May 18, 2005 Techtalk S ERVING T HE M I T C OMMUNITY MIT Students Recognized for Scholarship Denise Brehm and Sasha Brown News Office

Volume 49 – Number 28 Wednesday – May 18, 2005 TechTalk S ERVING T HE M I T C OMMUNITY MIT students recognized for scholarship Denise Brehm and Sasha Brown News Office

In recognition of their outstanding scholarship and their capacity for original, creative work, four MIT students have been chosen to participate in two highly selec- tive awards programs—the Churchill Scholarships, one of the three most competitive scholarship programs in the United States (along with the Rhodes and Marshall scholars), and the U.S. Fulbright Fellowships. Both the Churchill and Fulbright awards pay for the winners to live abroad for a year to participate in educational or research programs and to help them gain a better understanding of people from other nations and cultures. Churchill Scholar Emily Schwartz, a senior aeronautics and astronautics major from Lawrenceville, Kan., will spend the 2005- 2006 school year in Cambridge, England, studying for an M.Phil. degree in sustainable PHOTO / L. BARRY HETHERINGTON development. She is one of only 12 Americans to be awarded the Jesse Marsh, left, and Aron Zingman, right, drive into the final rounds of 2.007 on Friday night in Johnson Athletic Winston Churchill Scholarship Center. Marsh won seventh place. this year, from a pool of 150 candi- dates nominated by their college or university. “I wanted to do something Robots go for Tic-Tech-Toe completely different,” said Schwartz, who said the program Sarah H. Wright at Cambridge University drew her News Office interest. She believes that scientists and engineers have a social responsibility to help others in the Emily Schwartz Mark Cote’s squeezer-grabber-thingy-bopper ruled world. over Robert Panas’ flipper-upper-doo-hoppy in the final While she has enjoyed her studies in aeronautical and tie-breaking rounds of Tic-Tech-Toe, the robot compe- astronautical engineering and intends to return to them tition for mechanical engineering students in course someday, she is looking forward to the new challenge. “I 2.007, held on Friday, May 13, in the Johnson Athletic am really looking forward to meeting a lot of new people Center. and gaining a different perspective,” said Schwartz. Cote and Panas, the first- and second-place winners, Schwartz earned a 5.0 GPA at MIT and won both her are sophomores in mechanical engineering. To ordi- department achievement award and the junior year proj- nary eyes, their 10-pound machines suggested forklifts ect award with her lab partner. Additionally, she set the and catapults. But 2.007 is a transformative experience. Even language lightens up for it. See SCHOLARS Thus third-place winner Philip Dawson, a sophomore Page 6 in mechanical engineering, used a “gripper-attacker” design, while Sang Nguyen, a junior in mechanical engineering, employed speed and an innovative “windshield wiper of doom” to block his opponents’ blocks. Alexander Slocum, professor of mechanical engineer- ‘Seamless’ show ing and MacVicar Faculty Fellow, emceed the three- hour event, providing free-form commentary on each machine as the competition intensified. wired for success “Repeatability! Infinite cosmic power! This is where physics meets the carpet!” he called out to the students, Sarah H. Wright parents, fans and friends who packed the stands for the News Office annual competition. Many other items met the carpet during the evening, including the hands of students randomly asked to do “Seamless,” a fashion show organized by students, push-ups and the contents of the kit from which all 130 PHOTO / L. BARRY HETHERINGTON inspired by reality television and intended as a chic yet machines were built during the spring term. Slocum lik- provocative collision of bodies, clothing and technology ened the kit to an engineering student’s brain. Mark Cote, winner of this year’s 2.007 robot competi- will erupt at the MIT Media Lab on Friday, May 20, at 8 “We start with real materials, raw materials. We want tion, gets a congratulatory hug from Professor Alexander p.m. to get your brains to dump out all your knowledge and Slocum on Friday night. Seamless styles on view will include an inflatable dress, mix it up,” he announced, piling objects at his feet to a shirt with sensors that provide a massage; resistor-stud- The bins were arranged and painted like Simmons demonstrate what “thinking outside the box” means. ded pajamas; a wearable “human-interest meter”; and a Hall, the award-winning new dorm on Vassar Street. A Tic-Tech-Toe, composed of elimination rounds of 45 skirt that doubles as a “playful exploration of femininity, block in a floor-level bin yielded 10 points; the point- seconds each, required each student, using items from domestication, and the predator/prey relationship,” thanks the kit, to build a machine to gather 8-inch foam-rubber See ROBOTS blocks and place them inside 16 vertically stacked bins See SEAMLESS before frustrating its opponent machine. Page 5 Page 4 NEWS RESEARCH ARTS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FAST TIMES GOING ON TOUR Nobel laureate and Institute Professor emeritus Paul A new technique promises to revolutionize the Two MIT ensembles head abroad to explore their Samuelson turns 90 in style. production of nano-devices, speeding DNA analysis. musical roots. Page 2 Page 5 Page 7

LEVITAN MOURNED PICTURE PERFECT BEAUTIFUL MUSIC James A. Levitan, Life Member emeritus of the MIT Finding beauty in preparing and photographing tiny Harpsichordist wins top honors in the Prague Spring Corporation, was 80. slivers of roundworms. International Music Competition. Page 6 Page 5 Page 7 PAGE 2 May 18, 2005 NEWS MIT Tech Talk

