Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
The Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT
- Title
- The Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Tucked deep within MIT's campus is a miniature world of model trains, elaborate miniature buildings and detailed sceneries. Now entering its 65th year, Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT (TMRC) still caters to model railroaders, rail-fans and hackers alike.
In this video we take a tour of the layout and the history through the eyes of club members Quentin Smith, Rebecca Perry and John Macnamara.
TMRC: http://tmrc.mit.edu/
Video: Melanie Gonick
Still Images: MIT Museum
Special thank you to Angela Saini for extra footage and inspiration.
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- MIT News at Noon with Neil Gershenfeld and Ara Knaian
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the Center for Bits and Atoms, and visiting scientist Ara Knaian, deliver their"News at Noon" talk at the MIT Museum. The event is co-sponsored by the MIT News Office and the Museum, and features researchers discussing their recently promoted work.
On Nov. 30, Gershenfeld and Knaian discussed their robot, the Milli-Motein, which is not only one of the world's smallest robots, but if can also reconfigure itself in a matter of seconds.
Presenters for "News at Noon" are announced each week following an appearance in MIT News. Come and connect with local colleagues before and after the program. Free admission to all. Learn more at http://web.mit.edu/museum/pdf/MITNewsAtNoon-F12.pdf
Read more about Milli-Motein at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/reconfigurable-robots-turn-into-anything-1130.html
Learn about the MIT Museum at http://web.mit.edu/museum/
Video: MIT Video Productions/AMPS; MIT New...
- Title
- (Tiny) Reconfigurable Robots at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The device doesn't look like much: a caterpillar-sized assembly of metal rings and strips resembling something you might find buried in a home-workshop drawer. But the technology behind it, and the long-range possibilities it represents, are quite remarkable.
The little device is called a milli-motein — a name melding its millimeter-sized components and a motorized design inspired by proteins, which naturally fold themselves into incredibly complex shapes. This minuscule robot may be a harbinger of future devices that could fold themselves up into almost any shape imaginable.
The device was conceived by Neil Gershenfeld, head of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, visiting scientist Ara Knaian and graduate student Kenneth Cheung, and is described in a paper presented recently at the 2012 Intelligent Robots and Systems conference. Its key feature, Gershenfeld says: "It's effectively a one-dimensional robot that can be made in a continuous strip, without conventi...
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- MIT News at Noon with Missy Cummings
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Missy Cummings, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, delivers her "News at Noon" talk at the MIT Museum. The event is co-sponsored by the MIT News Office and the Museum, and features researchers discussing their recently promoted work.
On Nov. 16, Cummings discussed how boredom plays a major role in a drone-operators ability to do their job. Her study found that UAV operators tend to preform better with a little distraction.
Presenters for "News at Noon" are announced each week following an appearance in MIT News. Come and connect with local colleagues before and after the program. Free admission to all. Learn more at http://web.mit.edu/museum/pdf/MITNewsAtNoon-F12.pdf
Read more about Cumming's work at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/boredom-and-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-1114.html
Learn about the MIT Museum at http://web.mit.edu/museum/
Video: MIT Video Productions/AMPS; MI...
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- Spider silk makes music at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Pound for pound, spider silk is one of the strongest materials known: Research by MIT's Markus Buehler has helped explain that this strength arises from silk's unusual hierarchical arrangement of protein building blocks.
Now Buehler — together with David Kaplan of Tufts University and Joyce Wong of Boston University — has synthesized new variants on silk's natural structure, and found a method for making further improvements in the synthetic material.
And an ear for music, it turns out, might be a key to making those structural improvements.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/the-music-of-the-silks-1128.html
Video: Melanie Gonick
Computer simulation with AAAB pattern or "More A": S. Rye and M. Buehler (video); E. Erenberg (flute), W. Kenlon (recording) and J. McDonald (composition; all three Tufts University).
Computer simulation with ABBB pattern or "More B": S. Rye and M. Buehler (video); E. Erenbe...
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- Understanding Arctic Sea Ice at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Read more about Principal Research Scientist Patrick Heimbach's work in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/ocean-currents-and-sea-ice-1121.html
The MITgcm website: http://mitgcm.org
And the website for NASA's ECCO2: http://ecco2.org
About the animation: The simulation was conducted with the MIT coupled ocean-sea ice general circulation model, or in short, MITgcm. The configuration was constructed as part of the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean Phase II, or ECCO2 project. It was run by project partners Gunnar Spreen and Dimitris Menemenlis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on NASA's supercomputer "Pleiades" at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Tim Sandstrom at NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division performed the visualization of the simulations.
