February 8, 2006 Techtalk S ERVING T HE M I T C OMMUNITY
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Volume 50 – Number 16 Wednesday – February 8, 2006 TechTalk S ERVING T HE M I T C OMMUNITY Researchers fired up over new battery New sensor Deborah Halber and associate director of the Laboratory for Electro- News Office Correspondent magnetic and Electronic Systems; John G. Kassakian, EECS professor and director of LEES; and Ph.D. can- makes splash didate Riccardo Signorelli are using nanotube struc- Just about everything that runs on batteries — tures to improve on an energy storage device called flashlights, cell phones, electric cars, missile-guidance an ultracapacitor. systems — would be improved with a better energy Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, counting fish supply. But traditional batteries haven’t progressed making them more efficient than standard batter- far beyond the basic design developed by Alessandro ies, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Anne Trafton Volta in the 19th century. Ultracapacitors are capacitor-based storage cells that News Office Until now. provide quick, massive bursts of instant energy. They Work at MIT’s Laboratory for Electromagnetic and are sometimes used in fuel-cell vehicles to provide an Electronic Systems (LEES) holds out the promise of extra burst for accelerating into traffic and climbing the first technologically significant and economically hills. Researchers at MIT have found a new way of look- viable alternative to conventional batteries in more However, ultracapacitors need to be much larger ing beneath the ocean surface that could help definitively than 200 years. determine whether fish populations are shrinking. Joel E. Schindall, the Bernard Gordon Professor of See BATTERY A remote sensor system developed by Associate Pro- Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) fessor Nicholas Makris of mechanical engineering, along Page 5 with others at MIT, Northeastern University and the Naval Research Laboratory, allows scientists to track enormous fish populations, or shoals, as well as small schools, over a 10,000-square-kilometer area — a vast improvement over conventional technology that can survey only about 100 square meters at a time. “We’re able to see for the first time what a large group of fish looks like,” said Makris, who compared the dramat- ic improvement to the difference between seeing every- thing on a television screen and seeing only one pixel. The new sensor system, described in the Feb. 3 issue of Science, could allow government agencies to figure out what’s really happening to fish populations, which many environmentalists and scientists believe are in rapid decline. “The world’s fish stocks are being depleted at a hor- rible rate,” said Makris, who attributed declining popu- lations to overfishing, a problem that has been abetted by inaccurate fish counts. “One of the reasons (for the inaccurate counts) is the darkness in the ocean. You don’t know what’s going on.” Current surveying methods depend on highly localized observations taken from slow-moving research vessels, which provide only a small amount of data about a large shoal, Makris said. “It would be like watching ‘Casablanca’ and you’re seeing one pixel moving across the screen, and that’s all you get. You can’t figure out what’s going on, it’s way too slow,” he said. Both the new and old methods rely on sonar, which locates objects by bouncing sound waves off of them. With the old technique, survey vessels send high-frequency PHOTO / MATT GRUND sonar beams into the ocean, where they dissipate much Treasures of the deep like the light from a flashlight shining into a darkened room. MIT researchers were among a team of scientists who used an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to take In contrast, the new system uses low-frequency sonar images of an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Chios, Greece, last July. Pictured recovering the AUV are, from that can travel much greater distances and still return use- left, Kostas Katsaros and Aggellos Malios from the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research and Chris Roman from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Story, additional photos on Page 4. See FISH Page 5 New images capture virus in extraordinary detail Anne Trafton never see the details of that aspect of it,” said To create the detailed images, the News Office Jonathan King, an MIT professor of biology researchers photographed about 15,000 and one of the authors of the paper. virus particles and ran them through a com- The researchers, led by Wen Jiang and plex computer program that compared the Fifty years after MIT researchers pio- Wah Chiu of the National Center for Mac- photographs and constructed a 3-D model neered the use of electron microscopy to romolecular Imaging at Baylor College of based on common features shared by the study viruses, MIT scientists have helped Medicine, focused on viruses that infect bac- images. produce the most detailed images yet of the teria, known as bacteriophages. Their paper The researchers also improved image tiny infectious agents. diagrams the structure of a virus that infects quality by rapidly freezing the viruses before The images, which show for the first time Salmonella bacteria. photographing them. The amorphous ice a virus poised to inject its genetic material The photographs clearly show a long coil that forms as a result of the rapid freezing into a host cell, grace the cover of the Feb. 2 of DNA dangling inside the viral shell, wait- protects and preserves the virus structure, issue of Nature. ing to be ejected via a protein channel just unlike regular crystallized ice, King said. IMAGE COURTESY / WAH CHIU Scientists have known for decades that inside the shell exterior. This project builds on a long legacy of Structure of a virus that infects viruses infect cells by injecting their genetic “Now you can see the end of the DNA. Salmonella. One end of the DNA material, either DNA or RNA, into host cells, You can see the cylinder holding it, poised to See VIRUS genome (blue) is poised for injection but even with electron microscopy, “we could go into the cell,” said King. Page 6 into a host cell. PEOPLE NEWS RESEARCH NEW VICE PRESIDENT IN THE SWIM FUEL FROM GRASS Kirk D. Kolenbrander, senior advisor to the president, The colorful fish An Energy Research Council talk explores the has been named vice president for Institute affairs. mobiles in the Stata potential for biomass as an energy source. Page 2 Center carry serious Page 4 TOP SCHOLAR messages about water ENERGY OPTIONS quality. Grad student John Velasco is the first MIT student to Students research biodiesel and wind projects receive the George J. Mitchell Scholarship. Page 5 during an IAP seminar on climate change policy in Page 3 Cambridge. Page 4 PAGE 2 February 8, 2006 PEOPLE MIT Tech Talk Kirk Kolenbrander named VP for Institute affairs President Susan Hockfield yesterday to our community has been the administration of the tion, and it is an honor to succeed her in announced that Kirk D. Kolenbrander, recognized by Institute-wide full range of its operations these roles.” senior advisor to the president, has been awards for distinction in including membership, quar- Hockfield has also announced that a named vice president for Institute affairs. undergraduate teaching and terly meetings, standing search will soon begin to fill a new posi- He has also been nominated to become for contributions to student committees and the activities tion in the administration: vice president the new secretary of the Corporation, life.” of 30 visiting committees. He for external relations. “This individual will replacing Kathryn A. Willmore, who will Kolenbrander has served is also expected to serve as take a leading role in coordinating MIT’s step down from that post and from the as senior advisor to the presi- secretary of the Executive communications with external constituen- vice presidency at the end of the academic dent, acting as chief of staff Committee, and in that role cies and audiences including government year. and policy advisor, since manage the flow of issues and the media,” she said. The Executive Committee of the Cor- December 2004. and decisions between the Kolenbrander, who came to MIT poration last week unanimously approved As vice president for administration and trustees. as a faculty member in the Department Kolenbrander’s appointment and voted to Institute affairs, Kolen- “Over the course of my of Materials Science and Engineering in recommend his election as secretary to brander will have overall time here, I have truly fallen 1990, moved into the chancellor’s office in the full Corporation. His nomination will responsibility for MIT’s in love with MIT,” Kolen- 1998, serving as associate dean and then be brought to the trustees’ quarterly meet- internal communications Kirk Kolenbrander brander said. “It is a great interim dean for student life. He became ing in March. activities and for coordina- privilege to have this new special assistant to the president and the He is slated to assume both positions tion of policy issues within the senior opportunity to serve the Institute, and to chancellor in 2001, before taking on his on July 1. administration. work with President Hockfield and the present position. “Kirk has demonstrated a deep com- Conference Services, Special Events, chairman of the Corporation, Dr. Dana Kolenbrander holds a B.A. in chemistry mitment to MIT during his 16 years the Information Center, the Publishing G. Mead. The shared focus of these new from Central College in Pella, Iowa, and here,” Hockfield said in her announce- Services Bureau and the Reference Publi- responsibilities is the wonderful people received the Ph.D. in chemistry from the ment, which was sent to the community cations Office will report to him. of the MIT community — trustees, fac- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by e-mail.