DIGITALK: WHERE IT’S AT Balance aid wins $50K SAP update slated For the fourth year in a row, a medical device company Main Street Partners, a venture development and technol- An SAP Production system has won the Robert P. Goldberg Grand Prize in the MIT ogy commercialization firm. “Now, as the new chairman update is scheduled to take $50K Entrepreneurship Competition held Monday, May 9, of the MIT Enterprise Forum Global organization, I am place starting at 6 p.m. on at MIT. Balico, which has designed a wearable balance aid working to translate the lessons learned from the $50K Friday, May 20, and end- that will benefit aging adults and individuals whose prima- and its MIT entrepreneurial ecosystem to help the 23 MIT ing by 6 a.m. on Mon- ry sensing systems are affected by disease, was awarded Enterprise Forums in the U.S. and the around the world to day, May 23. SAP, ECAT $30,000 in startup money. grow and enhance their own unique entrepreneurial eco- and all SAPweb activi- First runner-up was Nanocell Power, whose patented systems to enable innovation and entrepreneurship—this ty—including employee technology will enable the viability of fuel cells for por- is the important and lasting legacy of the $50K.” self-service, requisition- table electronics. Vacuum Excavation Technology, which Each finalist team presented its plan at the final awards ing, journal vouchers, has created a new, patented excavation device, was named ceremony in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. Newly inaugu- credit card verification second runner-up. Each runner-up team received $10,000. rated MIT President Susan Hockfield offered opening and work orders–will be The oldest and best known among university business remarks. The keynote speaker was David Edwards, the inaccessible during this plan competitions, the MIT $50K has launched more than scientific founder of Advanced Inhalation Research, and period. The Data Warehouse 80 companies from teams that have competed. These com- co-founder of AIR/Alkermes, Pulmatrix and MEND. The will be available with data cur- panies—which include Akamai Technologies and others event reached a global audience through a live Internet rent as of the close of business on Thursday, May 19. acquired by Microsoft, Motorola and Broadcom—have, in broadcast. For details, visit web.mit.edu/ist/news/headlines/ turn, employed more than 1,600 people and have a valua- “The MIT $50K’s value is in the learning how to sapupdate.html. tion of over $4 billion. become an entrepreneur,” said Lawrence Walmsley, a co- Seven finalists were chosen from 86 entrants with 250 lead organizer and student at MIT Sloan. “Participants Recommended systems team members participating. Judges, including noted ven- take a new business idea, build a team around it, formu- Members of IS&T have been working with MIT’s ture capitalists, entrepreneurs and patent lawyers, selected late a strategic mission, and develop and articulate it into preferred hardware vendors—Apple, Dell, Hewlett- the winning teams based on their potential of becoming a business plan. With mentoring available through the Packard and IBM/Lenovo—to identify recommended leading firms. This year’s other finalists were HealRight, $50K, they hone their pitching skills and have an opportu- systems for administrative and general computing on Previva Inc., Renal Diagnostics and TissueVision. nity to present to industry specialists, which often results campus. IS&T has set minimum thresholds to help “As a founding judge of the $50K, I have witnessed in the launch of a real business.” Along with the winners, you in deciding when to retire existing systems and to firsthand the development of a powerful entrepreneurial the majority of the finalists and other entrants report that provide guidance on new purchases. Computing Help ecosystem,” said Joe Hadzima, a senior lecturer at MIT they are planning to launch businesses built around their Desk staff are also available to assist you. For pre- Sloan School of Management and managing director of business plans. sales advice, stop by the Service Center in N42 during business hours to look at demo systems, send mail to [email protected], or call 253-1101. For more information, visit web.mit.edu/ist/topics/hardware/. E-mail warning An e-mail now making the rounds urges wireless customers to sign up their cell phones in the National Do Not Call Registry to avoid calls from telemarketers. According to MIT’s carriers (Verizon Wireless, Nextel, Cingular, T-mobile and Sprint), this e-mail is misleading. No vendor sells or gives phone numbers to telemarketers, or provides any information to the national Wireless 411 directory unless the customer asks to be included. Further, customers who request to be included in the Wireless 411 directory would only have their phone number made available to people who call Wireless 411 and request their listing. The database will not be sold to third parties, and there are no plans for a printed directory. Even if your cell phone number is not in the Wire- less 411 directory, auto-dialers (the automatic dialing systems often used by telephone solicitors) may still randomly dial it. You may want to wait until you actually get telemarketing calls before adding your cell phone number to the Do Not Call Registry at www. donotcall.gov/. New web service IS&T has launched a service that enables web publishers to include Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds in web pages hosted on web.mit.edu. It provides