Image Credits:
Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, http://...
- Title
- Happy Thanksgiving from MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- MIT students, administrators, and staff reflect on their Thanksgiving traditions, and what the holiday means at MIT. Happy Thanksgiving 2012!
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- Spinning fibers at the nanoscale at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A team of MIT researchers has developed a new way to generate nanofibers, using hardware built through standard chip-manufacturing processes. In their prototype, the researchers cram 25 emitters into a square centimeter, boosting nano fiber-production rates while reducing power consumption.
Read more:
Video clips courtesy of Luis Fernando Velazquez-Garcia
- Title
- Harnessing the Wind at MIT: Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is home to the only privately owned and operated wind tunnel in the United States. Hidden in plain sight on MIT's campus, the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel has proven instrumental in the examination of aerospace, architectural, vehicular, sports and other engineering systems.
Approaching its 75th year in use, we take a look back at how the tunnel and the research done within have evolved over the years and how it has become such an iconic part of the Institute.
Described by the people who know it best, the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel is a vital part of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and according to most students, the heart of MIT.
Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel: http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/labs/wbwt/
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics: http://aeroastro.mit.edu/
Video: Melanie Gonick
Still images courtesy of the MIT Museum and MIT AeroAstro
- Title
- How nutrients spread in a turbulent sea
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A computer simulation -- part of Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Roman Stocker and former MIT post-doc John R. Taylor's work -- shows the way a patch of nutrient material is pulled apart into swirling filaments by turbulence in the water, eventually dissolving away completely. The process is similar to the way cream in a cup of coffee first forms swirls, then eventually is uniformly distributed through the coffee.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/microbes-sit-still-or-go-hunting-for-food-1101.html
- Title
- On the hunt for rare cancer cells
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- In the first part of this video, a particle covered with DNA strands that can bind to a protein found on cancer cells approaches a cell. Though the particle does not directly contact the cell, the DNA strands entangle the cell, as demonstrated when the particle is pulled away and the cell is pulled towards the particle.
In the second part, a particle covered with small molecules that target the same cancer protein does not achieve the same strong binding, even though it comes in direct contact with the cell.
Read more about this research at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/capturing-rare-cancer-cells-1112.html
Video by Wesley Wong, Harvard Medical School.
- Title
- MIT News at Noon: Devavrat Shah on Twitter trends
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Devavrat Shah, Associate Professor in the Development of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, delivers his "News at Noon" talk at the MIT Museum. The event is co-sponsored by the MIT News Office and the Museum, and features researchers discussing their recently promoted work.
On Nov. 9, Shah discussed how he uses his machine-learning algorithm to predict trends hours in advance of recognition by Twitter.
Presenters for "News at Noon" are announced each week following an appearance in MIT News. Come and connect with local colleagues before and after the program. Free admission to all. Learn more at http://web.mit.edu/museum/pdf/MITNewsAtNoon-F12.pdf
Read more about Shah's work at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/predicting-twitter-trending-topics-1101.html
Learn about the MIT Museum at http://web.mit.edu/museum/
Video: MIT Video Productions/AMPS; MIT News
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- MIT News at Noon: Jeffrey Karp
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Jeffrey Karp, MIT HST faculty and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women's Hospital, delivers his "News at Noon" talk at the MIT Museum. The event is co-sponsored by the MIT News Office and the Museum, and features researchers discussing their recently promoted work.
On Nov. 2, Karp discussed his team's new medical adhesive that is safe enough for an infant's delicate skin.
Presenters for "News at Noon" are announced each week following an appearance in MIT News. Come and connect with local colleagues before and after the program. Free admission to all. Learn more at http://web.mit.edu/museum/pdf/MITNewsAtNoon-F12.pdf
Read more about Karp's work at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/new-medical-tape-for-sensitive-skin-1029.html
Learn about the MIT Museum at http://web.mit.edu/museum/
Video: MIT Video Productions/AMPS; MIT News
- Title
- The Listening Room - MIT's Music Program
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Visit The Listening Room at http://shass.mit.edu/listen
Of the nearly 4,000 undergraduates at MIT for the 2012-13 academic year, more than 1,800 are enrolled in a music or theater arts course. The Listening Room is an online collection that showcases the Institute's longstanding engagement with music — featuring music composed and performed by MIT students and by the Institute's internationally renowned Music faculty.
The Listening Room launched with 64 recordings organized in four musical categories — Classical, Jazz, World and Faculty Opus. The collection, which is accompanied by photographs, historical notes and comments from composers, will continue to grow steadily with regular additions of new compositions and performances from MIT's music groups, including the Festival Jazz Ensemble, Wind Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Galak Tika, Chamber Chorus, Concert Chorus, Rambax, MIT Symphony Orchestra, and soloists from MIT's conservatory-level Emerson Sch...
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- Deflecting an asteroid, with paintballs
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- In the event that a giant asteroid is headed toward Earth, you'd better hope that it's blindingly white. A brightly colored asteroid would reflect sunlight — and over time, this bouncing of photons off its surface could create enough of a force to push the asteroid off its course.
How might one encourage such a deflection? The answer, according to an MIT graduate student: with a volley or two of space-launched paintballs.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/deflecting-an-asteroid-with-paintballs-1026.html
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- Felice Frankel on Visualizing Strategies
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Sometimes color helps. Sometimes it just gets in the way.
That's just one example of the lack of simple prescriptions for how to use visual materials to clearly communicate scientific concepts or research results. It all depends on the particulars, Felice Frankel explains patiently in seminars at MIT and in her new book, "Visual Strategies," published this fall by Yale University Press.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/communicating-science-visually-felice-frankel-1026.html
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- Neuron imaging at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A team led by MIT neuroscientists has developed a way to monitor how brain cells coordinate with each other to control specific behaviors, such as initiating movement or detecting an odor. The researchers' new imaging technique, based on the detection of calcium ions in neurons, could help them map the brain circuits that perform such functions. It could also provide new insights into the origins of autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other psychiatric diseases says Guoping Feng, the James W. and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.
Video: Melanie Gonick
Simulations/extra footage: McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT/Sputnik Animation
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- Seeing the light with MIT's Christoph Reinhart
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Check out the Cambridge Solar Map: http://www.cambridgema.gov/solar
And read the profile of Associate Professor Christoph Reinhart in MIT's Department of Architecture on MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/faculty-profile-reinhart-1015.html
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- Drawing carbon nanotubes on paper at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Carbon nanotubes offer a powerful new way to detect harmful gases in the environment. However, the methods typically used to build carbon nanotube sensors are hazardous and not suited for large-scale production.
A new fabrication method created by MIT chemists — as simple as drawing a line on a sheet of paper — may overcome that obstacle. MIT postdoc Katherine Mirica has designed a new type of pencil lead in which graphite is replaced with a compressed powder of carbon nanotubes. The lead, which can be used with a regular mechanical pencil, can inscribe sensors on any paper surface.
The sensor, described in the journal Angewandte Chemie, detects minute amounts of ammonia gas, an industrial hazard. Timothy Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry and leader of the research team, says the sensors could be adapted to detect nearly any type of gas.
Read more:
Video: Melanie Gonick
Simulations courtesy of: Jan Schnorr
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- In Profile: MIT's Catherine Tucker
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Catherine Tucker, the Mark Hyman Jr. Career Development Associate Professor of Marketing at the MIT Sloan School of Management, discusses the intersection of her personal and professional lives.
Read more at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/faculty-profile-tucker-sloan-1002.html
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- Manipulating microscopic magnetic beads at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- MIT researchers found that arc-shaped magnetic nanotracks could be used most effectively to control the motion of magnetic microbeads across the surface of a silicon wafer. By combining these arcs, they produced configurations such as this, with two "reservoir" rings at top right and left, where the beads can be stored indefinitely, connected to tracks where they can be moved along as needed. In the center, a junction allows the bead's path to be altered, either continuing to the side or moving downward to another section of the wafer. By combining such structures, complex series of manipulations of the beads could be carried out.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/magnetic-beads-lab-on-a-chip-0925.html
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- Automatic building mapping at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- In a paper slated for the Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Portugal next month, MIT researchers describe a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving. The prototype system is envisioned as a tool to help emergency responders coordinate disaster response.
Read more at MIT News http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/automatic-building-mapping-0924.html
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- L. Rafael Reif: Laying the foundation
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A tribute video to MIT's 17th President, L. Rafael Reif, from the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (http://www-mtl.mit.edu/) at MIT.
Video by Greg Hren
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- Getting (drugs) under your skin
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Using ultrasound waves, MIT engineers have found a way to enhance the permeability of the skin to drugs, making transdermal drug delivery more efficient. This technology could pave the way for noninvasive drug delivery or needle-free vaccinations, according to the researchers.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/ultrasound-waves-and-drug-delivery-0914.html
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- Chris Zegras - Transportation at MIT & around the world
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Read the profile of Chris Zegras, Associate Professor of Transportation and Urban Planning, on the MIT News site: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/faculty-profile-chris-zegras-0913.html
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- Cleaning up oil spills with magnets at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- MIT researchers have developed a new technique for magnetically separating oil and water that could be used to clean up oil spills. They believe that, with their technique, the oil could be recovered for use, offsetting much of the cost of cleanup.
The researchers will present their work at the International Conference on Magnetic Fluids in January. Shahriar Khushrushahi, a postdoc in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is lead author on the paper, joined by Markus Zahn, the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of Electrical Engineering, and T. Alan Hatton, the Ralph Landau Professor of Chemical Engineering. The team has also filed two patents on its work.
In the MIT researchers' scheme, water-repellent ferrous nanoparticles would be mixed with the oil, which could then be separated from the water using magnets. The researchers envision that the process would take place aboard an oil-recovery vessel, to prevent the nanoparticles from ...
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- Keeping MIT running 24/7
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Thank you to everyone who works to keeps MIT running smoothly 24/7!
Read more about MIT's Department of Facilities on their website: http://web.mit.edu/facilities/
Special thanks to the MIT Facilities employees appearing in this video:
James O'Day
James McGarry
Brian Kienle
Jack Stark
Seth Kinderman
Maureen Richards
Robert McKenna
Michael Harrington
Estrela Correia
Elizabeth Oatman Ziobro
Tenzin Chodon
Robert DiPersio
Music by Arizono Kazuhiro - http://elementperspective.com/
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- Light-activated skeletal muscles at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Video courtesy of: Harry Asada
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- Robot building and barefoot running with MIT's Russ Tedrake
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Read the MIT News profile of Russ Tedrake, the X Consortium Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, on our website: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/faculty-profile-russ-tedrake-robots-0829.html
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- Microthrusters propel small satellites at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A penny-sized rocket thruster may soon power the smallest satellites in space. The device, designed by Paulo Lozano, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, bears little resemblance to today's bulky satellite engines, which are laden with valves, pipes and heavy propellant tanks. Instead, Lozano's design is a flat, compact square — much like a computer chip — covered with 500 microscopic tips that, when stimulated with voltage, emit tiny beams of ions. Together, the array of spiky tips creates a small puff of charged particles that can help propel a shoebox-sized satellite forward.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/microthrusters-could-propel-small-satellites-0817.html
Video: Melanie Gonick
Additional images: Fernando Mier Hicks/NASA
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- Growing implant tissue on 3-D scaffolds
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Tissue implants made of cells grown on a sponge-like scaffold have been shown in clinical trials to help heal arteries scarred by atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases. However, it has been unclear why some implants work better than others.
MIT researchers led by Elazer Edelman, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, have now shown that implanted cells' therapeutic properties depend on their shape, which is determined by the type of scaffold on which they are grown. The work could allow scientists to develop even more effective implants and also target many other diseases, including cancer.
"The goal is to design a material that can engineer the cells to release whatever we think is most appropriate to fight a specific disease. Then we can implant the cells and use them as an incubator," says Laura Indolfi, a postdoc in Edelman's lab and lead author of a paper on the research recently published online in the jour...
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- Autonomous robotic plane flies indoors at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- For decades, academic and industry researchers have been working on control algorithms for autonomous helicopters — robotic helicopters that pilot themselves, rather than requiring remote human guidance. Dozens of research teams have competed in a series of autonomous-helicopter challenges posed by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI); progress has been so rapid that the last two challenges have involved indoor navigation without the use of GPS.
But MIT's Robust Robotics Group — which fielded the team that won the last AUVSI contest — has set itself an even tougher challenge: developing autonomous-control algorithms for the indoor flight of GPS-denied airplanes. At the 2011 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), a team of researchers from the group described an algorithm for calculating a plane's trajectory; in 2012, at the same conference, they presented an algorithm for determining its "state" — its location, phy...
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- Soft autonomous earthworm robot at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this mechanism, called peristalsis, to get around, and our own gastrointestinal tracts operate by a similar action, squeezing muscles along the esophagus to push food to the stomach.
Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed.
Sangbae Kim, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, says such a soft robot may be useful for navigating rough terrain or squeezing through tight ...
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- Cell division and growth rate at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- It's a longstanding question in biology: How do cells know when to progress through the cell cycle?
In simple organisms such as yeast, cells divide once they reach a specific size. However, determining if this holds true for mammalian cells has been difficult, in part because there has been no good way to measure mammalian cell growth over time.
Now, a team of MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers has precisely measured the growth rates of single cells, allowing them to answer that fundamental question. In the Aug. 5 online edition of Nature Methods, the researchers report that mammalian cells divide not when they reach a critical size, but when their growth rate hits a specific threshold.
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- Making Wrinkles
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The wrinkles on a raisin result from a simple effect: As the pulp inside dries, the skin grows stiff and buckles to accommodate its shrinking size. Now, a team of researchers at MIT has discovered a way to harness that same principle in a controlled and orderly way, creating wrinkled surfaces with precise sizes and patterns.
This basic method, they say, could be harnessed for a wide variety of useful structures: microfluidic systems for biological research, sensing and diagnostics; new photonic devices that can control light waves; controllable adhesive surfaces; antireflective coatings; and antifouling surfaces that prevent microbial buildup.
A paper describing this new process, co-authored by MIT postdocs Jie Yin and Jose Luis Yagüe, former student Damien Eggenspieler SM '10, and professors Mary Boyce and Karen Gleason, is being published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/wrinkled-surfa...
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- The role of U.S. airports in disease epidemics
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Public health crises of the past decade — such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, which spread to 37 countries and caused about 1,000 deaths, and the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic that killed about 300,000 people worldwide — have heightened awareness that new viruses or bacteria could spread quickly across the globe, aided by air travel.
While epidemiologists and scientists who study complex network systems — such as contagion patterns and information spread in social networks — are working to create mathematical models that describe the worldwide spread of disease, to date these models have focused on the final stages of epidemics, examining the locations that ultimately develop the highest infection rates.
But a new study by researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) shifts the focus to the first few days of an epidemic, determining how likely the 40 largest U.S. airports are to influence the spread of a contagious disease origin...
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- River networks on Titan
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- For many years, Titan's thick, methane- and nitrogen-rich atmosphere kept astronomers from seeing what lies beneath. Saturn's largest moon appeared through telescopes as a hazy orange orb, in contrast to other heavily cratered moons in the solar system.
In 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft — a probe that flies by Titan as it orbits Saturn — penetrated Titan's haze, providing scientists with their first detailed images of the surface. Radar images revealed an icy terrain carved out over millions of years by rivers of liquid methane, similar to how rivers of water have etched into Earth's rocky continents.
While images of Titan have revealed its present landscape, very little is known about its geologic past. Now researchers at MIT and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville have analyzed images of Titan's river networks and determined that in some regions, rivers have created surprisingly little erosion. The researchers say there are two possible expl...
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- Making the invisible visible in video
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- MIT researchers — graduate student Michael Rubinstein, recent alumni Hao-Yu Wu '12, MNG '12 and Eugene Shih SM '01, PhD '10, and professors William Freeman, Fredo Durand and John Guttag — will present new software at this summer's Siggraph, the premier computer-graphics conference, that amplifies variations in successive frames of video that are imperceptible to the naked eye.
See the researchers' full video and learn more on the project's webpage: http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/
And read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/amplifying-invisible-video-0622.html
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- An "intelligent co-pilot" for cars
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Read more about this new semiautonomous safety system developed by Sterling Anderson, a PhD student in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Karl Iagnemma, a principal research scientist in MIT's Robotic Mobility Group:
MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/mechanical-engineers-develop-intelligent-car-co-pilot-0713.html
The team's paper: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=6232153&contentType=Conference+Publications
A series of blog posts by Sterling Anderson on Design Impact: http://www.design-impact.org/blog/?s=sterling+anderson&x=12&y=12
Videos & animations courtesy MIT's Robotic Mobility Group and Quantum Signal, LLC (http://www.quantumsignal.com).
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- Glasses-free 3-D TV at MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- As striking as it is, the illusion of depth now routinely offered by 3-D movies is a paltry facsimile of a true three-dimensional visual experience. In the real world, as you move around an object, your perspective on it changes. But in a movie theater showing a 3-D movie, everyone in the audience has the same, fixed perspective — and has to wear cumbersome glasses, to boot.
Despite impressive recent advances, holographic television, which would present images that vary with varying perspectives, probably remains some distance in the future. But in a new paper featured as a research highlight at this summer's Siggraph computer-graphics conference, the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture group offers a new approach to multiple-perspective, glasses-free 3-D that could prove much more practical in the short term.
Instead of the complex hardware required to produce holograms, the Media Lab system uses several layers of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), the technology ...
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- A new approach to water desalination
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The availability of fresh water is dwindling in many parts of the world, a problem that is expected to grow with populations. One promising source of potable water is the world's virtually limitless supply of seawater, but so far desalination technology has been too expensive for widespread use.
Now, MIT researchers have come up with a new approach using a different kind of filtration material: sheets of graphene, a one-atom-thick form of the element carbon, which they say can be far more efficient and possibly less expensive than existing desalination systems.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/graphene-water-desalination-0702.html
Images courtesy David Cohen-Tanugi; Brett Coulstock; NASA; Ryan Lackey; and James Grellier.
- Title
- Mapping the moon's Shackleton crater
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- If humans are ever to inhabit the moon, the lunar poles may well be the location of choice: Because of the small tilt of the lunar spin axis, the poles contain regions of near-permanent sunlight, needed for power, and regions of near-permanent darkness containing ice — both of which would be essential resources for any lunar colony.
The area around the moon's Shackleton crater could be a prime site. Scientists have long thought that the crater — whose interior is a permanently sunless abyss — may contain reservoirs of frozen water. But inconsistent observations over the decades have cast doubt on whether ice might indeed exist in the shadowy depths of the crater, which sits at the moon's south pole.
Now scientists from MIT, Brown University, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other institutions have mapped Shackleton crater with unprecedented detail, finding possible evidence for small amounts of ice on the crater's floor. Using a laser altimeter o...
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- Sharper ultrasound images could improve diagnostics
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A new system for ultrasound imaging developed at MIT allows precise measurements and tracking of disease progression.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/enhanced-ultrasound-0618.html
Music by Alastair Cameron.
- Title
- MIT's 146th Commencement - by the numbers
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- MIT's 146th Commencement, June 8, 2012 -- by the numbers.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/commencement-advance-0606.html
- Title
- Tinier Wires
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Researchers at MIT have found a new way of making complex three-dimensional structures using self-assembling polymer materials that form tiny wires and junctions. The work has the potential to usher in a new generation of microchips and other devices made up of submicroscopic features.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/three-dimensional-self-assembling-polymers-0607.html
Animation and narration: Kevin Gotrik, graduate student, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
Music: Alastair Cameron
- Title
- Public service projects from MIT's Class of 2012
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- At MIT, students are encouraged to take on service-learning and public-service opportunities as part of their education. The projects they tackle take the form of building new companies in developing countries, creating technology to support those in rural areas, and helping underprivileged youths gain access to education — among many others.
With Commencement on the horizon, a few of the members of MIT's Class of 2012 discuss how took the Institute's motto — mind and hand — to heart over their MIT career.
Video: Melanie Gonick
- Title
- MIT's Brass Rat: A Vietnam War ring mystery
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- What is known about the ring?
It was returned to the USA with the effects of a Marine killed in combat on March 16, 1968.
This soldier, Stephen Adams, had no connection to the Institute.
The ring is for a graduate student receiving a Master of Science degree.
The ring contains the initials J.T.M.
Research using the alumni database reveals no clear answer as to who owned this ring.
Help us solve the mystery: http://studentlife.mit.edu/vietnamring
Video: Melanie Gonick, MIT News
- Title
- Is that smile real or fake?
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Do you smile when you're frustrated? Most people think they don't — but they actually do, a new study from MIT has found. What's more, it turns out that computers programmed with the latest information from this research do a better job of differentiating smiles of delight and frustration than human observers do.
The research could pave the way for computers that better assess the emotional states of their users and respond accordingly. It could also help train those who have difficulty interpreting expressions, such as people with autism, to more accurately gauge the expressions they see.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/smile-detector-0525.html
Video: Melanie Gonick
- Title
- Jet-injected drugs may mean the end of needles
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Getting a shot at the doctor's office may become less painful in the not-too-distant future.
MIT researchers have engineered a device that delivers a tiny, high-pressure jet of medicine through the skin without the use of a hypodermic needle. The device can be programmed to deliver a range of doses to various depths — an improvement over similar jet-injection systems that are now commercially available.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/needleless-injections-0524.html
- Title
- L. Rafael Reif selected as the 17th president of MIT
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- L. Rafael Reif, a distinguished electrical engineer whose seven-year tenure as MIT's provost has helped MIT maintain its appetite for bold action as well as its firm financial footing, has been selected as the 17th president of the Institute.
Reif, 61, was elected to the post this morning by a vote of the MIT Corporation. He will assume the MIT presidency on July 2.
Read more at: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/rafael-reif-elected-president-0516.html
Video: Melanie Gonick
Event footage: MIT Academic Media Production Services
