Volume 51 – Number 23 Wednesday – April 11, 2007 TechTalk S ERVING T HE M I T C OMMUNITY Superhero comics offer super physics lessons Deborah Halber Kakalios, who studies disordered sys- News Office Correspondent tems as a condensed matter experimen- talist in his day job, achieved fame if not fortune in May 2002, when “Spider-Man” The public persona of the Atom is mild- opened in theaters. Kakalios, who uses mannered physics professor Ray Palmer, examples from comic books to keep his who fashioned a lens that enabled him to students engaged, thought it might be nice shrink any object to any degree he wished. to get “a little physics into the newspaper.” The lens’s secret ingredient is a chunk of a The University of Minnesota put out a news white dwarf star, and a 1960s version of release. The next thing Kakalios knew, a the Atom comic book shows the professor picture of him holding plastic action figures in a grassy field, huffing was zooming around and puffing as he carries the world faster than a a grapefruit-sized piece of speeding bullet. the star (which has mirac- Kakalios finds that ulously fallen to Earth) to students in his introduc- his car. tory physics classes are Palmer seems much more willing to undaunted by the fact that learn about Newton’s a sphere of white dwarf laws when they are cal- star that size would weigh culating the force need- 500,000 tons. ed to leap over tall build- Jim Kakalios, a real-life ings in a single bound physics professor from (Superman would need the University of Minne- 140 mph of liftoff veloc- sota who spoke April 5 on ity and his legs would “The Uncanny Physics of have to exert 6,000 Superhero Comic Books” pounds of force, in case as part of the MIT Phys- you were wondering). ics Colloquium Series, From how air bags save said that although a pleth- lives to how cell phones ora of scientific bloopers work, Kakalios covers could be found on the COPYRIGHT / DC COMICS serious physics with the pages of comic books, “silly premises” found in Palmer carrying the star was completely comic books. Comic books “actually get believable. “We physics professors are just their science right more often than you that strong,” he wisecracked. think,” said Kakalios, who wrote a book, Kakalios’s receptive audience couldn’t “The Physics of Superheroes,” in 2005. get enough of his brand of one-liners: In one comic book, an evil character Supervillain Electro’s pointy yellow light- proposes finding the location of the Bat ning bolt mask would not be Kakalios’s Cave by burying sticks of dynamite and IMAGE COURTESY / PENG YU choice of attire if he was transformed into detecting the differences in the result- a living electrical capacitor; each super- ing sound waves. It’s true that the waves Brain trust hero has a “one-time exemption from the would travel at different speeds depending New imaging tools show researchers how folds develop in the cerebral cortex. laws of nature” for his or her powers; and on the material they encountered. Super- Larger-scale folds develop the fastest in premature infants born more than seven when Superman says he got permission to man, carrying a terrified bad guy over weeks early; medium-scale folds develop the fastest in infants born between seven carry two skyscrapers over his shoulders and two weeks early. In older infants and children, fine folds develop the most quickly the way a waiter might carry trays, Kaka- See SUPERHEROES across the brain surface. See story on page 4. lios exclaimed, “Who would you ask?” Page 6 Kennedy will deliver Five from MIT are Guggenheim Fellows Five members of the MIT Bertschinger, a theo- 2007 Compton Lecture faculty have been awarded retical astrophysicist whose Guggenheim Fellowships research interests focus on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, for 2007. They are Edmund cosmology and relativistic D-Mass., will deliver the Bertschinger, astrophysics astrophysics, uses “ana- 2007 Compton lecture April division head and profes- lytic methods and computer 13 at 2:30 p.m. in the Stata sor of physics; Erica Funk- simulations to improve our Center’s Kirsch Auditorium. houser, poet and lecturer in understanding of the forma- Kennedy has represent- the Program in Writing and tion of cosmic structure after ed Massachusetts in the Humanistic Studies; Michel the big bang, the evolution U.S. Senate for 45 years. He X. Goemans, professor of of dark matter in galaxies was elected in 1962 to fin- applied mathematics; Erika and larger structures, and ish the final two years of the Naginski, associate profes- time variability in accretion Senate term of his brother, sor of the history of art; and Edmund Bertschinger Erica Funkhouser disks around black holes Sen. John F. Kennedy, who Anne Whiston Spirn, profes- and neutron stars,” accord- was elected president in sor of landscape architecture and planning. ing to Guggenheim materials. 1960. Since then, Kenne- Winners of the annual competition are selected on the Funkhouser is the author of four collections of poetry, dy has been re-elected to basis of their “distinguished achievement in the past and including “Pursuit” (Houghton Mifflin, 2002) and “Sure Edward M. Kennedy seven full terms and is now exceptional promise for future accomplishment,” from Shot and Other Poems” (1992). Her poems have been pub- an applicant base of nearly 2,800 scientists, scholars and See KENNEDY See GUGGENHEIM artists in fields ranging from the natural sciences to the Page 2 creative arts. Page 7 NEWS RESEARCH HUMANITIES

MIT-CYPRUS PROJECT ROBO-CARE EINSTEIN’S DREAMS New program will focus on energy, environment and A new humanoid robot adapts to people and new Alan Lightman’s play will be performed at the Broad water. places. Institute. Page 2 Page 3 Page 3

SCIENCE FESTIVAL STARTS MAXIMUM COOL ALL THAT JAZZ The MIT Museum celebrates science across Laser cooling could reveal quantum behavior. MIT musicians play Jazz Week. Cambridge. Page 4 Page 7 Page 3 PAGE 2 April 11, 2007 NEWS MIT Tech Talk MIT-Cyprus program will focus Jacobs receives Levitan on energy, environment, water Prize in the Humanities Deborah Halber ment funds for research, reaching the News Office Correspondent EU level of 1 percent of GDP by 2010, of Deborah K. Fitzgerald, the Kenan Sahin late and revitalize the American economic course with a corresponding contribution Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, life,” she said. of the private sector.” and Social Sciences, has announced that Jacobs’ 2005 book, “Pocketbook Poli- Energy, environment and water are the Cyprus has been a member state of the the 2007 James A. and Ruth tics: Economic Citizenship in focus of a new joint program between MIT European Union since 2004. Levitan Prize in the Humani- Twentieth-Century America,” and the Mediterranean island nation of CyI is working on architectural plans ties has been awarded to Asso- analyzed how “reformers Cyprus. The initiative will promote a high for renovating a technical institute that is ciate Professor Meg Jacobs of organized social movements level of scientific research and education at transitioning to a new location and build- the history faculty. to build the New Deal order. a new university on Cyprus, which for mil- ing a new laboratory for EEWRC, the first Jacobs received her Ph.D. ‘Panic at the Pump’ will explore lennia has been of several centers to be housed at the new in history from the University another age, when reformers, a crossroad of campus in Nicosia. “Through shared post- of Virginia in 1998 and joined once again, mobilized citizens, commerce, civ- doctoral researchers, joint research proj- the MIT faculty as an assistant but this time to dismantle the ilizations and ects and a graduate fellows program at professor in 1999. liberal state,” she said. cultures. LFEE, the CEEW program will build col- Jacobs will complete The $25,000 Levitan prize The Cyprus laborative research and educational oppor- research for her book, “Panic was established through a gift Institute Pro- tunities for both institutes,” said Ernest J. at the Pump: How Conserva- from the late James A. Levitan, gram for Moniz, co-director of LFEE and director of tives Used the Energy Cri- a 1945 MIT graduate in chem- Energy, Envi- the MIT Energy Initiative. sis to Start a Revolution.” In Meg Jacobs istry, who was also a member ronment and Joint efforts will include an annual “Panic,” Jacobs will explain of the MIT Corporation and of- Water Resources international conference in Cyprus and “how and why conservative reformers, counsel