an easy way for MIT web publishers to add PHOTO / L. BARRY HETHERINGTON news to their pages that updates dynamically. Samuelson celebrates 90th The RSS service lets web publishers designate a news feed and configure various display options via Friends and former students gathered to honor econ- Panel discussions explored Samuelson’s favorite topics, a web form. The RSS output can be customized to omist Paul A. Samuelson, Institute Professor emeritus including “The Stock Market: Micro Efficient, Macro blend in with the look and feel of a web site. and 1970 Nobel laureate, on his 90th birthday May 15 at Inefficient,” “What Should Be Done About the U.S. To learn more about RSS, attend a free IS&T Boston’s Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel. Current Account Deficit?” and “Have Macroeconomic Quick Start class. The next sessions on RSS will be The occasion was marked with a conference on eco- Research and Policy Drifted Too Far Apart?” held on May 19 and June 16 from noon to 1 p.m. in nomics and a formal dinner. The author of Economics, a Hundreds attended the daylong event, where Samuel- the N42 Demo Center. For more information, visit textbook published in 1948 that has been translated into son was hailed as a teacher, author and leader in his field. web.mit.edu/ist/news/spotlight/archive/rss.html. 40 languages, Samuelson came to MIT in 1940. Fellow MIT professor and 1987 Nobel laureate Robert M. “Samuelsonian Economics and the 21st Century” Solow gave the main address. James Poterba, associate Digitalk is compiled by Information Services and presented the depth and impact of Samuelson’s work. chair of the Economics Department, served as emcee. Technology.

Clean energy competition rewards teams for best investor pitches Linda Plano April 27. The competition is designed to their pitches as well as introduce them to time of the presentation competition. Laboratory for Energy and the Environment reward the best investor pitches, i.e., the investors, fellow entrepreneurs, service The winning team out of an original 10-minute spiel every startup company providers and other energy industry pro- field of 35 was Microbial Scale Solutions, needs to master in order to obtain venture viders in Massachusetts. which has developed bacteria that dissolve Old water pipes and bacteria ruled the capital or angel funding. Relatively few Teams could be formed of Massachu- away the scale that builds up an insulating day at the $125,000 Igniting Massachusetts’ first-time entrepreneurs are able to give setts residents or students (teams from layer inside hot water pipes. a in wasted Clean Energy Technology Future Business high-quality pitches, so the competition several schools participated), but they energy each year. The team won prizes Presentation Competition held at MIT on was geared toward helping teams develop could not be funded by investors at the worth $35,000.

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Roger Donaghy MIT Tech Talk NEWS May 18, 2005 PAGE 3 Class plans fact-finding trip to Mozambique Sasha Brown within the culture, Davis said. “We have tation, hygiene and health by inviting com- sources. News Office to think about options outside our community members—many of whom cannot Davis said that the students’ dedica- fort zone,” she said. “Of course every- read—to draw pictures about recent ill- tion and hard work has far exceeded her one aspires to having a water supply and nesses. A facilitator would ask what people expectations. “They are just amazing,” she Many people in Mozambique lack sewer connection in the home, but for believe caused the illnesses and, through said. “Every one of them has been work- access to clean water and basic sanitation, many households in Maputo [the capital the drawings, assess whether community ing incredibly hard to make this project but a group of MIT students is working of Mozambique] this won’t happen in the members understand the link between a success.” In fact, Davis has been so hard to change all that. foreseeable future. Our challenge is to hand washing and health, for example. impressed by the students’ dedication that Department of Urban Studies and Plan- identify other types of service that will still This sort of exercise will have a dou- she decided to run a half-marathon in Cali- ning Assistant Professor Jennifer Davis represent a vast improvement for house- ble effect, educating both the community fornia in late April in order to raise money and a team of 10 MIT planning and engi- holds that rely on crowded public taps, or about sanitation and the MIT students and for the project, which is still several thou- neering graduate students are going to that have no sanitation option other than their partners about community beliefs sand dollars short of its projected costs. Mozambique this summer to try to assess open defecation.” and perceptions, which will be important Davis hopes that this year’s efforts are what communities there need most. Work- The team is embracing this challenge to future discussions. only the beginning. “One month of field- ing with a Mozambican nonprofit called through a series of participatory assess- Students have taken intensive Por- work really is too little when we are try- Estamos-Organizacao Comunitaria and ment and planning exercises that Davis’ tuguese in order to reduce the language ing to do so much,” she explained. She with the London-based international non- students designed during her full-credit barrier during their four-week trip to hopes that the work will continue and governmental organization WaterAid, the project course this