Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Raindrops splash down on leaves, spread pathogens among plants
- Title
- Raindrops splash down on leaves, spread pathogens among plants
- Date posted
- 11 years ago
- Description
- A team of researchers from MIT and the University of Liege, in Belgium, have shown through high-speed images of raindrops splashing down on leaves that raindrops can act as a dispersing agent of contaminated droplets from one plant to another. (More on this research at: http://bit.ly/1DdF2lB and http://lbourouiba.mit.edu)
Historical weather records suggest that rainfall may scatter rust and other pathogens throughout a plant population, the mechanism by which this occurs has not be explored, until now.
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
High-speed splash images: Tristan Gilet and Lydia Bourouiba
- Title
- Forces Frozen: Structures made from frozen fabrics
- Date posted
- 11 years ago
- Description
- Through the power of shape and curvature, very thin shells can achieve impressive strength and stiffness, even when they are made only from frozen water-soaked fabric. This workshop, aptly titled "Forces Frozen" seeks to push the boundaries of ice shells through design, experimentation and fabrication. (Learn more about Forces Frozen: http://forcesfrozen.tumblr.com/)
This MIT IAP workshop was sponsored by the MIT-SUTD Collaboration. (http://sutd.mit.edu/)
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Still images of Heinz Isler courtesy of Safety third (https://safetythird.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/heinz-isler-ice-structures/)
Music from "Aqua 1" by Rod Hamilton
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Rod_Hamilton/Atitlan/Rod_Hamilton_-_Atitlan_-_02_Aqua_1
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
- Title
- Predicting behavior of sickle cells
- Date posted
- 11 years ago
- Description
- Patients with sickle cell disease often suffer from painful attacks known as vaso-occlusive crises, during which their sickle-shaped blood cells get stuck in tiny capillaries, depriving tissues of needed oxygen. Now, researchers from MIT, CMU and UPitt have developed a tiny microfluidic device that can analyze the behavior of blood from sickle cell patients. (Learn more: http://bit.ly/1DY0lbU)
Video Produced and Edited by Melanie Gonick/MIT
Additional footage courtesy of Ming Dao
- Title
- Multifunctional fibers communicate with the brain
- Date posted
- 11 years ago
- Description
- By producing complex multifunctional fibers that could be less than the width of a hair, MIT researchers have created a system that could deliver optical signals and drugs directly into the brain, along with a simultaneous electrical readout to continuously monitor the effects of the various inputs. (Learn more about the technology: http://bit.ly/1AGZo1l)
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Animation and computer render courtesy of McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT/Sputnik Animation and Andres Canales
Music sampled from "The Dream" by Project5am
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Project_5am/5am_Wabi_Sabi/05_project_5am_-_the_dream
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
- Title
- Rainfall can release aerosols, high-speed video shows
- Date posted
- 11 years ago
- Description
- Using high-speed cameras, MIT researchers observed that when a raindrop hits a surface, it traps tiny air bubbles at the point of contact. As in a glass of champagne, the bubbles then shoot upward, ultimately bursting from the drop in a fizz of aerosols. (Learn more: http://bit.ly/1wZYXy5)
The researchers suspect that in natural environments, aerosols may carry aromatic elements, along with bacteria and viruses stored in soil. These aerosols may be released during light or moderate rainfall, and then spread via gusts of wind.
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick/MIT
High-speed droplet footage by Youngsoo Joung
Rain falling and bubbles in glass footage: Pond5.com
Music sampled from "Running Waters" by Jason Shaw
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RUNNING_WATERS______________2-46
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
- Title
- Club Chem(istry) at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Within the Chemistry department at MIT a group of students, who call themselves Club Chem are ready to get you excited about science! (Learn more about Club Chem: http://web.mit.edu/clubchem/www/about.html)
Club Chem is extremely grateful to Mr. James K. Littwitz SB'42 and his wife Jane, who established an endowed fund to promote undergraduate activities within the chemistry department at MIT.