at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, (CEEW) is a Cyprus Fellows, a newly established fel- from the young Dick Cheney and Don- Slate, Meagher and Flom of New York new research lowship program at LFEE for graduate stu- ald Rumsfeld to Milton Friedman, Alan City. The prize, first awarded in 1990, sup- and education dents pursuing doctoral studies on energy Greenspan, Irving Kristol and others used ports innovative and creative scholarship Ernest J. Moniz program estab- science and technology, water resources the energy crisis of the 1970s to launch in the humanities by faculty members in lished at MIT’s and environmental issues. a deliberate campaign to discredit the the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Laboratory for Energy and the Environ- The CEEW program will undertake power of the federal government to regu- Sciences. ment (LFEE). research and education on issues of ener- Its counterpart in Cyprus will be the gy, environment and water from multiple Energy, Environment and Water Research technical and policy perspectives, concen- Center (EEWRC) at the newly estab- trating on issues of relevance to Cyprus Navy’s nuclear director will lished Cyprus Institute (CyI), a university and the eastern Mediterranean. MIT’s focused on undergraduate and graduate LFEE and the Alliance for Global Sustain- education and research in science, tech- ability (AGS) are collaborating on the ini- discuss national security nology, arts and social sciences. tial phase of the program. “The government of Cyprus is commit- The initiatives are the work of the Adm. Kirkland Donald, the fourth high- plines to replenish our retiring and dimin- ted to turning the Cypriot economy into recently created Cyprus Research and est-ranking U.S. Navy officer and director ishing workforce,” he said. “In 2004, China a knowledge-based economy and to ren- Educational Foundation (CREF) and the of the Navy’s nuclear program, will talk graduated over 600,000 engineers; India, dering our island into a regional center Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation. about “Technical Education and National 350,000; and America, about 70,000.” Don- of excellence for educational services,” In 2005 and 2006, AGS partnered with Security” at MIT on Wednesday, April 11. ald said that tens of thousands of construc- said Tassos Papadopoulos, president of CREF to host international workshops Donald will address the MIT commu- tion and plant operation jobs will result the Republic of Cyprus, in a speech at the on the implications of climate change for nity at a one-hour seminar at 3 p.m. in from the resurgence of the commercial presidential palace Feb. 10. “The govern- the eastern Mediterranean and on urban NW14-1112. At 4 p.m., he will answer ques- nuclear industry driven by global and ment’s target is to make available govern- pollution. tions from Navy ROTC midshipmen. domestic energy demands, but the United Donald, director of naval nuclear pro- States may not be graduating enough engi- pulsion, said that recent statistics reflect neers to fulfill the need. an erosion of America’s scientific and The event is sponsored by the MIT sec- Op-ed: Voters win with ‘winner take all’ technical base. “We lack the number of tion of the American Nuclear Society. students in science and engineering disci- —Deborah Halber Deborah Halber lion electoral votes plus the popular-vote News Office Correspondent equivalent of two senatorial electoral votes—a quarter of the popular vote in OBITUARIES the average state, or about half a million If we want individuals and small groups votes now. Margaret Otto, former associate ber at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in to have the democratic power to elect the “This system would empower voters in director of the MIT Libraries, died Dec. 10 Hanover, N.H. president fairly, we must score presidential poorly contested states, who could with- of complications from colon cancer at her Richard E. Dean Sr. of Braintree, a elections by winner-take-all states—not in hold their vote from the state’s winner by home in Hanover, N.H. She was 69. retired employee of Lincoln Laboratory, a single giant national district too large for casting a blank ballot,” Natapoff wrote. Otto worked at the MIT Libraries from died Dec. 6. small numbers to turn, said Alan Natapoff, “The dominant candidate would need 1964 to 1979 and later became the first Dean was a member of the MIT Quar- a research scientist at MIT who has stud- (acceptance from his opposition) or risk woman to head the Dartmouth College ter Century Club and was a veteran of the ied the mathematics of voting power and losing 40 percent of the state’s electoral libraries. At MIT, she was assistant sci- Korean War. has testified before Congress concerning votes.” It would give 80 million impotent ence librarian before becoming associate The husband of the late Lorraine P. the Electoral College. voters in those states an immediate impact director. (Conway) Dean, he is survived by two In an op-ed, “Stop plan to diminish on presidential elections. It is the only Otto was born in Boston and gradu- sons, Richard Dean Jr. of Braintree and Marylanders’ voting power,” that appeared basic change we need or dare make, he ated from Boston University in 1960 with Stephen Dean of Weymouth; five daugh- April 5 in the Baltimore Sun, Natapoff says. a degree in English literature. She also ters, Mary Patts, Janice Martini and Carol urged Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley Small states cancel each other in a earned two master’s degrees from Sim- Ritz of Braintree, Lorraine Patts of Quincy not to sign a bill that, if passed by enough close election. The greater coherence of mons College, one in library science and and Nancy Burke of Pembroke; a sister, states, would bypass the Electoral College large states under winner-take-all, Natapoff one in English literature. Marilyn English of Woburn; 13 grandchil- and elect the president by raw popular claims, gives them much greater nation- She is survived by two sons, Peter, of dren; three great-grandchildren and many vote. Natapoff contends that the proposed al power per vote—in proportion to the Salem, Ore., and Christopher, of Olympia, nieces and nephews. legislation is unconstitutional and that the square root of their size—than the same Wash.; a sister, Joan Sergi of Sudbury, Donations may be made to the Ameri- change would destroy the individual vot- number of electoral votes in small states. Mass.; and two grandsons. can Legion Child Welfare Foundation, er’s national voting power. That, he believes, is why senatorial elec- A memorial service was held in Decem- P.O. Box 1055, Indianapolis, IN 46206. “Small numbers of votes will never turn toral votes have worked for two centuries a national raw-vote election in our lifetime, and are still needed. yet a mere 537 votes in Florida turned the In 2000, he says, California cast half as election of 2000,” Natapoff wrote in the many popular votes, but had the same net op-ed. “When close states vote on a win- electoral vote impact, as the 29 smallest KENNEDY ner-take-all basis, their individual voters states combined—even counting their 58 Continued from Page 1 as president of MIT from 1930-48 and have large national leverage. Without that senatorial electoral votes. Without senato- chair of the Corporation from 1948-54. The leverage, we would all be equally impo- rial electoral votes, Natapoff says, small the second most senior member of the purpose of the lectureship is to give the tent—an irony that would give equality a states will not have their fair share of vot- Senate. MIT community direct contact with the bad name.” ing power per vote. What is worse, he Kennedy, who was invited to MIT by important ideas of our times and with peo- Natapoff would count popular votes believes, eliminating senatorial votes with- President Susan Hockfield, will speak on ple who have contributed much to modern cast for any candidate vote-for-vote for out a Constitutional amendment breaks “A Life in Public Service.” thought. the state’s winner: If Florida casts six the promise of the Constitution (Article V) The Karl Taylor Compton Lecture This event in the series is sponsored million votes for all the candidates, its that no state will be deprived of them with- Series was established in 1957 to honor by the MIT Information Center and the winner should receive precisely six mil- out its consent. the late Karl Taylor Compton, who served Office of the President.

News Office Staff Tech Talk is published by the News Office on Wednesdays during term time except for HOW TO REACH US Executive Director ...... Pamela Dumas Serfes most Monday holiday weeks. See Production Schedule at http://web.mit.edu/news- office/techtalk-info.html. The News Office is in Room 11-400, Massachusetts Institute of News Office Interim News Manager ...... Sarah H. Wright Editor Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Senior Communications Officer ...... Patti Richards Telephone: 617-253-2700 Sarah H. Wright Senior Science and Postmaster: Send address changes to Mail Services, Building WW15, Massachusetts E-mail: [email protected] Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Photojournalist Engineering Editor ...... Elizabeth Thomson Assistant Director/Photojournalist ...... Donna Coveney Subscribers may call 617-252-1550 or send e-mail to [email protected]. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice Donna Coveney Web Developer/Editor ...... Lisa Damtoft Tech Talk is distributed free to faculty and staff offices and residence halls. It is also avail- Production Reporter/Writer ...... SashBrown a able free in the News Office and the Information Center. Office of the Arts Operations/Financial Administrator ...... Myles Crowley Carol Demers Domestic mail subscriptions are $25 per year, nonrefundable. Checks should be made Administrative Assistant II ...... Mary Anne Hansen http://web.mit.edu/arts payable to MIT and mailed to Business Manager, Room 11-400, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Administrative Assistant II ...... Patti Foley Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307.

Editorial/Production Assistant ...... Anne Trafton Periodical postage paid at Boston, MA. Permission is granted to excerpt or reprint any Printed on recycled paper Communications Assistant ...... Heather Manning material originated in Tech Talk. MIT Tech Talk NEWS April 11, 2007 PAGE 3 MIT hosts events for Cambridge Science Festival Selections from a computer graph- ics animation festival and a Charles River demonstration of an autonomous under- water vehicle are among the MIT-hosted events during the first-of-its-kind Cam- bridge Science Festival, April 21-29. Presented by the MIT Museum, the festival features more than 150 events throughout the city geared toward high- lighting the excitement of science. Events from April 21-23 include:

April 21, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Professional Development Workshop A workshop for teachers on the latest genome research.

April 21, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. MIT’s Environmental Health and Safety Office Open House Bring in water samples for lead testing.

April 21-22, 28-29, 12-6 p.m. COLLISIONeleven An experimental art show involving kinetic sculptures, light art, interactive vid- PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY eos, robots and more in the Stata Center. Postdoctoral associate Aaron Edsinger puts objects in a box held out to him by robot Domo, in his lab at CSAIL.

April 21, 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m. and 1-3:30 p.m. Augmented Reality Adult-child teams will be assigned a role in a game simulating a mysterious environ- Assistive robot responds to faces, new places mental problem on the MIT campus. Anne Trafton to manipulate unknown objects. Domo “Robots in an automobile factory manip- News Office incorporates elements of both of those ulate objects, but they do the same thing, April 22, 1 p.m. robots. along the same path, every time,” Brooks Rocks from Mars! Rocks from the Moon! “The real potential of robots in the said. “If robots are ever going to be truly Can we learn from Mars and moon In the futuristic cartoon series “The future is going to be realized when they useful, they need to be able to manipulate rocks? Jetsons,” a robotic maid named Rosie can do many types of manual tasks,” the objects we manipulate.” whizzed around the Jetsons’ home doing including those that require interaction April 22, 6-8 p.m. household chores—cleaning, cooking din- Living in the real world Cold Enough for You? ner and washing dishes. Find out how the Antarctic ice sheet Edsinger’s team, overseen by Brooks, Such a vision of robotic housekeeping has behaved for 10 million years and see a decided to focus on making a robot that is likely decades away from becoming real- Of human-robot bondage model for how it will behave in the future. can function in a real human environ- ity. But at MIT, researchers are working As part of the Cambridge Science ment—in someone’s kitchen, for example. April 23, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on a very early version of such intelligent Festival, MIT professors Rodney Robots that are designed to help people in Robots on the River robotic helpers—a humanoid called Domo Brooks and Sherry Turkle will dis- their homes will have to be able to ignore MIT Sea Grant program demonstrates who can grasp objects and place them on cuss human-machine relations on the clutter found in most environments autonomous underwater vehicles in the shelves or counters. a panel moderated by MIT artist-in- and focus only on certain stimuli, says Charles River. A robot like Domo could help elderly residence Pia Lindman at the MIT Edsinger. or wheelchair-bound people with simple Museum on Tuesday, April 24 from “Typically robots are placed in very April 24, 6-9 p.m. household tasks like putting away dishes. 2 to 4 p.m. restricted worlds because then you can The Science of Wine Other potential applications include agri- control the environment. If you put a robot Find out what’s behind the new find- culture, space travel and assisting workers in someone’s home, that approach just ings about the anti-aging properties of red on an assembly line, says Aaron Edsinger, with humans, Edsinger said. doesn’t extend to that,” he said. “We want wine derivatives while sipping carefully an MIT postdoctoral associate who has There are now plenty of robots doing the robot to adapt to the world, not the chosen vintages. been working on Domo for the last three manual work on factory assembly lines, world to adapt to the robot.” years. but those machines follow a script and Perched on a table in Edsinger’s work- For more information on the Cam- Edsinger describes Domo as the “next can’t learn to adapt to new situations, as space, Domo can “see” everything going bridge Science Festival and a complete generation” of earlier robots built at MIT— Domo can, said Rodney Brooks, director listing of events and locations, visit www. Kismet, which was designed to interact of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial See ROBOT cambridgesciencefestival.com. with humans, and Cog, which could learn Intelligence Laboratory. Page 7 ‘Einstein’s Dreams’ opens at Student science policy initiative focuses on leadership, public service Broad Institute auditorium The second annual MIT Science Policy The Science Policy Initiative has two Bootcamp—an outgrowth of a student-led thrusts: to educate participants on the sci- The Catalyst Collaborative at MIT feature an array of prominent artists and initiative to get scientists, engineers and ence and innovation infrastructure, which (CC@MIT), a collaboration of MIT and the scientists, including Alan Lightman; John public policy-makers to talk to one anoth- includes the organizational framework Underground Railway Theater, will present Durant, director of the MIT Museum; er—will be held April 13-16. between U.S. science agen- its first fully staged production, “Einstein’s Claude Canizares, professor of physics and This class for undergraduates cies, the DARPA model and Dreams,” a vice president for research; Jerome Fried- and graduate students, fund- the drivers behind science dramatization man, professor of physics and 1990 Nobel ed by the Office of the Dean and technology innovation of the 1992 laureate; Alan Guth, the V.F. Weisskopf for Student Life, will feature systems theory; plus pro- novel by Alan Professor of Physics; and Paula Apsell, a panel discussion with con- active training in Congres- Lightman, MIT executive producer, NOVA, and director of gressional staffers. sional advocacy. With sup- physicist and the WGBH science unit. At an event last spring for port from the Department adjunct profes- Tickets are $18 general admission or women graduate students, of Materials Science and sor of humani- $12 for students and seniors and will be MIT graduate student Ali- Engineering and the MIT ties. It was available starting March 26 at the Cam- cia Jackson spoke with MIT Public Service Center, MIT adapted for the bridge Science Festival. The show is rec- President Susan Hockfield students attended Congres- stage by David ommended for ages 10 and older. about the need for young sci- sional Visits Day (CVD) in Alford and entists to be involved in sci- March. CVD is an annual Brian Niece. ence policy at a national level. Bill Bonvillian event where scientists and The produc- Their conversation led to the engineers convene on Capi- Alan Lightman tion is being first-ever MIT Science Policy Bootcamp, tol Hill to discuss policy issues and par- presented as an intensive five-day seminar for 25 MIT ticipate in the legislative process. Twenty part of the MIT Museum’s inaugural Cam- graduate students taught by MIT Wash- additional MIT students plan to travel to bridge Science Festival (April 21-29), a ington Office Director Bill Bonvillian. Washington May 1-2 for a second round celebration of the impact of science and Bonvillian worked in the U.S. Senate of congressional visits. technology on our lives. for more than 15 years before coming to Looking ahead, the group is collabo- Performances of “Einstein’s Dreams” MIT. “Federal support for science and rating with the leadership in public ser- begin Thursday, April 19, at MIT’s Broad technology is not on autopilot,” he said. vice speaker series sponsored by the Institute auditorium, 7 Cambridge Center, “If this support is to continue and grow, dean of student life. Bringing notable and run through Sunday, April 29. the next generation of scientists and engi- persons to campus will allow students in Directed by Wes Savick, the production neers will need to learn how to work in the MIT community to actively engage will feature Boston actors Robert Najarian the public policy arena. MIT historically with leaders in the public and govern- (Albert Einstein), Steven Barkhimer and has provided leadership in this area, and ment service arena, preparing students Debra Wise. this course is an attempt by President to be better citizens and public servants, Postperformance discussions will Hockfield to start to grow that effort.” Bonvillian said. PAGE 4 April 11, 2007 RESEARCH MIT Tech Talk Supercooling may yield view of quantum effects Anne Trafton reached by keeping objects as motionless News Office as possible. At absolute zero (0 degrees Kelvin, -273 degrees Celsius or -460 degrees Fahrenheit), atoms lose all ther- Using a laser-cooling technique that mal energy and have only their quantum could one day allow scientists to observe motion. quantum behavior in large objects, MIT In their upcoming paper, the research- researchers have cooled a coin-sized ers report that they lowered the tempera- object to within one degree of absolute ture of a dime-sized mirror to 0.8 degrees zero. Kelvin. At that temperature, the 1 gram This study marks the coldest tempera- mirror moves so slowly that it would take ture ever reached by laser-cooling of an 13 billion years (the age of the universe) object of that size, and the technique holds to circle the Earth, said Mavalvala, whose promise that it will experimentally con- group is part of MIT’s LIGO (Laser Inter- firm, for the first time, that large objects ferometer Gravitational-wave Observa- obey the laws of quantum mechanics just tory) Laboratory. as atoms do. The team continues to refine the tech- Although the research team has not nique and has subsequently achieved yet achieved temperatures low enough much lower temperatures. But in order to to observe quantum effects, “the most observe quantum behavior in an object of important thing is that we have found a that size, the researchers need to attain technique that could allow us to get (large a temperature that is still many orders of objects) to ultimately show their quantum magnitude colder, Mavalvala said. behavior for the first time,” said MIT assis- To reach such extreme temperatures, tant professor of physics Nergis Mavalvala, the researchers are combining two previ- leader of the team. ously demonstrated techniques—optical The MIT researchers and colleagues at trapping and optical damping. Two laser Caltech and the Albert Einstein Institute beams strike the suspended mirror, one to in Germany will report their findings in trap the mirror in place, as a spring would an upcoming issue of Physical Review Let- (by restoring the object to its equilibrium ters. position when it moves), and one to slow Quantum theory was developed in the (or damp) the object and take away its early 20th century to account for unex- thermal energy. pected atomic behavior that could not be Combined, the two lasers generate a explained by classical mechanics. But at powerful force—stronger than a diamond larger scales, objects’ heat and motion rod of the same shape and size as the laser blur out quantum effects, and interactions beams—that reduces the motion of the are ruled by classical mechanics, includ- object to near nothing. ing gravitational forces and electromag- Using light to hold the mirror in place netism. avoids the problems raised by confining “You always learn in high school it with another object, such as a spring, physics that large objects don’t behave Mavalvala said. Mechanical springs are according to quantum mechanics because made of atoms that have their own ther- they’re just too hot, and the thermal ener- mal energy and thus would interfere with gy obscures their quantum behavior,” cooling. said Thomas Corbitt, an MIT graduate As the researchers get closer and student in physics and lead author of the closer to reaching the cold temperature paper. “Nobody’s demonstrated quantum they need to see quantum behavior, it will mechanics at that kind of (macroscopic) get more difficult to reach the final goal, scale.” PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY To see quantum effects in large objects, See SUPERCOOL they must be cooled to near absolute Assistant Professor Nergis Mavalvala, left, and Ph.D. student Thomas Corbitt are part of an zero. Such low temperatures can only be Page 6 international team that has devised a way to cool large objects to near absolute zero. Model helps researchers MIT Darwin Project will ‘see’ brain development model ocean microbes Matthew Gardner Work could facilitate early detection of autism Earth System Initiative Elizabeth Dougherty The team started with a collection of Harvard-MIT Division of MR images from 11 developing brains, A new program to develop computa- Health Sciences and Technology provided by Ellen Grant, chief of pediatric tional models of how marine microbes live radiology at MGH and the Martinos Cen- and evolve in the global ocean has been ter. Of the subjects scanned, eight were launched with a $3.7 million gift from the Large mammals—humans, monkeys newborn, mostly premature babies rang- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. and even cats—have brains with a some- ing from about 30 to 40 weeks of gestation- The program is important because it what mysterious feature: The outermost al age, and three were from children aged will help researchers understand and sim- layer has a folded surface. Understanding two, three and seven years. Grant scanned ulate the relationships between climate the functional significance of these folds is these infants and children to assess pos- change, marine ecosystems and the ocean one of the big open questions in neurosci- sible brain injury and found no neural carbon cycle. ence. defects. Later, she also consulted with In the March 30 issue of Science, an Now a team led by MIT, Massachusetts Fischl’s team to ensure that their analyses MIT team describes the first of these General Hospital and Harvard Medical made sense clinically. models. School researchers has developed a tool “We can’t open the brain and see by The MIT Darwin Project is developing that could aid such studies by helping eye, but the cool thing we can do now is novel computer models of marine micro- researchers “see” how those folds develop see through the MR machine,” a technol- bial communities in which a diverse range and decay in the cerebral cortex. ogy that is much safer than earlier tech- of organisms are explicitly represented. In FIGURE / STEPHANIE DUTKIEWICZ By applying computer graphics tech- niques such as X-ray imaging, said Yu. these models, ecosystem structure is an Image above shows the emergent ocean niques to brain images collected using The first step in analyzing these images emergent property determined by the rel- ecosystem community structure. The magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, they is to align their common anatomical struc- ative fitness of the simulated organisms in phytoplankton community is organized have created a set of tools for tracking and tures, such as the “central sulcus,” a fold specific physical, chemical and predatory measuring these folds over time. Their that separates the motor cortex from the environments. according to relative fitness in the physical, resulting model of cortical development somatosensory cortex. Yu applied a tech- The modeled ecosystem self-organizes chemical and predatory environment. may serve as a biomarker, or biological nique developed by Fischl to perform this in an analogy of natural selection. indicator, for early diagnosis of neurologi- alignment. The MIT Darwin Project is a collabora- Departments of Civil and Environmental cal disorders such as autism. The second step involves modeling the tion between affiliates of the Earth System Engineering and Biology. The researchers describe their model folds of the brain mathematically in a way Initiative (ESI) and the Computational and Chisholm’s group monitors the abun- and analysis in the April issue of IEEE that allows the researchers to analyze their Systems Biology Initiative (CSBi). It is a dance and variations of phytoplankton Transactions on Medical Imaging. changes over time and space. new model for cross-disciplinary research prochlorococcus in the world’s oceans. Peng Yu, a graduate student in the The original brain scan is then rep- at MIT, connecting systems biology, micro- Her team has identified fine-scale genetic Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences resented computationally with points. bial ecology, global biogeochemical cycles variants at the subspecies level that also and Technology (HST), is first author Charting each baby’s brain requires about and climate. have distinct oceanic distributions and on the paper. The work was led by co- 130,000 points per hemisphere. Yu decom- Principal investigator Michael Fol- physiological attributes. author Bruce Fischl, associate professor posed these points into a representation lows, a principal research scientist in the “We face a significant challenge in try- of radiology at Harvard Medical School, using just 42 points that shows only the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and ing to understand and simulate the rela- research affiliate with the MIT Computer coarsest folds. By adding more points, she Planetary Sciences, was inspired to devel- tionships between climate change, marine Science and Artificial Intelligence Labora- created increasingly finer-grained domains op this approach after hearing Professor ecosystems and the ocean carbon cycle. tory (CSAIL) and HST, and director of the Penny Chisholm present her genomic These new observations and models can computational core at the HST Martinos studies of phytoplankton at an ESI retreat. Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massa- See BRAIN Chisholm is the Lee and Geraldine Martin See DARWIN chusetts General Hospital (MGH). Page 6 Professor of Environmental Studies in the Page 6 MIT Tech Talk RESEARCH April 11, 2007 PAGE 5 TechTV launches with ‘video shootout’ High-resolution images herald Images of the 2.007 design contest, working on a housing redevelopment new era in Earth sciences plan for New Orleans or building a nacho- Deborah Halber deep; iron and magnesium silicates of the surprises, and with these new imaging cheese fountain in a dorm could all be win- News Office Correspondent upper and lower mantles; and the liquid technologies and data sets, we have only ners among videos MIT students will enter outer core and solid inner core. just begun to scratch the surface of pos- in the Tech Video Shootout, a contest that Scientists have long assumed that the sibilities afforded by modern data sets,” will use a new offering at the Institute: High-resolution images that reveal lower mantle is relatively featureless. But MIT TechTV, a YouTube-like pilot web site unexpected details of the Earth’s internal more detailed views have indicated that See MANTLE currently under development. structure are among the results report- there is more complexity than expected. Students should submit short videos ed by MIT and Purdue scientists in the “I expect that the Earth is full of such Page 6 about science and engineering that are March 30 issue of Science. fun, informative or inspiring. The first The researchers adapted technology 100 contestants who submit a video will developed for near-surface exploration of receive a $5 coupon to Anna’s Taqueria reservoirs of oil and gas to image the core- or Dunkin’ Donuts. Any enrolled MIT stu- mantle boundary some 2,900 kilometers, dent may enter the contest by registering or 1,800 miles, beneath Central and North at the contest web site, mit.edu/techtv/ America. contest/. “Rather than depth, it’s the resolution Dean of Engineering Thomas L. Mag- and lateral scale that are unique in this nanti will present “TechAdemy Awards” to work,” said lead author Robert van der the contest winners on April 30 at 5 p.m. Hilst, professor of earth, atmospheric and Individuals and teams that submit the top- planetary sciences (EAPS) and director of placing entries will receive prizes, along MIT’s Earth Resources Laboratory. “This with others who will receive honorable could lead to a new era in seismology and mentions. all the other deep Earth sciences. In addi- Magnanti stressed that the contest is tion, our new expertise may be able to more about fun than production values. improve how we look for oil in or beneath “Students shouldn’t be concerned with geologically complex structures such as making their videos look polished—they the Gulf of Mexico salt domes,” he said. can use their digital cameras and even The technique—akin to medical imag- ing such as ultrasounds and CAT scans— led to detailed new images of the bound- ary between the Earth’s core and mantle. ❞ These images, in turn, help researchers Students shouldn’t be better understand how and where the Earth’s internal heat is produced and how concerned with making it is transported to the surface. They also provide insight into the Earth’s giant heat their videos look polished— IMAGE COURTESY / ROBERT VAN DER HILST, MIT engine—a constant cycle of heat produc- they can use their digital tion, heat transfer and cooling. Seismic waves from earthquakes penetrate the Earth’s mantle and scatter back at the core- The Earth is made up of the outermost mantle boundary to detectors on the surface. Nearly 100,000 such recordings are used to cameras and even their cell rocky crust, which is around 40 kilometers illuminate the planet’s deep internal structures. phones to shoot video. Thomas L. Magnanti Dean of Engineering their cell phones to shoot video. It’s the quality of the content that is important.” Also under development is the first web “channel” on MIT TechTV. That channel will focus on generating interest in science and engineering among seventh- through ninth-graders nationwide, particularly girls and underrepresented minorities. Sponsored by the School of Engineer- ing, the contest began on April 10 with a kickoff event in the Mezzanine Lounge. Contestants will be able to upload their videos to the TechTV web site as soon as it goes into “soft launch” on April 20; the deadline for submissions is April 23 at 5 p.m. MIT TechTV will be an interactive web site for uploading and viewing mul- timedia by students, faculty, staff, alumni and other members of the MIT commu- nity—particularly videos about science, engineering and technology. The MIT community is invited to go to the MIT TechTV web site to vote on the contest entries beginning April 24. These votes, along with those of a panel of judges, will determine the winners, who will be announced at the TechAdemy Awards ceremony. The School of Engineering, in partner- ship with Academic Media Production Ser- PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY vices, is sponsoring the Tech Video Shoot- Professor Robert van der Hilst, left, and graduate student Ping Wang of the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, out. For more information on the contest, are adapting technology developed for near-surface exploration of hydrocarbon reservoirs to image the core-mantle boundary deep go to mit.edu/techtv/contest/. beneath Central and North America. MIT programmers strike gold A team of MIT programmers won a gold medal in the such as improving the efficiency of the baggage claim world finals of the 31st Association for Computing Machin- process at airports and decreasing the time it takes to load ery International Collegiate Programming Contest, held cargo ships traveling overseas—under intense deadline mid-March in Tokyo. pressure. The teams were awarded medals based on the Overall, the MIT team placed fourth among the 88 number of problems they solved in the shortest amount teams from all over the world that qualified for the ACM- of time. ICPC world finals, which are sponsored by IBM. The 88 The world champion team came from Warsaw Univer- teams were selected from more than 6,000 teams, repre- sity, followed by Tsinghau University in second place and senting 1,756 universities, that participated in the regional St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics in competitions last fall. MIT’s team of Brian Jacokes, Hubert third place. In 2006, an MIT team won a silver medal (8th Hwang and Eric Price was one of only 20 U.S. teams that place) in the competition. made it to the finals. The MIT team was coached by Pro- “These superstars will extend society’s ability to PHOTO / DAVID HILL fessor Martin Rinard of electrical engineering and com- address challenges, strengthening and improving the Three MIT students, senior Brian Jacokes, junior Eric Price puter science and by student coaches Jelani Nelson, Dan- world of tomorrow,” said Bill Poucher, ICPC executive and senior Hubert Hwang compete in the Association for iel Dumitran and Ivo Riskov, and was supported by staff director and Baylor University professor. “They are team Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming member Mary McDavitt. players who will make a difference by enhancing the ave- Finals held in March. The team won fourth place overall out Each team of three students was challenged to solve 10 nues we use to interact with each other.” of 88 teams. complex, real-world computer programming problem— —Stephanie Schorow PAGE 6 April 11, 2007 NEWS MIT Tech Talk Long-term care enrollment ends April 27 MIT Benefits has announced a new enrollment period for long-term care insurance. Eligible, actively-at-work employees can enroll in long-term care insurance between March 26 and April 27, without having to answer any health ques- tions. This insurance can help provide pro- tection against the high costs of long-term care that can result from the effects of aging, illness or a serious accident. All eligible employees and their eligible fam- ily members can apply for this insurance. Family members will need to establish proof of good health before being accept- ed into the program. Spouses or spousal equivalents have a simplified underwrit- ing process during this period. MIT employees will have the chance to learn more about this benefit by attending a presentation scheduled on campus, stop- PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY ping by during a question and answer ses- Assistant Professor Nergis Mavalvala, right, and Ph.D. student Thomas Corbitt look over the laser system they use to cool a coin-sized sion, attending a live “webinar” or viewing a prerecorded webinar. For a presentation mirror to within one degree of absolute zero. and webinar schedule, visit mit.jhancock. com/longtermcare/mit/meeting.html (username: mit; password: jhancock). SUPERCOOL For more information please con- tact John Hancock at 1-888-453-2030 or Continued from Page 4 generation, quantum information storage (Albert Einstein Institute) group; Helge [email protected]. You can also visit and quantum entanglement between the Muller-Ebhardt and Henning Rehbein, the MIT long-term care web site at mit. Mavalvala predicted. Several technical light and the mirror should be observ- graduate students at the Albert Einstein jhancock.com (username: mit; password: issues still stand in the way, such as inter- able, Mavalvala said. Institute; and research scientists Daniel jhancock). ference from fluctuations in the laser fre- Other authors on the paper are Chris- Sigg of LIGO Hanford Observatory and quency. topher Wipf, MIT graduate student in Stanley Whitcomb of Caltech. “That last factor of 100 will be heroic,” physics; David Ottaway, research sci- The research was funded by the she said. entist at MIT LIGO; Edith Innerhofer National Science Foundation and the Ger- Once the objects get cold enough, (formerly a postdoctoral fellow at MIT); man Federal Ministry of Education and DARWIN quantum effects such as squeezed state Yanbei Chen, leader of the Max Planck Research. Continued from Page 4 help to do so,” said Follows. Modeling the regulation of global ele- mental cycles by marine microbial com- MANTLE BRAIN munities requires a detailed understanding of the physical and chemical environment, Continued from Page 5 The idea for the research reported Continued from Page 4 in Science was born over breakfast in a the molecular and cellular scale processes that dictate the response of an individual van der Hilst said. Cambridge, Mass., Au Bon Pain some five of smaller, higher-resolution folds. cell to that environment, and the organiza- Deeply propagating waves generated years ago, when Maarten de Hoop, an Finally, Yu modeled biological growth tion of communities of organisms within by large earthquakes hit the core-mantle applied mathematician at Purdue Univer- using a technique recommended by Grant that environment. boundary and bounce back—as if from a sity, and van der Hilst realized that they that allowed her to identify the age at “The Darwin Project is the place where mirror—to the Earth’s surface. might be able to pair up the industry tools which each type of fold, coarse or fine, all these things meet. The understanding Each time one of these waves hits an and the earthquake data to study the core- developed, and how quickly. of the biologist and the ecologist merges underground structure, it emits a weak mantle boundary. She found that the coarse folds, equiv- with the geochemist and the physical signal. “With enough data, we can detect Years of work by Ping Wang, EAPS alent to the largest folds in a crumpled oceanographer and it is exciting to devel- and interpret this signal,” van der Hilst graduate student at MIT, led to the pos- piece of paper, develop earlier and more op a framework in which that can happen,” said. Using data from thousands of earth- sibility for high-resolution imaging, and in slowly than fine-grained folds. Follows said. quakes recorded at more than 1,000 seis- collaboration with EAPS mineral physicist In addition to providing insights into Said MIT Professor Bruce Tidor, “The mic observatories, an interdisciplinary Dan Shim, the team produced maps of cortical develop- Darwin Project integrates measurement, team of earth scientists and mineral physi- temperature and heat flow some 3,000 kilo- ment, the team is mechanism and understanding across a cists led by van der Hilst pinpointed the meters below the Earth’s surface, using now comparing the vast range of scales using models to con- details of deep earth structures. The cross- the data to provide a kind of “seismother- images to those nect underlying processes. It is as much a disciplinary study involved seismologists, mometer” of the Earth’s temperature at This tool may being collected study in how to leverage new knowledge mathematicians, statisticians and mineral extreme depths. from patients with and understanding as it is a study of the physicists from the University of Illinois No one has ever seen the turbulently autism. “We now relationships among marine microbes, and Colorado School of Mines in addition swirling liquid iron of the outer core meet- also be used have some idea ocean circulation and global biogeochemi- to MIT and Purdue. ing the silicate rock of the mantle—10 of what normal cal cycles.” The imaging technique was introduced times as far below ground as the Inter- to shed light on development looks Tidor has appointments in the Depart- 20 years ago as a powerful tool for finding national Space Station is above—but the like. The next ment of Electrical Engineering and Com- subsurface reservoirs of gas or oil. Mean- cross-disciplinary study led the research- other step is to see if we puter Science and the Biological Engineer- while, over the past decades, large arrays ers to estimate the temperature there is a can detect abnor- ing Division, and he is the co-director for of seismometers have been installed at white-hot 3,700 degrees Celsius. neurological mal development education, outreach and community for many places in the world for research on They hope to apply the techniques to in diseases like CSBi. earthquakes and the Earth’s interior. “It is image an even more remote boundary of diseases. autism by looking Chisholm is equally excited about now possible to begin applying techniques the inner core close to the center of the at folding differ- the project, noting that it represents the developed by the oil industry to these Earth. ences,” said Fischl. type of project that ESI was designed to large earthquake databases,” van der Hilst This work was supported by the This tool may also foster. “It is extreme cross-scale, multi- said. National Science Foundation. be used to shed disciplinary research—from genomes light on other neurological diseases such to biomes—that would not be easily as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. launched within traditional departmental In addition to Yu, Grant and Fischl, boundaries,” she says. SUPERHEROES co-authors on the paper are postdoctoral In addition to Follows and Tidor, the Continued from Page 1 When the Green Goblin kidnapped associate Yuan Qi and Assistant Profes- Darwin Project team also includes marine Spiderman’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacey, and sor Polina Golland of CSAIL (Golland also microbiologist Ed Delong from the Biolog- electrical wires, says correctly that electro- pushed her from the George Washington holds an appointment in MIT’s Depart- ical Engineering Division and the Depart- cution shouldn’t be a problem unless they Bridge to her death, the debate raged in ment of Electrical Engineering and Com- ment of Civil and Environmental Engineer- are grounded by the wooden pole. It would comic book circles for years: Was it the fall puter Science); Xiao Han of CMS Inc.; ing, and oceanographers John Marshall, be difficult, but you could potentially make that killed her or Spidey’s attempt to save Florent Segonne of Certis Laboratory; Chris Hill and Stephanie Dutkiewicz from a locomotive into a giant electromagnet. her by catching her in webbing mid-fall, Rudolph Pienaar, Evelina Busa, Jenni the Department of Earth, Atmospheric A superhero capable of traveling at super causing her neck to snap? Pacheco and Nikos Makris of the Marti- and Planetary Sciences. speed catching a bullet in his hand is a If Gwen has a mass of 50 kilograms, nos Center; and Randy L. Buckner of Har- The Gordon and Betty Moore Founda- “beautiful illustration of relativity,” accord- falls 300 feet and acquires a velocity of 95 vard University and the Martinos Center. tion gift will fund new postdoctoral scien- ing to Kakalios. mph, there would be 10g of force on her The research was supported by the tists and graduate students to help devel- Just the idea of learning math and body, which she could potentially survive. National Center for Research Resourc- op the models of microbes in the world’s science from a comic book is disarming But stopping short against all that force es, the National Institutes of Health, oceans. It will also fund new computing enough to make even the most math-pho- in half a second would certainly break her the Washington University Alzheimer’s infrastructure to support these activities, bic willing to give it a try. And while not neck, as the Green Goblin declared in a Disease Research Center, and the Men- including a new parallel processing com- all Kakalios’s students will become physi- later issue after Kakalios was widely quot- tal Illness and Neuroscience Discovery putational cluster, a massive data storage cists, he pointed out that as future voters, ed making the same calculation. “If I can (MIND) Institute. It is part of the National system, a room-sized data visualization they should have the background to make teach a homicidal maniac like the Green Alliance for Medical Image Comput- facility and a connection for MIT to the better decisions about funding for science Goblin about forces and motion, I’m mak- ing, funded by the National Institutes of National Lambda Rail, a nationwide high- and technology. ing a difference,” he said. Health. speed fiber optic data network. MIT Tech Talk ARTS April 11, 2007 PAGE 7 ‘Last Mughal’ author discusses Great Mutiny’s toll Robin H. Ray News Office Correspondent

Despite the vacation-week lull, more than 125 students, faculty and visitors came to hear renowned travel writer and historian William Dalrymple discuss his latest book. “The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857” (Knopf, $30) is a dynamic narrative of the final flowering and violent end of the last Mughal imperial court, that of Bahadur Shah Zafar II. The lecture, discussion and reception—com- plete with hot samosas—was co-sponsored by the Indo-American Arts Council and MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. Tuli Banerjee, lecturer in the foreign languages and literature section, intro- duced the speaker. “I’ve been teaching William in bits and pieces for years, some- PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY times essays, sometimes whole books,” Dance master she said, including his popular “City of Djinns: A Year Instructor Jamie Rae Walker, a Paul Taylor dancer (second from right) leads (from left) junior Jessica Luttkus, Greg Pintilie G, Professor in Delhi.” Dal- Thomas DeFrantz, and Paul Taylor dancer John Eirich in a master class. rymple’s other work includes a prize-win- ning first novel, “In Xanadu,” MIT musicians participate in Jazz Week and “White Mughals: Love Lynn Heinemann itus and special assistant to the chancellor, Moment in Chaos,” a screening of animat- and Betrayal Office of the Arts and pianist Nathan Ball, graduate student ed films by Kate Matson accompanied by in Eighteenth- in mechanical engineering and this year’s live musical improvisation. The event takes Century Eng- winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Stu- place at the Volpe Transportation Building land.” MIT musicians will join the groove dent Prize, will be among the participants in Kendall Square at 7:30 p.m. and is pre- Dalrymple, during Jazz Week, a celebration featuring in the Blowout. The concert is Saturday, sented in conjunction with the Cambridge Bahadur Shah Zafar II who lives in more than 100 events in locations Science Festival. Tickets are $10. Delhi with his throughout the Boston area from (Special note: The Volpe Center is a family, pieced together the story of India’s April 21 to 29. government building. Ticket-hold- last emperor and the Great Mutiny that Boston’s first jazz week in 25 ers must bring photo identification spelled his doom from a trove of 20,000 years is coordinated and promoted and pass through security to enter. documents, called the Mutiny Papers, by the nonprofit organization Jazz- Please arrive an hour in advance of which have languished with little scholarly Boston. Composer and trumpeter the program.) attention at the National Archives of India Mark Harvey, lecturer in the music On Friday, April 27, Harvey will since the 1920s. He discovered in Zafar a and theater arts section and co-chair moderate a panel comparing “Jazz man of discerning taste, a poet and cal- of 2007 Jazz Week, was one of the Week Then and Now,” with Arni ligrapher who attracted artists and intel- leaders of the original Boston Jazz Cheatham, Ron Gill, Marianne Soli- lectuals to his court, in an empire that had Week in 1973. van and Bob Young at noon at the “contracted to the walls of the Red Fort of “MIT has a strong jazz presence Boston Public Library’s Rabb Lec- Delhi.” on campus and in the community,” ture Hall. Zafar had the ill luck to rule at the con- said Harvey. “It is only natural that Frederick Harris Mark Harvey Harvey and his Aardvark Jazz fluence of two historical currents: a surge faculty and students would be key Orchestra will close the week with in British power that left it suddenly in con- participants in this venture.” April 21 at 8 p.m. at Berklee Performance a Duke Ellington birthday tribute, “Elling- trol of all of India, and a wave of evange- The week kicks off with an “All-Star Center, with part of the proceeds going to ton and Beyond,” at the Museum of Fine lism, in which English missionaries, with Jazz Blowout” that will include students Habitat for Humanity Musicians’ Village in Arts on Sunday, April 29 at 3:30 p.m. A the connivance of the British East India and faculty from MIT and other area col- New Orleans. limited number of free tickets for this Company (EIC), posed a rising threat to leges—including the New England Con- Keyser and Frederick Harris, director concert are available for current MIT stu- India’s Muslims and Hindus, including the servatory, Harvard, Brandeis, Longy of MIT’s wind ensembles, will present a dents through the generosity of the Coun- Sepoy soldiers of the EIC. When the con- School of Music and Wellesley—all per- lecture on big bands titled, “Tight Makes cil for the Arts at MIT and can be picked flict came to a head, over the use of cow forming together. “To our knowledge, this Right,” on Monday, April 23, in Room 4- up at the Office of the Arts in Room and pig grease on the Enfield rifles issued is the first time this has ever taken place,” 152 at 3:30 p.m. E15-205. to the Sepoy soldiers, the result was butch- said Harvey. On Tuesday, April 24, Harvey and For complete listings, visit www.jazz- ery on both sides. Trombonist Jay Keyser, professor emer- Keyser will join other musicians for “A boston.org and click on “Jazz Week.” Dalrymple finds resounding parallels with current events, where the United States finds itself the sole superpower after Cohen wins inaugural mentoring award the collapse of the Soviet Union and is con- No Tech Talk vinced that its gospel—democracy—will Robert E. Cohen, the St. Laurent Pro- MIT in 1976) and Marion McDonald, lead the benighted peoples of the Middle next week fessor of Chemical Engineering and co- this award is presented to a faculty mem- East out of their darkness. director of the DuPont-MIT Alliance, has ber in the School of Engineering, who, “The Last Mughal” is a publishing In honor of Patriot’s Day, there been selected as the first recipient of the through tireless efforts to engage minds, sensation in India, where the appetite for will be no Tech Talk on Wednesday, Capers and Marion McDonald Award elevate spirits and stimulate high quality narrative history and biography has appar- April 18. The next Tech Talk will for Excellence in Mentoring and Advis- work, has advanced the professional and ently been underserved, said Dalrymple be published on April 25. For on- ing. Established by Capers (who earned personal development of students and during Q and A after his talk. The book going MIT news updates, please a master’s degree in engineering from colleagues. has sold 35,000 copies in just two months, go to the News Office web site, “not counting the pirates selling them at web.mit.edu/newsoffice/. every traffic light in Bombay,” he joked. ROBOT Continued from Page 3 prompting the robot to find a shelf. Domo looks around until it spots a nearby table GUGGENHEIM on in front of it. As the robot’s large blue that looks promising. The robot reaches Continued from Page 1 point A, and if the distances between every eyes roam across the room, cameras feed out its left hand to touch the shelf, much pair of points are known, what is the short- information to 12 computers that analyze like a person groping for a light switch in lished in magazines including The Atlan- est route that visits all points and returns the input and decide what to focus on. the dark, to make sure the shelf is really tic Monthly, The New Yorker, The Paris to point A? Domo’s visual system is attuned to there. Review, and Poetry. Naginski is a historian of European art unexpected motion, allowing it to focus Once Domo has located the shelf, it James G. Paradis, head of the Program and architecture of the 17th through the on important stimuli within human envi- reaches out its right hand towards Eds- in Writing and Humanistic Studies and the 19th centuries whose research interests ronments. For example, locating human inger, who places a bag of coffee beans in Robert M. Metcalfe Professor of Writing focus on Enlightenment aesthetics, theo- faces is critical for social interaction, and the open hand. Domo wiggles them a little and Humanistic Studies, described Funk- ries of public space, cultural memory and people are often in motion. When Domo to get a feel for the object, then transfers houser as an “extraordinary contempo- historic preservation and the critical tradi- spots motion that looks like a face, it locks the bag from its right hand to its left hand rary poet, with a brilliant blend of fact and tions of the history of art. She is working its gaze onto it. (nearest the shelf). Domo then reaches up metaphor in her work.” on a project on graphic arts and the phi- Edsinger recently demonstrated how and places the bag on the shelf. Goemans does research in discrete losophy of history in the 18th century. Domo can interact with people to help Though it seems like a minor move- algorithms and combinatorial optimization. Spirn has an international reputation them accomplish useful tasks. ment, wiggling the object is key to the The award will allow him to continue his as the preeminent scholar working at the Once he captures Domo’s gaze, they robot’s ability to accurately place it work on a problem for which no general intersection of landscape architecture and exchange greetings. “Hey, Domo,” Edsing- method of solution exists—the traveling environmental planning. She is working on er says, to which Domo responds, “Hey, See ROBOT salesman problem: If a salesman starts at rebuilding the landscape of community. Domo.” “Shelf, Domo,” says Edsinger, Page 8 PAGE 8 April 11, 2007 RESEARCH MIT Tech Talk Think small! Think fast! Atomistic model helps students get down

Denise Brehm first years in college, but they aren’t taught application that Ceraj calls StarGP, pro- dents learned the basics of atomistic mod- Civil and Environmental Engineering how a material’s response to forces at larg- vides a simple-to-use, yet very accurate eling quickly, then applied the technique er scales relates to its structure and mech- tool for modeling the behavior of materials to predict the mechanical properties of anisms at the atomic level. The problem under extreme loading. silicon, copper nanowire and a structural Civil engineers by tradition are con- Buehler faced was finding a way to teach “We are expanding StarGP’s use in dif- protein called vimentin that plays a crucial cerned with the big picture, but some students to model the material’s atomic ferent fields: civil and environmental engi- role in stabilizing eukaryotic cells under are refocusing their vision, zooming in to response without getting too caught up in neering, materials science and biology,” deformation. solve minute problems we can’t see with the complexities of a computer program. said Ceraj. “Each discipline has different Previously, such simulations required the naked eye, like tiny fractures in poly- This is where Ceraj and the OEIT initia- challenges, but it provides us with the students to learn technical details of a mers, silicon or the molecular structure of tive came in. “We are looking to reduce the opportunity to bring the latest research Linux workstation before they could get to proteins. the heart of the numerical method. With This work involves understanding the the web interface, students need enter mechanics of a material—its ability to with- only a few pieces of key information about stand pulling, twisting and heavy loads—at how and where a material will be pulled, the atomic level. But the classroom tech- pushed or twisted, and the program will nology for teaching this in a short time- prepare an accurate video simulation. For frame doesn’t exist—until now, that is. instance, one video shows a fracture in one An educational experiment during IAP side of a small piece of silicon zig-zagging demonstrated that students can learn until it cleaves the material. Another dem- to apply sophisticated atomistic model- onstrates a vimentin protein being pulled ing techniques to traditional materials at both ends until it unwinds from a tight research in just a few classes, an advance tangle into a long string. that could dramatically change the way As a result of the class, students not civil engineers learn to model the mechan- only learned the atomistic simulation ical properties of materials and provide quickly, some have already adopted it for enormous benefit to industry. their own applications. “Taking an atomistic approach to the Michelle Hyers, who is working toward study of materials’ design and analysis a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, took offers opportunities for making significant the class to find a more accurate way of improvements in materials’ strength, reli- modeling at smaller scales. “My research ability and sustainability,” said Markus involves modeling self-assembly at the Buehler, an assistant professor in the micro and nanoscales, but we current- Department of Civil and Environmental ly use macroscale theory with various Engineering who collaborated with Ivica assumptions to describe the system,” said Ceraj, a software developer in MIT’s Office Hyers. “As a result of this class, I formed of Educational Innovation and Technol- a collaboration with Professor Buehler to ogy (OEIT), to prepare the new simulation IMAGE / MARKUS BUEHLER work on a more accurate model for our techniques. Atomistic simulation provides unparalleled insight into fracture processes. Under the weight system than our current approximate “While scientists often rely on quan- of an applied load, a crack in a silicon crystal (left) propagates until the crystal is cleaved. methods.” tum mechanics in their study of materials, “It is the best class I’ve had so far at engineers tend to use a more traditional operational fog and help students focus on tools to undergraduate and graduate stu- MIT in terms of engaging content, as well continuum approach that relies on empiri- the subject they are learning without stum- dents.” Ceraj collaborates with Jill Mesirov as excellent teaching,” said Hyers. cal parameters to model processes such as bling over new software tools,” said Ceraj. and Michael Reich at the Broad Institute in Buehler plans to use this method next a crack forming, without considering the Buehler and Ceraj employed a web his work with StarGP. Mesirov and Reich spring to teach a section of Course 1.021J mechanisms at the atomic scale that give interface called GenePattern, an award- are part of the original GenePattern devel- (Introduction to Modeling and Simula- rise to these phenomena,” said Buehler. winning software program developed in opment team. tion), an undergraduate class that provides However, a fracture in a concrete bridge 2004 by a team at the Broad Institute of In Course 1.978 (From Nano to Macro: an overview of simulation techniques. This doesn’t begin as a long, jagged scar; it MIT and Harvard to help scientists per- Introduction to Atomistic Modeling Tech- subject will expose undergraduates to starts off as a vibration at the atomic scale form gene expression analysis. Ceraj cre- niques), Ceraj and Buehler introduced stu- state-of-the-art atomistic modeling meth- and progresses. ated an interface between GenePattern dents to the new atomistic simulation pro- ods to teach the next generation of engi- Engineering students usually study typ- and the software code Buehler uses in his gram with great success. They found that neers how to make a big impact by think- ical weight-bearing problems during their own research. The interface, a derivative when using the web interface method, stu- ing small. ROBOT Continued from Page 7 bound people. could work together with people to make tion, Brooks says he can foresee a future The original work on Domo was fund- workers more productive and save manu- where robots specialized for different func- on a shelf, Edsinger says. Domo is pro- ed by NASA, and the project is now sup- facturing jobs from being sent overseas, tions help out with household chores. grammed to learn the size of an object by ported by Toyota, which is interested in said Edsinger. “I don’t think there’s going to be one focusing on the tip of the object, for exam- developing partner robots for the home. Although a life of leisure enabled by Rosie the robot doing everything in the ple, the cap of a water bottle. When the Another application is in assembly-line pro- robots who perform all manual labor is home,” said Brooks. “It’s more likely to be robot wiggles the tip back and forth, it can duction. The idea is that intelligent robots still securely in the realm of science fic- a team of robots doing different things.” figure out how big the bottle is and decide how to transfer it from hand to hand or to place it on a shelf. “You can hand it an object it’s never seen before, and it can find the tip and start to control it,” Edsinger said. The human connection The philosophy behind the team’s approach is that humans and robots can work together to accomplish tasks that neither could do all alone. “If you can offload some parts of the process and let the robot handle the man- ual skills, that is a nice synergistic relation- ship,” Edsinger said. “The key is that it has to be more useful or valuable than the effort put into it.” For Domo or any robot to safely inter- act with humans, the robot has to be able to sense when a human is touching it. Domo has springs in its arms, hands and neck that can sense force and respond to it. If you grab its hand and push, the robot will move the way you want it to. “By placing that spring in there, you get physical compliance that makes the whole body sort of springy, which makes it safer for human interaction,” Edsinger said. But if you apply too much force or move Domo’s arms in the wrong direction, it voices its displeasure by saying, “Ouch.” If robots are going to be useful in the home, it’s also important for them to have a humanoid form, so people will feel more comfortable around them. Such assistive robots could be very useful in finding solutions to the impend- ing health care crisis caused by the aging of the baby boomers, Edsinger said. Hav- PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY ing help with simple tasks, such as get- ting a glass from a cabinet, could make a An assistive robot has to be able to sense when a human is touching it. Domo has springs in its arms, hands and neck that can sense force big difference for elderly or wheelchair- and respond to it.