semester. Mozambique. Students will assess water that MIT and Estamos/WaterAid will be group hopes to help low-income communi- One exercise developed in class could supply, sanitation and hand washing facil- able to form a long-term partnership. “We ties plan improvements. be used to assess the community under- ities. They will also test water quality of would like to follow up and build on what The idea is to find solutions that work standing of the links between water, sani- both household taps and community water we learn this year,” she said. Freshmen exhibit Galapagos lessons Sarah H. Wright archipelago’s life from the days of pirates News Office through Darwin’s visit to the present; and a giant interactive sea cucumber, which you really have to see for yourself. A cluster of interactive exhibits on the The exhibit will be open 10 a.m. to 6 ecology, history and cultural life of the p.m. until May 24. Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecua- A second event related to this year’s dor, has transformed the lobby of Building Terrascope trip to the islands Darwin 13 into a vivid portrait of the land Charles made famous was the first-ever broad- Darwin never forgot. cast of a radio program written and pro- Designed and developed by freshmen duced entirely by freshmen. The students in the Terrascope course called Commu- recorded ambient sounds and interviews nicating Complex Environmental issues: on location in the Galapagos. The program Designing and Building Interactive Exhib- in Comparative Media Studies (CMS) col- its (1.016), the interactive exhibits collec- laborated on the development of the sub- tively offer visitors a sense of immersion in ject, Terrascope Radio (SP 360), which led the students’ March trip to the Galapagos, to the radio documentary. a part of their yearlong project developing Marino, one of four students who par- a conservation strategy for the islands. ticipated in the radio subject, came home Freshman Garrett Marino described with sound clips from a “close encounter the students’ trip to the Galapagos as with a sea lion,” he said. Listen for the an “amazing and rewarding experience grunts. because we were able to see the place that The 20-minute radio program on the has been the focus of our studies since Galapagos aired on Wednesday, May 11, September, to speak to scientists from the on WMBR-FM. There is an mp3 of the Charles Darwin Research Station and see program now on the Terrascope main site: the absolute beauty of [places like] Tor- web.mit.edu/terrascope/www. tuga Bay.” Terrascope faculty include Rafael Bras, Individual exhibits in Lobby 13 include the Edward A. Abdun-Nur Professor in the

PHOTO / DONNA COVENEY a simulated lava tunnel, appropriately dark, Schools of Engineering and Science; Kip twisty and suggestive of volcanic power; a Hodges, professor of earth, atmospheric Freshman Lissa Riley, who traveled to the Galapagos Islands as part of the Terrascope pro- try-it-on model of a giant tortoise shell; a and planetary sciences; and Ari Epstein, gram, works on a knot displayed in the lobby of Building 13. The tangled ropes symbolize wooden playground slide that illustrates lecturer, Earth Systems Initiative. Terra- the interdependent and complex needs of the stakeholders in the Galapagos: residents, precipitous species population decline; scope is a component of the Earth System tourists, the government and the ecosystem. an artistic and thorough timeline of the Initiative. Students tackle flooding in Honduras Sarah H. Wright Centro’s director, Gines Suarez, “affirms that it really News Office is possible to put big ideas into action, but he shows that humility, patience and good listening skills are essential. His work educates and empowers people all over their Eight MIT students—five graduate students and three region,” Bethke said. undergraduates—spent spring break 2005 in Tocoa, Hon- “It was really interesting to try to figure out how our duras, working on an automated flood early warning sys- MIT-based technological knowledge could work with the tem and visiting towns that had been badly damaged by Centro’s efforts in a useful and productive and sustainable flash flooding in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in October way,” said Van Ark. 1998. Once it is installed, the early warning system, or SAT, The group tested software and radio equipment and for Sistema de Alerta Temprana, will consist of five major installed a river level sensor in the Aguan River in north- subsystems: 1) upstream river level sensors, 2) a radio eastern Honduras. They went as part of the MIT Flood- communication system to transmit river data, 3) a cen- Safe Honduras project, a student-led, mainly volunteer tral processing center to crunch the numbers and predict effort sponsored by the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at flooding based on aggregate river data, 4) alert receiving MIT and the Edgerton Center. stations in downstream communities and 5) power sys- Centro Tecnico San Alonso Rodriguez, a nonprofit tech- tems for everything. nology and education center in Tocoa, hosted graduate The FloodSafe mechanism for warning people is then: students Alex Bahr, ocean engineering; Elizabeth Basha, A) river level sensors measure the height of the river, B) electrical engineering and computer science (EECS); Kris- a mathematical model at the central processing center ten Bethke, aeronautics and astronautics; Karla Solheim, determines when the flood danger threshold has been urban studies and planning; and Emily Van Ark, marine crossed, C) an automatic radio signal is sent to a commu- geology