite communication capabilities.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/lincoln-satellite-0728.html
ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Ten graduate students from MIT recently spent three weeks in Durban,
South Africa, working on a project to develop an online tool that
could help municipal governments around the world adapt to a changing
climate. During their trip, the students concentrated on gathering
information from representatives working in diverse municipal agencies
and uncovering adaptation activities that are taking place in the
course of routine work. Over the next year, that information will be
used to develop and refine the planned tool that could aid Durban and
other cities in initiating adaptation efforts. In their interviews and
field trips, the students were learning "what people understood about
climate change and current climate activities in Durban as well as
trying to identify innovative adaptation techniques that could readily
be adopted elsewhere," says JoAnn Carmin, associate professor of
environmental policy and planning in MIT's Department of Urban Studies
and Planning, who taught a class on urban climate adaptation that
culminated in the May-June field trip to South Africa.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-southafrica-0722.html
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY RIDDLE
MIT physicists believe they have identified a mysterious state of
matter that has been linked to the phenomenon of high-temperature
superconductivity. Led by Eric Hudson, associate professor of physics,
the researchers are exploring materials that conduct electricity with
no resistance at temperatures around 30 degrees Kelvin above absolute
zero. Such materials could have limitless applications if they could
be made to superconduct at room temperature. Hudson's team is focusing
on the state of matter that exists at temperatures just above the
temperature at which materials start to superconduct. This state,
known as the pseudogap, is poorly understood, but physicists have long
believed that characterizing the pseudogap is important to
understanding superconductivity. In their latest work, published
online in a July issue of Nature Physics, they suggest that the
pseudogap is not a precursor to superconductivity, as has been
theorized, but a competing state. If that is true, it could completely
change the way physicists look at superconductivity, said Hudson. The
research was funded by the NSF and the Research Corporation.
IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/super-conduct-0718.html
NATURE-NURTURE LINK
Neuroscientists at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
have found that a previously unsuspected set of genes links nature and
nurture during a crucial period of brain development. The results,
reported in a July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, could lead to treatments for autism and other disorders
thought to be tied to brain changes that occur when the developing
brain is very susceptible to inputs from the outside world. Nature--in
the form of genes--and nurture--in the form of environmental
influences--are fundamentally intertwined during this period. "Our
work points to how a disorder can be genetic and yet be dependent on
the environment," said co-author Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild
Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute and chair of MIT's
brain and cognitive sciences department. "Many genes require activity
to be expressed and make their assigned proteins. They alter their
expression when activity is altered. Thus, we reveal an important
mechanism of brain development that should open up a window into the
mechanisms and treatment of brain disorders such as autism." This work
is supported by the NIH and the Simons Foundation.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/missing-link-0715.html
CLIMATE-CHANGE POLICY
Long-term climate change policy in the United States and abroad is
likely to change very slowly, warns an MIT professor who says the lack
of future flexibility argues for stronger short-term goals to reduce
carbon emissions. In a study in Decision Analysis, a journal of the
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences,
Assistant Professor Mort Webster of MIT's Engineering Systems Division
tackles the complex problem of global climate change policy with a new
approach. Specifically, Webster's analysis incorporates the theory of
"path dependency." In its most basic form, the theory holds that how
something evolves in the future depends heavily on the path it was on
in the past. Webster says that because policy-making for climate
change involves sequences of decisions over very long time periods, it
is possible to reduce uncertainty and revise decisions along the way.
But political systems can exhibit path dependency, a force that makes
large policy shifts in the future difficult and rare, so most future
decisions may only offer relatively small, incremental changes.
"Although staging climate change policy decisions over time would seem
to make sense, the tendency of U.S. and international policy to change
extremely slowly requires front-loading the painful decisions,"
Webster says, arguing that greater near-term emissions reductions are
needed as a hedge against long-term catastrophe.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/climate-path-0711.html
CELLULAR ‘PARTS LIST’
Imagine trying to figure out how your car's power train works from
just a few of its myriad components: It would be nearly impossible.
Scientists have long faced a similar challenge in understanding cells'
tiny powerhouses -- called mitochondria -- from scant knowledge of
their molecular parts. Now, an international team of researchers has
created the most comprehensive "parts list" to date for mitochondria,
a compendium that includes nearly 1,100 proteins. By mining this
critical resource, the researchers have already gained deep insights
into the biological roles and evolutionary histories of several key
proteins. In addition, this careful cataloging has identified a
mutation in a novel protein-coding gene as the cause behind one
devastating mitochondrial disease. A full description of the work
appears in a July edition of the journal Cell. This work was supported
by the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/powerhouse-0711.html
BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft have traveled beyond the edges of the
bubble in space where the sun's constant outward wind of particles and
radiation slams into the interstellar medium that pervades our galaxy.
The first scientific reports on what the Voyagers found there appears
in a July issue of the journal Nature. The deep-space probes have now
traveled more than 8 billion miles away from the Earth. Because they
are leaving the solar system on paths that are about 45 degrees apart,
the data reveals details about the shape of the bubble created by the
solar wind: it is squashed rather than being a symmetrical sphere.
Some of the data that revealed this boundary region comes from a set
of magnetic field sensors developed and built at MIT back in the
1970s. John Richardson, Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Kavli
Institute for Astrophysics and Space Science, is a co-author of the
two Nature papers, and John Belcher, professor of physics at MIT and
former principal investigator for the Voyager Plasma Science
instrument, is a co-author of one of them. The work was funded by NASA.
IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/voyager-0707.html
DIGITALLY FABRICATED HOUSE
Larry Sass, assistant professor of computation in the MIT Department
of Architecture, is one of five architects featured in a major show
this summer at the Museum of Modern Art titled "Home Delivery:
Fabricating the Modern Dwelling," which focuses on the importance of
prefabricated and sustainable housing. Sass' project--Digitally
Fabricated House for New Orleans--will be on view until October 20.
The New Orleans-style "shotgun" house is alongside four other
architects' works in a lot next to MoMA. Sass and the other architects
are detailing their work on blogs at www.momahomedelivery.org. Based
on research in New Orleans--including meetings with local homeowners
and documentation of houses throughout the Garden District, the French
Quarter, Faubourg Marigny and the Lower Ninth Ward--Sass' house is
fabricated entirely of friction-fit components with tabs or slots for
easy assembly, and the structure is put together solely with muscle
and mallets, without any nails or screws or glue.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/arch-sass-0703.html
REPROGRAMMED CELLS
Cells from mice created using genetically reprogrammed cells can be
triggered via drug administration to enter an embryonic-stem-cell-like
state without the need for further direct genetic manipulation. The
discovery, by researchers from MIT and the Whitehead Institute for
Biomedical Research, promises to bring new efficiencies to embryonic
stem-cell research. The work is reported in a July issue of Nature
Biotechnology. "This technical advancement will allow thousands of
identical reprogrammed cells to be used in experiments," says Marius
Wernig, one of the paper's two lead authors and a postdoctoral
researcher in the lab of MIT biology professor and Whitehead Member
Rudolf Jaenisch. "Using these cells could help define the milestones
of how cells are reprogrammed and screen for drug-like molecules that
replace the potentially cancer-causing viruses used for
reprogramming," adds Christopher Lengner, the other lead author and
also a postdoctoral researcher in Jaenisch's lab. The research was
supported by the Human Frontiers Science Organization Program, the
Ellison Medical Foundation, the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research
Service Award and the NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/stem-cells-0701.html
DETECTING NOVEL PARTICLES
Nearly 20 years in the making, the largest particle accelerator in the
world will start running in Switzerland this summer, offering
scientists a glimpse of particles that have never been seen before.
MIT has a team of about 40 scientists and students preparing for the
debut of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is expected to start
up in August. Thousands of physicists from around the world are
collaborating on the project, based at CERN, and MIT has the largest
American university group working on one of the collider's four
detectors, known as the CMS (compact muon solenoid) detector. Once the
$10 billion accelerator starts up, particles will zoom around the 27-
kilometer loop at nearly the speed of light, creating controlled
collisions that scientists hope will reveal the elusive Higgs boson
and other novel particles. "You don't know what you'll find behind the
door because you've never seen it. We're going to open the door and
step in and see what's there," says associate professor of physics
Christoph Paus, the leader of the MIT group working on the CMS detector.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/lhc-0701.html
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