Special thanks to the Office of Engineering Outreach Programs' STEM Mentoring Program for connecting Club Chem with local middle school students excited about science and engineering. (Learn more about the STEM program: http://mit.edu/stem)
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
- Title
- Recycling old batteries into solar cells
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- A system proposed by researchers at MIT would recycle materials from discarded car batteries — a potential source of lead pollution — into new, long-lasting solar panels that provide emissions-free power. (Learn more: http://bit.ly/VzcyA8)
Video courtesy of the researchers
- Title
- Detecting gases wirelessly with a smartphone
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT chemists have devised a new way to wirelessly detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants, using a simple sensor that can be read by a smartphone. (Learn more about the sensor: http://bit.ly/1IuHPsp)
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Additional footage provided by: ImagesFX Post, LLC
- Title
- Splash! at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- For one weekend each November, thousands of High School students flood MIT's campus to take classes taught by MIT students on anything and everything. (Learn more about Splash!: http://bit.ly/1Auycoj)
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Music sampled from "Divider" by Chris Zabriskie
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Divider/
- Title
- Complex 3-D DNA structures
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT biological engineers have created a new computer model that allows them to design the most complex three-dimensional DNA shapes ever produced, including rings, bowls, and geometric structures such as icosahedrons that resemble viral particles. (Learn more: http://mitne.ws/1yOHBaZ)
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Computer renderings courtesy of Dr. Keyao Pan (LCBB)/Nature Communications
3D structural predictions were generated using CanDo by Dr. Stavros Gaitanaros (LCBB) based on sequence designs provided by Fei Zhang (Hao Tan Lab at Arizona State University).
- Title
- Reading robots' minds
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- A new visualization system developed by MIT researchers, combines ceiling-mounted projectors with motion-capture technology and animation software to project a robot's intentions in real time. (Learn more about the system: http://bit.ly/1thQBSQ)
The researchers say the system may help speed up the development of self-driving cars, package-delivering drones, and other autonomous, route-planning vehicles.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Additional footage and computer animations: Shayegan Omidshafiei
- Title
- MIT Admissions Blogs
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- For the past decade, the MIT Admissions Blogs have been a leader in student blogging. The blogs are written by MIT students and are completely uncensored.
MIT bloggers offer thoughts on anything from something that might interest a prospective student to how to handle the Institute's intense workload to much quirkier topics like how many cats live in dorms at one time or how to set a world record in the game of Mattress Dominos.
MIT Admissions: http://mitadmissions.org
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Music sampled from "Raro Bueno" by Chuzausen
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/Awesome_Is_Grey/06_chuzausen_-_raro_bueno
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
- Title
- Controllable nanoparticles
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- New technology developed by MIT and several other institutions could make it possible to track the position of nano particles as they move within the body or inside a cell. (Learn more about this technology: http://bit.ly/1rj5AHI)
At the same time, the nano particles could be manipulated precisely by applying a magnetic field to pull them along and control where they go.
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick/MIT News
Video clips courtesy of Ou Chen and Hendrik Herrman
Music sampled from "Amalgam" by BlacKisS
- Title
- Untangling coiled cables
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Engineers at MIT, along with computer scientists at Columbia University, have developed a method that predicts the pattern of coils and tangles that a cable may form when deployed onto a rigid surface. (Learn more about the method: http://bit.ly/1BDn5sh)
The research combined laboratory experiments with custom-designed cables, computer-graphics technology used to animate hair in movies, and theoretical analyses.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Coiling experiment videos: Jawed, Da, Grinspun & Reis
Animated hair simulation: Weta Digital
Music sampled from "Casual Graphic Designer" by Bacalao
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Bacalao/Casual_Graphic_Designer/1_Bacalao-CasualGraphicDesigner
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
- Title
- New drug-delivery capsule may replace injections
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have devised a novel drug capsule coated with tiny needles that can inject drugs directly into the lining of the stomach after the capsule is swallowed. (Learn more about the capsule: http://mitsha.re/1qV6JVM)
Video: Carl Magnus Schoellhammer and Gio Traverso
- Title
- MIT Haystack Observatory
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT Haystack Observatory has existed for more than 50 years and conducts ground-breaking research in atmospheric science, astronomy, geodesy and related fields. (Learn more: http://www.haystack.mit.edu/)
Haystack scientists use radio waves to remotely observe everything from the upper atmosphere to the outer reaches of the universe.
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Additional footage courtesy of NASA
- Title
- GelSight sensor gives robots touch
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at MIT and Northeastern University have equipped a robot with a novel tactile sensor that lets it grasp a USB cable and insert it into a USB port. (Learn more about the sensor: http://bit.ly/1uNmcft)
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Computer renderings courtesy of Rui Li
- Title
- Synthetic squid skin
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Cephalopods, which include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, are among nature’s most skillful camouflage artists, able to change both the color and texture of their skin within seconds to blend into their surroundings — a capability that engineers have long struggled to duplicate in synthetic materials. (Learn more: http://mitsha.re/1o3Ensl)
Now, a team of researchers has come closer than ever to achieving that goal, creating a flexible material that can change its color or fluorescence and its texture at the same time, on demand, under remote control.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Synthetic skin simulations courtesy of the researchers
- Title
- MIT Robotic Cheetah
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT researchers have developed an algorithm for bounding that they've successfully implemented in a robotic cheetah. (Learn more: http://mitsha.re/YCipV)
The MIT Cheetah 2 contains the custom electric motor designed by Jeffrey Lang, the Vitesse Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT and the amplifier designed by David Otten, a principal research engineer in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics.