and geophysics. The MIT undergraduates were nity’s emergency committee and D) the committee warns Kathleen Connolly, a senior in EECS; Nina DeBenedictis, its community by sounding an alarm. a junior in chemical engineering; and Edgar Terrero, a Work on the FloodSafe early warning system began senior in EECS. as part of the 2003-2004 D-lab class taught by Amy Smith For Bethke, the “greatest part was witnessing and (1984, S.M. 1995), instructor in the Edgerton Center and being inspired by the transformational grass-roots work 2004 MacArthur Fellow. PHOTO / ALEX BAHR (G) of the Centro Tecnico. They educate Hondurans about The FloodSafe trip was funded by MIT IDEAS, the Pub- natural resource management, building houses with local lic Service Center, the Carroll Wilson award, and Thrivent MIT senior Edgar Terrero helps Pilo of Centro Tecnico in materials, community organization and water sanitation,” Financial Services for Lutherans. Honduras hold up a directional antenna for a test of the she said. For more information, visit web.mit.edu/lem/honduras. radio component of a flood early warning system. PAGE 4 May 18, 2005 NEWS MIT Tech Talk Disco’s staying alive on E. Campus Sasha Brown affectionately known as “the disco guys,” had created a News Office high-tech dance floor on which even Tony Manero would do the hustle. Total construction time? About three weeks. With the lights out, the floor looks alive, swirling and Saturday night fever runs high all week long at MIT’s pulsating to the beat of the music. Dancers can enjoy a East Campus dormitory, thanks to the 128-square-foot psychedelic 4,100 color possibilities. The floor is USB con- dance floor students built in the lounge. trolled and operated through a plug-in for the music player Made of wooden planks covered by a sheet of quarter- XMMS, Elliott said. “In the near future, we hope to have it inch clear plastic, the raised 50-person disco floor features run through parties by itself. For now, one of us sits next more than 500 computer-controlled light-up tiles. to the floor with a laptop. We have a large set of anima- Inspired by the annual East Campus-sponsored Bad tions we can play back, as well as a few music-generated Ideas Competition, students came up with the idea for the patterns,” he said. floor at the beginning of the school year. The competition And the floor can be used for more than dancing, Tor- culminates in a Bad Ideas Ball, held in January, which this borg said. With touch-sensor capability, the floor can also year featured a disco theme. act as a giant playing board for games like Dance Dance “What is a worse idea than disco?” asked junior physics Revolution (an interactive video game in which lighted major Grant Elliott, one of the floor’s creators. floor tiles indicate dance moves to the players), Twister Elliott, Schuyler Senft-Grupp, Scott Torborg and Mike and Tetris. Anderson wanted to build a disco floor for the ball that “The floor can pretty much do anything we want,” said could be controlled by computer, offering more variety of Elliott. PHOTO COURTESY / THE ARTISTS color mixes than a standard disco floor made using light There is no current plan to move the floor from East bulbs and colored gels. Campus, but the group has received calls from a few peo- Now on view in the stairwell of the Student Street at Constructing the floor from scratch proved no small ple who want help constructing their own. The floor is the Stata Center, ‘The Kiss’ won MIT’s Student Mural feat. All of the wiring and coding had to be done both inex- such an attraction, it has its own web site: http://web.mit. Competition. Jessica Banks and Daniel Paluska, both pensively and efficiently. Anderson spent countless hours edu/storborg/ddf/. MIT graduate students, created the artwork using ‘a hand-soldering thousands of tiny connections to secure The floor may be popular, but none of the “disco guys” robotic portrait artist that paints with light.’ the wiring. And the wooden frame needed to be built. are in any hurry to bring the ’70s dance craze back. “We Many in the dorm pitched in to see the project through. would all feel pretty guilty if we were responsible for a Several sleepless nights and $2,500 later, the core group, disco revival,” Torborg said. Robot-made ‘Kiss’ wins mural contest Sarah H. Wright News Office

A portrait that explores the ability of a robot arm and a computer to create art was selected the winner of MIT’s second annual Student Mural Competition. “The Kiss” was created by Jessica Banks, a graduate student in CSAIL, and Daniel Paluska, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, using a robotic camera that they designed with CSAIL researcher Jonathon Bachrach. Unveiled May 3, “The Kiss” is now on view in the stairwell off the Student Street in the Stata Center. “This new mural really speaks to the combination of arts and technology,” said Michèle Oshima, director of student and artist-in-residence programs. The artists, who refer to themselves collectively as “contributors,” describe “The Kiss” as a “self-portrait that demonstrates some of the subtleties of the Fotron2000, a photo booth housing a robotic portrait artist that paints with light.” They explain their portraiture processthis way: “The robot shoulder and elbow inside the booth holds LEDS in its ‘hand.’ The arm sits about three feet away from a Polaroid camera that was modified so its shut- ter can remain open for an arbitrary amount of time. When the robot ‘draws’ in the air in front of the camera, light traces are recorded on the long-exposure film. This gives a sense of motion reminiscent of classic time-lapse nighttime highway photography.” The team created Fotron2000 because the robot provided them with “capabilities beyond our own, allowing us to create in ways not possible without technological assistance,” they said. The 2004-2005 Student Mural Competition was sponsored by the MIT Office of the Arts. Judges were selected from each of the following departments: CSAIL, LIDS, linguistics and philosophy, and the PHOTO / SCOTT JOHNSTON Writing and Communications Center. There were 10 entrants this year. More than 500 lighted tiles give the floor of MIT’s East Campus lounge its disco groove. Controlled by computer, the stu- The Polaroid photograph was created with the dent-built dance floor is capable of an eye-popping 4,100 color combinations. Fotron2000 in 2004. Task force sends SEAMLESS Continued from Page 1 as well as social space, Liu said. In out medical survey contrast to the Media Lab’s 1997 to attached mechanical cat toys. Wearables fashion show, which was The Task Force on Medical Care for the MIT Media Lab graduate student “all about augmentation of the self, Community has released a web-based survey for all Christine Liu and Nick Knouf orga- this collection is more socially based, employees. Community members are asked to con- nized Seamless, a.k.a. Computational and the styles have more social impli- vey their thoughts on medical care and medical insur- Couture, with help from the MIT cations,” Liu said. ance via the voluntary, confidential survey. Council of the Arts and the MIT “Some fashions are designed to Created last fall by then-President Charles M. Vest, Media Lab. cause people to examine the discon- the task force was asked to “review and articulate “We were partly inspired by ‘Proj- nect that many feel in the electroni- the appropriate goals for MIT’s programs to provide ect Runway,’ the show on Bravo in cally augmented society,” Knouf said. health care and health insurance to our undergradu- which designers compete to create Clothing will be shown on run- ate and graduate students, employees and retirees in a collection and meet a deadline. way models. Some Seamless proj- terms of access to care, quality of care and the costs We also wanted to give students an ects will be displayed as artwork. of providing care.” The task force has been reviewing opportunity to be creative, a place to Chris Csikszentmihalyi, the Ben- and assessing how well current arrangements are showcase and experiment with their esse Career Development Professor achieving these goals. ideas,” Liu said. of the Research in Education at the Professor Paul L. Joskow, the Elizabeth and James The 18 designers were recruited Media Lab, will serve as master of Killian Professor of Economics and Management, through word of mouth and include ceremonies. chairs the task force, which includes faculty, students students from MIT, Harvard, Rhode Lars Blackmore, DJ, MIT Dance and administrators. Island School of Design in Providence Mix Coalition, will provide the eve- The survey authentication requires a current MIT and Parsons School of Design in New ning’s mash-up music, and Alex certificate. Responses will be treated as confidential, York City. The entire effort was “com- French, E33 Productions, will pro- PHOTO / AMANDA PARKES and data will be reported in summary format only. pletely grass roots,” said Liu. vide lighting. Models are from John These bellow-heeled boots by graduate For more information, visit web.mit.edu/commit- Liu and Knouf view the Seamless Casablancas and Ariana Paoletti and student Amanda Parkes are designed to tees/medical/ or e-mail [email protected]. show as a comment on personal chic friends. pump out air as you walk. MIT Tech Talk RESEARCH May 18, 2005 PAGE 5 New technique may speed DNA analysis Lauren Clark allows for, say, the early diagnosis of liver cancer, or the School of Engineering prediction of the chances that a couple will produce a child with a genetic disease. Frequent, widespread use of these devices is hindered Just as the printing press revolutionized the creation by the fact that producing them is a painstaking process of reading matter, a “nano-printing” technique developed that involves at least 400 printing steps and costs approxi- at MIT could enable the mass production of nano-devices mately $500 per microarray. currently built one at a time. MIT’s nano-printing method requires only three steps The most immediate candidate for this innovation is and could reduce the cost of each microarray to under $50. the DNA microarray, a nano-device used to diagnose and “This would completely revolutionize diagnostics,” said understand genetic illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, viral ill- Stellacci. With the ability to mass produce these devices nesses such as AIDS, and certain types of cancer. The abil- and thus make DNA analysis routine, “we could know ity to mass produce these complex devices would make years in advance of cancer, hepatitis, or Alzheimer’s.” DNA analysis as common and inexpensive as blood test- Another benefit would be large-scale diagnostics that ing, and thus greatly accelerate efforts to discover the could provide useful information about disease. Take dia- origins of disease. betes. “We don’t know if it’s genetic. The only way to find IMAGE COURTESY / FRANCESCO STELLACCI AND ARUM AMY YU The demand for ever-shrinking devices of ever-increas- out is to test a lot of people,” said Stellacci. “The more we ing complexity in areas from biomedicine to information These DNA dots, each only about 200 nanometers in diam- test with microarrays, the more we know about illnesses, technology has spurred several research efforts toward eter, were printed using a new ‘nano-printing’ technique and the more we can detect them.” high-resolution, high-throughput nano-printing tech- developed at MIT. SuNS has applications beyond DNA microarrays. Mate- niques. Professor Francesco Stellacci and graduate stu- rials both organic and inorganic (metal nanoparticles, for dent Arum Amy Yu, both in the Department of Materi- duplicates are identical to the master and can thus be used example) can be made to assemble along a pattern com- als Science and Engineering, have developed a printing as masters themselves. This increases print output expo- posed of DNA strands. This makes SuNS a versatile tech- method that is unmatched in both information content nentially while enabling the reproduction of very complex nology that could be used to produce other complex nano- per printing cycle and resolution. They achieved the latter nano-scale patterns. devices currently manufactured slowly and expensively: using what Yu calls “nature’s most efficient printing tech- One such pattern is found on a DNA microarray, a micro- and nano-fluidics channels, single-electron transis- nique: the DNA/RNA information transfer.” silicon or glass chip printed with up to 500,000 tiny dots. tors, optical biosensors and metallic wires, to name a few. In the new printing method, called Supramolecular Each dot comprises multiple DNA molecules of known Stellacci recently received renewed funding from the Nano-Stamping (SuNS), single strands of DNA essential- sequence, i.e. a piece of an individual’s genetic code. Sci- Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation to contin- ly self-assemble upon a surface to duplicate a nano-scale entists use DNA microarrays to discover and analyze ue work on SuNS. The work is also funded by the National pattern made of their complementary DNA strands. The a person’s DNA or messenger-RNA genetic code. This Science Foundation. Finding beauty in the roundworm Richard Saltus HHMI Bulletin

Can the insides of a tiny blind worm that lives in rotting vegetation and carrion be beautiful? In the hands of Erika Hartwieg, who “paints” with an electron microscope on black-and-white film, the anatomy of the roundworm does indeed yield a finely detailed, luminous image with an appeal beyond the purely scientific. Hang one of her photographs on a wall, and it could pass for abstract art. Hartwieg prepares and studies unimag- inably thin slices of Caenorhabditis elegans, the workhorse worm of geneticists, in the laboratory of Professor H. Robert Horvitz at MIT. Horvitz, an HHMI investi- gator, received the Nobel Prize in physiol- ogy or medicine in 2002 for discovering genes in C. elegans that control apopto- sis—naturally occurring, or programmed, cell death. “Erika is indispensable,” says Horvitz. PHOTO COURTESY / HHMI BULLETIN “Few people in the world can match her ability at serial-section electron microsco- At MIT, Erika Hartwieg prepares images of roundworms for biology Professor H. Robert Horvitz. Outside the lab, Hartwieg applies her py.” Serial-section refers to making a series artistry to etchings and pottery. of thin cross-sections, each of which must be kept intact and unwrinkled to form an lab, the EM seems almost passé beside imen’s preparation takes four or five days, bons of sections steady on a water surface unbroken chain of slices. newer glamour technologies—gene micro- working on five worms at a time. The aver- for placement in a tiny copper grid. Then When Hartwieg photographs these arrays and high-throughput sequencing age adult worm is 1 millimeter long, and she washes the grid in succession with worm sections with the electron micro- machines—but electron microscopy is still lining up five of them in parallel within a three types of stains, each containing dif- scope (EM), they appear as highly magni- a key player in research that probes the drop of quick-jelling agar “is the most different heavy metals that interact directly fied ovals filled with cells and organelles, fundamentals of animal development and ficult step of all,” she says. with the beam of electrons in the EM, membranes and cytoplasm, voids and behavior. After infusing the agar with a plastic resulting in scattering of the electrons with channels and fibers. The textures range For example, a mutation may result resin to create a hard block, Hartwieg different energies, which form the image from lumpy to faintly stippled, the tones in a worm that can’t wiggle in its usual S- uses a microtome to cut a portion of each on the fluorescent screen. from darkest black to the most feathery shaped pattern. Searching for the respon- worm into cross-sections, which she lik- Hartwieg also makes longitudinal of grays. sible anatomical defect within the nerve ens to “pieces of salami.” But these worm slices: The finished photographs can be For the past 14 years, she has been the and muscle cells requires powerful mag- cold cuts are sliced by the microtome’s assembled in a mosaic to create a table- electron microscopist in the Horvitz lab. nification. Hartwieg can locate a particular diamond knife to a thickness of only 50 top-sized portrait of, say, the worm’s nose. After earning a master’s degree in biologi- cell of interest, enabling the scientists to nanometers, as much as 2,000 times thin- Reprinted with permission. A longer ver- cal research, she “fell into electron micros- precisely characterize the mutation-caused ner than the width of a human hair. sion of this article first appeared in the win- copy in the 1960s when it was the new abnormality. Hartwieg uses a small tool tipped with ter 2005 issue of the Howard Hughes Medi- thing,” says Hartwieg. In today’s biology Hartwieg says the process of the spec- an eyelash (of her own) to hold the rib- cal Institute Bulletin. ROBOTS Continued from Page 1 value rose with the bins’ “floor” in the airspace option” and built a double-block- tants wore suits over their street gear this mores in mechanical engineering. grid, and also if a block’s single “X” or “O” er-fighting machine whose motors lived year, and two women wore intricate bal- The top five winners of Tic-Tech-Toe marking was visible to the audience. Clear purely for “raw pushing power and speed. loon hats. MIT President Susan Hockfield will go to the International Design Contest four-story bins at either side of the grid— Overall, the night was a blast,” he said. and her husband, Thomas Byrne, took it (IDC), held this year in Japan. The IDC is worth 80 points each—lured major forklift- Graduate student judges and under- all in wearing Hawaiian print shirts and like 2.007, only the teams are composed of and-drop action. graduate teaching assistants kept careful baseball caps. students from different countries, which Fifth-place winner Derrick Tan, a junior track of scoring and general machine con- Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-place win- means drawings and physics, rather than in electrical engineering and computer duct. ners were, respectively, Mark Eagan, Jesse words, are used to communicate machine science, ignored the four-story “infinite On a fashion note, several male contes- Marsh and William Etheridge, all sopho- design. PAGE 6 May 18, 2005 PEOPLE MIT Tech Talk

James Levitan, of Corporation, dies at 80 AWARDS & HONORS Sarah H. Wright for Humanities; Earth, Atmospheric and believed all work—and life itself—required News Office Planetary Sciences, and Nuclear Engineer- the same commitment and patience as Tim Berners-Lee, senior ing. He was a member of the Investment nurturing a garden, he told Soundings in research scientist in the Computer Committee from 1997-2000 and served on 1998. “There’s a great satisfaction in com- Science and Artificial Intelligence James A. Levitan, Life Member Emeri- the Corporation Development Committee pleting a hard job, whether the problem is lab was honored along with four tus of the MIT Corporation, loyal alumnus from 1988 to 1994. solving a complicated tax problem or pre- other renowned achievers for life- and tax attorney whose many contribu- “Jim Levitan was a wonderful supporter paring the rocky Connecticut soil for new time achievement. The inventor of tions to MIT include the Levitan Prize in of the humanities at hybrid rhododendrons,” he said. the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee the Humanities for innovative scholar- MIT. He endowed Levitan, who received the S.B. degree received the 2005 Common Wealth ship by junior faculty, died after suffering our most important in chemical engineering from MIT, is asso- Award for Mass Communications at a heart attack on May 14 in Bridgeport, prize, the Ruth and ciated with the Class of 1945; like many an April 23 gala in Delaware along Conn. He was 80. James Levitan Prize of his generation, his education was inter- with former Secretary of State Colin “Jim was a giant among men—in physi- in the Humanities, rupted by military service. He completed Powell, who received the award cal stature as well as in generosity of spirit, which we award his degree in 1948, after serving two years for government; playwright David kindness and wisdom. We benefited great- annually. He under- in the U.S. Navy (1944-1946). Mamet, honored for dramatic arts; ly from his untiring attention to the Insti- stood our culture and He earned the L.L.B. degree from novelist Amy Tan, honored for lit- tute’s well-being. Jim was a devoted and supported it in every Columbia Law School in 1951, the same erature; and Kip Thorne, researcher trusted citizen of MIT. His absence will be sense,” said Philip year he married Ruth White. He worked of black holes, who was honored for sorely felt by the many friends and col- Khoury, Kenan for the firm of Debevoise, Plimpton until science and invention. The honorees leagues who were lucky enough to work Sahin Dean of the 1965 and became tax partner and later, each received a share of $250,000 and interact with him,” said Dana Mead, James A. Levitan School of Humani- head of the Tax Department at Skadden, in prize money from the Common chairman of the Corporation. ties, Arts, and Social Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. Wealth Trust. Levitan was elected to the Corpora- Sciences and professor of history. He is survived by his wife, their three tion in 1990 and became a Life Member In 1988 he received the George B. daughters, Deborah, Judith, and Susan, Michael Stonebraker, adjunct in 1995. He served on the Corporation’s Morgan Award for sustained excellence and seven grandchildren. professor of electrical engineering Auditing Committee from 1991 to 2000, in Educational Council Activities, and in A memorial service will be held on and computer science, has been cho- chairing it from 1994 to 1999. He also 1991, he received the Bronze Beaver, the Friday, May 20, at Leo Gallagher & Sons sen to receive the 2005 IEEE John chaired the Ocean Engineering Visiting highest award bestowed by the Alumni Funeral Home, 2900 Summer St., Stam- von Neumann Medal “for contribu- Committee from 1992 to 1999 and served Association for distinguished service. ford, Conn. A reception will follow. For tions to the design, implementation for many years on the visiting committees A lifelong horticulturist, