THET DAILY Where You Read It First Tuesday, April 22,1997 Volume XXXIV, Number 59 I c‘, 7 Fired up over butte iaoulis burns wings to improve co by LEAH NAsSAFt ern University. Senior Staff Writer “We aretrying to build tiny little devices Butterflies are helping Dean of the Col- on films that you can detect the temperature lege ofEngineering Ioannis Miaoulis solve of the film while you process things,” the problem ofuneven heating in the manu- Miaoulis said. facturing of microelectronicschips. The Dean explained that discovering a His research, which involves burning way to manufacture thin films without hot butterfly wings to observe how these ani- spots will impact not only the computer mals heat their bodies, as well as his re- industry but also anything with coatings or search on other animals, was featured in the thin films, such as cassette tapes, sun- April issue of Discover magazine. glasses, windshields, photographic materi- Miaoulis’s work has previously appeared als and plastic wrap. in Popular Science, Business Week and Miaoulis explained that doing biological ScienceMagazine. He feels that it is impor- research to solve engineering problems tant for research such as his to appear in creates situations that are new to engi- magazines like Discover,whose readership neers. consists of the general public and not pri- “The biggest discoverytreasures, in my I- marily the scientific community. opinion, are hidden between fields, Miaoulis Photo by Rony Shram “I think one of the reasons that science said. “A lot ofwork is done within fields, but Presidential candidates Lee Brenner and Omar Mattox will face off tonight. and engineering are not as popular as other I think the biggest questions have not been subjects in high school is because they are answeredbecause they are hidden between inaccessible to students,” Miaoulis said. disciplines and disciplines are artificially Tonight in Hotung: “The more accessible you make science created by humans.” and engineering to the public, the more He believes that Tufts provides great scientists and engineers you are going to opportunities to conduct interdisciplinary have in the future.” research. “Tufts is the best place to try this Brenner vs. Mattox Miaoulis is attempting to improve the out because there are very low walls be- by PETE SA” Rosencrantz said. quality of computer chip manufacturing. tween departments and the whole philoso- Daily Editorial Board Describing ELBO’s goals for votertum- phy of the place encourages this sort of Students will have an opportunity to out, Rosencrantzsaid, “Weprintedup2,500 thing,” Miaoulis said. question the candidates running for the ballots. If we could have 2,000 vote, that Everywhere loannis Mlaoulir looks. The combination of disciplines present Tufts Community Union presidency during would be a lot.” he sees life’s answers to lcchnology’r in Miaoulis’s research is one ofthe reasons tonight’s presidential debate in Hotung Rosencrantz said he expects the fresh- problems-rhey’re in [he innocent Discover decided to write about him. Cafe. men to be the most interested in this year’s bear of P butrerfly’r wini. in the “The Miaoulis feature offeredan appeal- Junior Omar Mattox and sophomore Lee election. ~entleunduIuon.of a rea anemone. ing and unusual mixture ofengineeringand Brenner, both candidates for president, will “The freshmen have been pretty sup- biology,” said Margaret Foley ofDiscover. speak and answer questions from students portive,” he said, explaining that between “The fascinating thing about doing re- during the traditional open debate. 30 and 40 percent of the first-year students search with animals is that they have z ElectionsBoard(ELB0)co-chair Marcus voted in last week’s senatorial elections. mood and engineersare not usedto dealing Rosencrantz said the event, scheduled for This year, seniors will be permitted to +tli tbings that have I mmd, 5zsides %it 5:30 pm., will be tfie last opportunity for vote in the presidential election, said the ‘workers,”’ Miaoulissid. students to hear the candidates present ELBO co-chair, though he said he could not “Usually in engineering you deal with their platforms before Wednesday’s elec- predict how many would turn in ballots. i things. You put a cube there, it stays there. tion. “I don’tknowwhattoexpect. I wouldn’t But you put an animal there and. it may “It’s in Hotung, so people can come expect a substantial turnout, but we want decide it doesn’t want to go there, and it down and have dinner, then hopefully be the seniors to be able to contribute,” he moves.” interested enough to ask some questions,” said. IIO roast evenly Miaoulis encountered this problem while researching sea anemones. In his research, these animals had to be stuck to a glass IRA shuts down London In this month’s Discover: a piece on plate in order to be placed on a train that Tufts’ Engineering Dean Miaoulis. carried the anemones through a tank to Bomb threats designed to hurt economically simulate the motion and currents of ocean Los Angeles Times-Washington “IRA halts London by phone,” read one Computer chips are made out of silicon water. Post News Service banner headline. wafers, some of which are as thin as one- “Sometimes the sea anemone wouldpre- LONDON - How to convulse a me- Around 7 a.m. yesterday as the morning hundredth the thickness of a hair. If there tend it was stuck, but then when we would tropolis of 6 million before breakfast? rush hour began to build, callers delivered are even tiny variations in these films’ thick- startthe experiment itwouldgetoffthe plate London was yesterday’s gridlockedtar- coded bomb warnings from phone booths nesses, the amount of heat absorbed and and fall in front of the train,” he said. get in anescalatingwarofeconomic disrup- threatening London airports, railways, sub- reflected in the manufacturing process is Since this killedthe animals, the research- tion, an example of IRA manipulation with ways, highways, even an English Channel affected and “hot spots” form, he said. ers had to create an emergency stop button what analysts say are chilling international ferry port in another raspberry to Britain’s ‘‘Ifyou have avery little bump in the film, that stopped the train when the animals fell implications. They describe it as a signal of national election campaign now in its home- it could cause the film to absorb much more see MIAOULIS, page 2 1 the Irish Republican Army’s determination stretch. heat at that spot and it may melt the film at - and of its weakness. All the threats were hoaxes. There were no that spot,” he said. bombs and no injuries, unless you count the Butterflies are helpful in solving this ECO celebration examines logging hundreds of thousands of Londoners and problem, according to Miaoulis, because visitors delayed, diverted, bewildered and the scales on their wings, which enable situatiun in British Columbia angry. these cold-blooded animals to obtain heat It was the sixth major IRA disruption in from the sun and warm their bodies, are Britain since March26 andmin-on whatterror- made up ofthin films. ist specialist Paul Rogers calls an “increasing “Ifyou lookatthegeometry ofthin films, global tendency toward economic targeting they are arranged so they have maximum amongterroristgroups.” Like the IRA, terror- absorption. The scales heat up the wings ists in Algeria, France, Spain, Japan and Sri which in turn heat up the air around them, Lanka are all partial to economic targets. and there are hot air loops which heat up “The occasional bomb and four or five their bodies,” Miaoulis said. times as many warnings is a very effective Even though both butterfly wings and strategy against an advanced industrial soci- the thin films in computerchip manufactur- us people, wildlife, and the environ- ety,” saidRogers, adding that disruption keeps ing are not smooth, David H. Freedman’s the IRA on the election agenda without pro- article in Discover explains that the Sorkin,whospentasemester inVancouver withthe SchoolforFieldStudies~~ vokingretaliation in Northern Ireland. butterfly’s thin films heat evenly and do not inBritish Columbia, will show slidesofthe forests oftanada’s western-most province, Several thousand Americans arriving on form hot spots as silicon wafers do. and tau< about her semester abroad. trans-Atlantic flights were among 8,000 pas- In order to create athin film that mimics Frank Ackerman, author of Why Do We Recyck and director of Front sengers trapped in their planes for hours at the necessary characteristics of butterfly Economic Thought and the Global Developgent and Environmental I GatwickAirport, whereall 164jetwayswere wings, he currently is examining the pat- discuss the relationship between deforestation and purchasing at Tufts. occupied by planes that could not leave. terns and roughness of the film. According to Sorkh, ECO has been trying to persuade departmentson campus to All rail and road links toGatwick Airport, Miaoulis is working in conjunctionwith purchase more recycled pro&u south of London, were closed until after Peter Wong, Tufts’ Director ofthe Thermo- We’ll talk abut campaigns noon. One ofthe four terminals at Heathrow analysis of Materials Processing Labora- Sorkim said. In order to do tfii Airport was partly evacuated, and second- tory, Tufts graduate student Alexis said they wee env ary Stansted and Luton airports were also Abramson, and researchers at Northeast- threatened. age two THETUFTS DAILY Tuesday, April 22,1997 THETUFTS DAILY P.O. Box 18, Medford, MA. 02153 (617) 627-3090; Fax: (617) 627-3910, [email protected] Online: http://www.jumbohub.com/tuftsdaily Dan Tobin Candidates must put forth Editor-in-Chief ‘. n a Managing Editor: Karen Epstein concrete plan of: action Associate Editors: Bill Copeland, Gregory Geiman, Amy Zimmet WhoareOmarMattoximdLeeBrenner? reer planning andadvising;however, Mattox NEWSEditors: Pete Sanbom, Lauren Heist Assistant Editor: John OKeefe These two students are running for one ofthe andBrennerhavenotprovidedanythingmore VIEWPOINTS Editors: Jason Cohen, Alex Shalom most visible and, potentially, most powerful than apromise to take action.