This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Additional footage: Hae-Won Park and José-Luis Olivares
Stock media provided by Pond5.com
Music sampled from "Spooky" by Alastair Cameron
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ala...
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
- Title
- Wrinkles in time
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT researchers have identified a mechanism by which tiny, millimeter-wide wrinkles embedded within ancient rocks may have formed. (Learn more about the mechanism:http://bit.ly/1wIwMaQ)
In this controlled experiment, you can see the formation of ridges. Wave conditions were kept constant during the experiment, and the view is centered in the middle of the tank where orbital amplitudes are about 10 mm. Microbial mat fragments were added to the tank approximately half an hour into the experiment. Note that sediments do not move in the absence of mat fragments, and that ridges form in about 1 hour.
Video courtesy of the researchers.
- Title
- Grabbing space debris
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT researchers tested an algorithm for gauging the rotation of objects in zero gravity using only visual information, aboard the International Space Station (Learn more about the experiment: http://bit.ly/1osvusc)
Understanding how objects are spinning in space, where their centers of mass are, and how their mass is distributed is crucial to any space mission. From cleaning up debris to landing a demolition crew on a comet.
Here we see the tracked features and dense reconstructed model for three tests on the ISS where the object is spinning about the major, minor and intermediate axes respectively.
Video courtesy of the researchers.
- Title
- Corals as engineers
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Scientists at MIT and the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in Israel have found that corals, long believed to be passive organisms relying entirely on ocean currents to deliver nutrients, are actually quite active, engineering their environment producing strong swirls of water that draw nutrients toward the coral, while driving potentially toxic waste products away. (Learn more: http://bit.ly/1ufbfTB)
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Video clips in order of appearance: "Vortical ciliary flows actively enhance mass transport in reef corals",Orr H. Shapiro, Vicente I. Fernandez, Melissa S. Garren, Jeffrey S. Guasto, François P. Debaillon-Vesque, Esti Kramarski-Winter, Assaf Vardi, Roman Stocker, PNAS, 2014; DOI number 10.1073/pnas.1323094111
"Coral cilia", Orr Shapiro, Assaf Vardi, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel; Vicente Fernandez, Roman Stocker, MIT, USA.
"Vortical ciliary flows actively enhance mass tra...
- Title
- Sorting cells with sound waves
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers from MIT, Pennsylvania State University, and Carnegie Mellon University have devised a new way to separate cells by exposing them to sound waves as they flow through a tiny channel. (Learn more about the device: http://bit.ly/1wwDlxV)
Their device, about the size of a dime, could be used to detect the extremely rare tumor cells that circulate in cancer patients’ blood, helping doctors predict whether a tumor is going to spread.
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Video clips provided by Ming Dao
- Title
- ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: MIT President L. Rafael Reif
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- This morning, MIT President L. Rafael Reif accepted a double #IceBucketChallenge from Harvard President Drew Faust and the MIT Edgerton Center. The ice bucket challenge is raising funds to help scientists research the causes of and potential treatments for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
President Reif invited the MIT community to participate, and he dedicated the event to Karolina Fraczkowska '01, whose husband recently died of the disease.
Reif now challenges Shruti Sharma, president of the MIT Undergraduate Association; Kendall Nowocin, president of the MIT Graduate Student Council; Thomas Rosenbaum, president of the California Institute of Technology; Christina Paxson, president of Brown University; and Nicholas Dirks, chancellor of UC Berkeley.
- Title
- LLRISE: Building radars at Lincoln Laboratory
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- The Lincoln Laboratory Radar Introduction for Student Engineers (LLRISE) program is a summer workshop teaching students how to build small radar systems. (Learn more about LLRISE and Lincoln Laboratory: http://goo.gl/Q52pGc)
This summer STEM program is a two-week residential project-based enrichment program for outstanding students going into their senior year of high school.
Throughout LLRISE students will be challenged to build a Doppler and range radar by using creative problem-solving strategies. This hands-on program allows students to work in a state-of-the-art laboratory with scientists and engineers who are experts in their field.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Additional footage: Trevor Chamberlain, Lincoln Laboratory
- Title
- Magnetic Hair
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT engineers have fabricated a new elastic material coated with microscopic, hairlike structures that tilt in response to a magnetic field. (Learn more about these structures: http://bit.ly/1y2E8SX)
Depending on the field's orientation, the microhairs can tilt to form a path through which fluid can flow; the material can even direct water upward, against gravity.
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick/MIT News
Video clips courtesy of the researchers
- Title
- Surfaces can control what's on them
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at MIT and in Saudi Arabia have developed a new way of making surfaces that can actively control how fluids or particles move across them. (Learn more about these "active" surfaces: http://bit.ly/1nOQzAD)
The work might enable new kinds of biomedical or microfluidic devices, or solar panels that could automatically clean themselves of dust and grit.
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick
Footage courtesy of the researchers
Music sampled from: "Light Thought var 2" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
- Title
- Vision Correcting Displays
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at the MIT Media Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new display technology that automatically corrects for vision defects — no glasses (or contact lenses) required. (Learn more about the display: http://bit.ly/1s6xeuR)
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Additional footage and artist renderings courtesy of Gordon Wetzstein
- Title
- Bamboo Engineering
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- MIT scientists, along with architects and wood processors from England and Canada, are looking for ways to turn bamboo into a construction material more akin to wood composites, like plywood. (Learn more: http://bit.ly/WCNN7e)
Such bamboo products are currently being developed by several companies; the MIT project, lead by professor Lorna Gibson, intends to gain a better understanding of these materials, so that bamboo can be more effectively used.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Additional footage courtesy of MyBoringChannel and Frank Ross
(http://myboringchannel.com/)
Music sampled from: Radio Silence
(http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Schemawound/TRANCOUNT/03_Radio_Silence)
Artist/Composer: Schemawound
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Schemawound/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode
- Title
- Gold nanoparticles easily penetrate cells
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- A new study from MIT materials scientists reveals that a special class of tiny gold particles can easily slip through cell membranes, making them good candidates to deliver drugs directly to target cells.
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Computer simulations courtesy of Reid Van Lehn
- Title
- 7 Finger Robot
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at MIT have developed a robot that enhances the grasping motion of the human hand. (Learn more: http://bit.ly/1tdPd2t)
The device, worn around one's wrist, works essentially like two extra fingers adjacent to the pinky and thumb. The robot, which the researchers have dubbed "supernumerary robotic fingers," or "SR fingers," consists of actuators linked together to exert forces as strong as those of human fingers during a grasping motion.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Additional footage courtesy of Faye Wu
- Title
- Squishy Robots
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- A new phase-changing material built from wax and foam developed by researchers at MIT is capable of switching between hard and soft states. (Learn more: http://mitne.ws/1wlz4bn)
Robots built from this material would be able to operate more like biological systems with applications ranging from difficult search and rescue operations, squeezing through rubble looking for survivors, to deformable surgical robots that could move through the body to reach a particular point without damaging any of the organs or vessels along the way.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Additional video clips courtesy of Nadia Cheng
- Title
- Oil and water
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Tiny droplets of water, colored blue, are suspended in oil on top of a membrane developed by the MIT team. (Full description at: http://mitne.ws/1lvM4F6)
Thanks to the membrane's tiny pores, with a special coating that attracts water and repels oil, the droplets shrink as they pass through the membrane, ultimately leaving just pure oil behind. A similar membrane with a different coating can do the reverse, allowing oil droplets to pass while blocking water.
Video courtesy of the researchers.
- Title
- Mathematics at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Mathematics has played an important part at MIT since the founding of the Institute. Mathematics occupies a core intellectual position at MIT, an institution that is well known for its leadership in Science and Engineering. (Learn more about the MIT Mathematics: http://math.mit.edu/index.php)
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Music sampled from: Her breath (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/arizono_kazuhiro/EPV_070/)
Artist/Composer: Arizono Kazuhiro
http://soundcloud.com/arizono-kazuhiro
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode
- Title
- Morphable surfaces at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- In the lab, the morphable surface developed by the team can have its surface texture changed at will simply by changing the pressure inside, using a pump. When the inside reassure is reduced, the flexible material shrinks, but the outer layer, being stiffer, gets wrinkled as it shrinks, just like a plum drying in the sun to become a prune. Unlike a prune, the material can immediately bounce back to a smooth state when the pressure increases, providing a fully controllable surface texture.
Read more: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/morphable-surfaces-could-cut-air-resistance
Video: Denis Terwagne and Pedro Reis, MIT
- Title
- All in the Family: One family, eight employees, 85+ years of service
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Beginning his career at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1959, Leon Belanger was the first of his family to work at MIT. Over years he has watched family member after family member after family member follow in his footsteps. Eight members of Leon's family have been employees by MIT in one capacity or another, totaling to almost a century of service between them.
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Still Images: Courtesy of MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Mark Belanger
Music: July.#4 (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/arizono_kazuhiro/EPV_070/)
Artist/Composer: Arizono Kazuhiro
http://soundcloud.com/arizono-kazuhiro
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode
- Title
- African Darter Wing Feather Immersed in Water and Oil
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Wing feather of an African Darter (Anhinga ruff) is immersed in water (dyed blue) and oil (dyed red). As the feather is pushed down into the liquids, it repels the water (as shown by the downward curve of the water surface), while its surface is wetted by the oil (as shown by the upward curvature).
Video: Justin Kleingarter and Siddarth Srinivasan
- Title
- Thank you MIT: The Class of 2014 says goodbye
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Over the 2013-14 academic year, MIT News profiled several graduating seniors. Here, watch as six of them discuss their time at MIT and what they look forward to in the future.
Read the full profiles:
Justin Bullock: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/student-profile-justin-bullock-0505
Aliya Dincer: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/aliya-dincer-profile-0303
Kate Koch: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/profile-koch-0207
Nathan Kipniss: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/embracing-complexity
Priyanka Saha: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/student-profile-priyanka-saha-0423
Suan Tuang: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/across-an-ocean-finding-his-dream-0221
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Still image of the Great Dome: Francisco Diez
- Title
- Bake your own robot
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Printable robots — those that can be assembled from parts produced by 3-D printers — have long been a topic of research in the lab of Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.
At this year's IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Rus' group and its collaborators introduce a new wrinkle on the idea: bakable robots.
In two new papers, the researchers demonstrate the promise of printable robotic components that, when heated, automatically fold into prescribed three-dimensional configurations.
Read more: https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/bake-your-own-robot-0530
Video produced and edited by Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Footage courtesy of the researchers.
- Title
- Ballroom Dancing at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- A prominent activity amongst MIT community members is ballroom dancing. At the Institute there are two organizations that comprise ballroom. The MIT Ballroom Dance Club is a recognized student group focused on social dancing. The MIT Ballroom Dance Team focuses more on competitive ballroom dancing with MIT students, alums, and other MIT affiliates. Although they are separate entities on paper, there are a lot of overlap between the two.
MIT Ballroom Dance Team: http://ballroom.mit.edu/
MIT Ballroom Dance Club: http://web.mit.edu/bdclub/
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
- Title
- Neuron Activity in 3-D
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at MIT and the University of Vienna have created an imaging system that reveals neural activity throughout the brains of living animals. This technique, the first that can generate 3-D movies of entire brains at the millisecond timescale, could help scientists discover how neuronal networks process sensory information and generate behavior.
The team used the new system to simultaneously image the activity of every neuron in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as the entire brain of a zebrafish larva, offering a more complete picture of nervous system activity than has been previously possible.
The new approach, described May 18 in Nature Methods, could also help neuroscientists learn more about the biological basis of brain disorders. "We don't really know, for any brain disorder, the exact set of cells involved," Boyden says. "The ability to survey activity throughout a nervous system may help pinpoint the cells or networks that are involved ...
- Title
- Floating nuclear plants could withstand earthquakes and tsunamis
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- When an earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant complex in 2011, neither the quake nor the inundation caused most of the damage and contamination. Rather, it was the aftereffects — specifically, the lack of cooling for the reactor cores and spent fuel, due to a shutdown of outside power — that caused most of the harm.
A new design for nuclear plants built on floating platforms, modeled after those used for offshore oil drilling, could help avoid such consequences in the future. Such floating plants would be designed to be automatically flooded by the surrounding seawater in a worst-case scenario, providing sufficient cooling to indefinitely prevent any melting of fuel rods, or escape of radioactive material.
The concept is being presented this week at the Small Modular Reactors Symposium, hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, by MIT associate professor of nuclear science and engineering (NSE) Jacopo Buongiorno al...
- Title
- Smartphone-readable microparticles crack down on counterfeiting
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Some 2 to 5 percent of all international trade involves counterfeit goods, according to a 2013 United Nations report. These illicit products — which include electronics, automotive and aircraft parts, pharmaceuticals, and food — can pose safety risks and cost governments and private companies hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
Many strategies have been developed to try to label legitimate products and prevent illegal trade — but these tags are often too easy to fake, are unreliable, or cost too much to implement, according to MIT researchers who have developed a new alternative.
Led by MIT chemical engineering professor Patrick Doyle and Lincoln Laboratory technical staff member Albert Swiston, the researchers have invented a new type of tiny, smartphone-readable particle that they believe could be deployed to help authenticate currency, electronic parts, and luxury goods, among other products. The particles, which are invisible to the naked eye,...
- Title
- How the brain pays attention
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Picking out a face in the crowd is a complicated task: Your brain has to retrieve the memory of the face you're seeking, then hold it in place while scanning the crowd, paying special attention to finding a match.
A new study by MIT neuroscientists reveals how the brain achieves this type of focused attention on faces or other objects: A part of the prefrontal cortex known as the inferior frontal junction (IFJ) controls visual processing areas that are tuned to recognize a specific category of objects, the researchers report in the April 10 online edition of Science.
Scientists know much less about this type of attention, known as object-based attention, than spatial attention, which involves focusing on what's happening in a particular location. However, the new findings suggest that these two types of attention have similar mechanisms involving related brain regions, says Robert Desimone, the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience, director of MIT's...
- Title
- Coughs and sneezes travel farther than you think
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- High-speed imaging has helped MIT researchers determine that some droplets from coughs and sneezes may carry much farther than previous studies had estimated. (Learn more: http://news.mit.edu/2014/coughs-and-sneezes-float-farther-you-think).
High speed footage courtesy of Lydia Bourouiba
- Title
- Autonomous, self-contained soft robotic fish at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Soft robots — which don't just have soft exteriors but are also powered by fluid flowing through flexible channels — have become a sufficiently popular research topic that they now have their own journal, Soft Robotics. In the first issue of that journal, out this month, MIT researchers report the first self-contained autonomous soft robot, a "fish" that can execute an escape maneuver, convulsing its body to change direction, in just 100 milliseconds, or as quickly as a real fish can.
"We're excited about soft robots for a variety of reasons," says Daniela Rus, a professor of computer science and engineering, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and one of the researchers who designed and built the fish. "As robots penetrate the physical world and start interacting with people more and more, it's much easier to make robots safe if their bodies are so wonderfully soft that there's no danger if they whack you."
The robo...
- Title
- Measuring the migration of river networks
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Large river networks — such as those that funnel into the Colorado and Mississippi rivers — may seem to be permanent features of a landscape. In fact, many rivers define political boundaries that have been in place for centuries.
But scientists have long suspected that river networks are not as static as they may appear, and have gathered geologic and biological evidence that suggest many rivers have been "rewired," shifting and moving across a landscape over millions of years.
Now researchers at MIT and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) have developed a mapping technique that measures how much a river network is changing, and in what direction it may be moving. Their results are published in this week's issue of Science.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/measuring-the-migration-of-a-river-0306.html
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Images and simulations courtesy of Chia-Yu Chen, Liran Gor...
- Title
- The Foundry at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering lives a place where students can come and put their materials knowledge into practice. The Foundry at MIT provides a space for students, faculty and staff to come innovate, create and get their hands dirty in the process.
The Foundry and Forge: http://dmse.mit.edu/resources/foundry-and-forge
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
Still images courtesy of Mert C. Flemings
- Title
- Transparent Displays at MIT
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- Transparent displays have a variety of potential applications — such as the ability to see navigation or dashboard information while looking through the windshield of a car or plane, or to project video onto a window or a pair of eyeglasses. A number of technologies have been developed for such displays, but all have limitations.
Now, researchers at MIT have come up with a new approach that can have significant advantages over existing systems, at least for certain kinds of applications: a wide viewing angle, simplicity of manufacture, and potentially low cost and scalability.
The innovative system is described in a paper published this week in the journal Nature Communications, co-authored by MIT professors Marin Soljačić and John Joannopoulos, graduate student Chia Wei Hsu, and four others.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/seeing-things-a-new-transparent-display-system-could-provide-heads-up-data-0121.html
Video: Me...
- Title
- Internal waves
- Date posted
- 12 years ago
- Description
- This animation shows density layers in the South China Sea being perturbed by the regular back-and-forth tidal flow through the Luzon Strait. These leads to large amplitude internal waves (shown in red underwater, and in white when seen from above), being radiated west to the Chinese continental shelf.
Animation courtesy of the researchers.
