WEATHER, p. 2 FRI: 65°F | 50°F MIT’s Mostly sunny Oldest and Largest SAT: 62°F | 46°F Newspaper Mostly sunny SUN: 61°F | 43°F Sunny Volume 131, Number 46 tech.mit.edu Friday, October 21, 2011 Riess ’92 A look into the future wins Nobel EmTech conference highlights future tech By Robert McQueen demonstrate how un- nologies (EmTech) Con- in physics NEWS EDITOR tapped industries could ference. Throughout the radically shape our future. conference, more than 60 Found Universe’s It’s now official: the Dozens of compa- presentations were given, information age will dras- nies flocked to MIT’s addressing a wide range expansion is tically change the world. Media Lab last Tuesday of topics including selec- Emerging technologies and Wednesday for MIT tive genetics, open source accelerating converged at MIT this Technology Review’s 11th week in a showcase to annual Emerging Tech- EmTech, Page 9 By Leo Zhou ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR On Oct. 4, Adam G. Riess ’92 woke up to a 5 a.m. phone call from Swe- den. The professor of astronomy and physics at John Hopkins University was told that he had won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. Two others shared the prize: Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab- oratory, and Brian P. Schmidt of the Australian National University. Though he didn’t know whether JASWANTH MADHAVAN—THE TECH he would win the Nobel Prize this year, Riess knew that if he had earned the prize, he would get a phone call that morning. “It was definitely on Course 7 head Kaiser MISTI, HASS changes in my mind when I went to sleep the night before,” said Riess. Faculty Newsletter An accomplished cosmologist, picked to run NIGMS Riess has won just about every pres- The September/October Faculty Newsletter (FNL) is out, tigious prize in his field: the Shaw opening with an editorial calling for the scientific community Prize in Astronomy in 2006, the Ma- Kaiser will oversee $2bn research budget to speak “more clearly, more loudly, and more effectively” cArthur “genius” grant in 2008, and to counteract the “deeply disturbing” scientific skepticism of the Einstein Medal earlier this year. By Ethan A. Solomon vides foundations for understanding and some presidential candidates. EDITOR IN CHIEF curing disease, says Kaiser. Unlike other The newsletter also contains responses to President Su- Science at universal parts of the NIH, the NIGMS supports san J. Hockfield’s New York Times op-ed on “Manufacturing proportions Biology Department Head Chris A. researchers at other institutions — like a Recovery” and perspectives on the divide between faculty Riess began the work that would Kaiser PhD ’88 has been selected to run MIT — but does not hire its own. and administration in higher education. Closer to home, win him the Nobel Prize in 1998, the National Institute of General Medi- “Dr. Kaiser has tremendous energy the FNL addresses Institute programs like MISTI and HASS when he and Schmidt led a team cal Sciences (NIGMS) beginning next and enthusiasm for research and train- Exploration. that observed surprising evidence year, the MIT News Office reported on ing — two key components of the NIGMS In 2010, MISTI received 112 requests for funding and that the expansion of the universe is Tuesday. Kaiser will oversee NIGMS’s $2 mission — that make him ideal for this awarded a total of $903,912 to 46 projects, and decided to ex- accelerating. billion budget for funding basic life sci- position,” said Francis S. Collins, director pand its faculty seed funds. MISTI also launched the new MIT- At the time, the team, as well as ences research. of the NIH, in a statement on the NIGMS Chile program, making Chile MISTI’s 11th partner country. the greater scientific community, NIGMS, the fourth largest institute of website. The newly established MIT-Chile Seed Fund provides funding believed that the universe’s expan- the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Kaiser, who has been a faculty mem- for projects through any Chilean institution, with two funds sion was actually decelerating. Riess supports over 4,500 research grants in ber since 1991, studies protein folding specifically designated for projects at the Pontifical Catholic and Schmidt used this common as- areas like cell biology, biophysics, genet- and intracellular transport using yeast as University of Chile and at Adolfo Ibáñez University. sumption and set out to determine ics, physiology, and computational biol- a model organism. In 1999 , Kaiser was The HASS Exploration (HEX) program is also entering a the mass of the universe by measur- ogy. The NIGMS funds research that pro- named a MacVicar Fellow in recognition new phase, according to Dean for Curriculum and Faculty ing the luminosity of supernovae and of the 7.03 (Genetics) course he taught Support Diana Henderson. The Subcommittee on the HASS fitting the data to an appropriate cos- from 1992 to 2011. Requirement, chaired by Political Science Associate Professor mological model. As head of the NIGMS, Kaiser will Andrea L. Campbell, is looking to expand its roster of “foun- However, their fit yielded a non- take the reins of a large federal research dational subjects” that would fulfill HASS requirements, seek- sensical negative mass of the uni- budget amidst economic uncertainty ing existing subjects and encouraging faculty to create and verse and a positive acceleration of and congressional pressure to cut back teach new subjects. expansion. To explain these results, on government spending. Basic life sci- The newsletter also reprinted an article, “Faculty Fallout,” the team concluded not only that the ences research, which is usually not im- by Johns Hopkins University Professor of Political Science universe expansion rate had to be mediately applicable to disease-related Benjamin Ginsberg that originally appeared in the August accelerating, but a nonzero cosmo- research, has come under fire from some issue of The Scientist. Lambasting the imbalance between logical constant in Einstein’s theory conservative groups. Forty-one percent faculty and administration in higher education, Ginsberg’s of general relativity was also need- of Tea Party Republicans in the House of statements — such as, “Administrators have taken over U.S. ed. This positive constant means Representatives support cutting federal universities, and they’re steering institutions of higher learn- that vacuum must have an intrinsic spending for scientific research, accord- ing away from the goal of serving as beacons of knowledge” — energy density, which generates a ing to Pew Research. serve as a counterpoint to Faculty Chair Samuel M. Allen PhD pressure in space that should be the “A lot of politicians are trying to take ’75’s note, which says that MIT faculty have not been taking cause of the acceleration. advantage of misconceptions that the full advantage of opportunities to communicate their views to The inclusion of the cosmologi- public has,” said Kaiser about the impor- the administration. cal constant has been debated be- —Anne Cai fore. Einstein originally used the NIGMS, Page 8 constant to explain what he thought SOURCE:NIGMS was a static universe. Later, Edwin Hubble discovered that the galaxy was expanding but believed it to be decelerating. This discovery made The MIT Police will auction off Sign up for senior portraits with place this Saturday and Sunday IN Short the cosmological constant zero, and abandoned bicycles on Oct. 31. Technique, the MIT yearbook, along the Charles River. It is the Einstein called his original use of the Proposals are due at noon to- The auction will be held at 290 Al- next week. You can schedule an world’s second largest two-day row- constant his “biggest blunder.” Now, day for PSC Fellowships and bany St. (behind Simmons Hall, appointment online today at http:// ing event. because the expansion of the uni- Internships. Visit http://web. near Fort Washington Park), with photoappointment.com/. verse is accelerating, a positive cos- mit.edu/mitpsc/whatwedo/ a preview at 11:30 a.m. and bidding Send news information and tips to mological constant is needed again. internshipsandfellowships/. beginning at noon. The Head of the Charles will take [email protected]. Physics prize, Page 8 COLoneL GaDhafi YoutuBer GO HOME DUDE, we’re in Born to BE PinK SECTIONS World & Nation . .2 The government can afford to lay off Betsey Johnson, a is DeaD THE TECH Opinion . .4 workers. OPINION, p. 4 cancer survivor herself, Dictator met a violent Uh-oh. My head hurts. Arts . .6 tackles breast cancer end, begging for his life. treaD cautiousLY FUN, p. 11 Fun Pages . .10 WORLD AND NATION, with fashion. Sports . .12 p. 2 Iran must be diplomatically engaged. ARTS, p. 7 OPINION, p. 4 2 The Tech Friday, October 21, 2011 Preserve owner was bitten by D big cat, authorities say An erratic leader, Gadhafi The owner of the Ohio wildlife preserve, who authorities say set dozens of lions, tigers, bears, and other animals free, was bit- ten by one of his large cats, apparently after he fatally shot him- was brutal to the end self, officials said Thursday. The head wound to the man, Terry Thompson, 62, was “consistent with a tiger bite,” Sheriff Matt Lutz By Neil Macfarquhar on the world stage. coup that deposed Libya’s monarch WORL of Muskingum County said, referring to results from Thompson’s THE NEW YORK TIMES He embraced a string of titles: in 1969. Soon afterward, he began autopsy report. “the brother leader,” “the guide to the styling himself a desert nomad phi- N Officials in Zanesville, where the wildlife preserve is located, Moammar Gadhafi, the erratic, era of the masses,” “the king of kings losopher, publishing from 1976 to said that Tuesday, Thompson cut open the wire cages of the ex- provocative dictator who ruled Lib- of Africa” and — his most preferred 1979 the three volumes of his Green otic animals he kept on his 73-acre private preserve and left open ya for 42 years, crushing opponents — “the leader of the revolution.” Book, which offered his “third uni- a gate before killing himself in the driveway of his house.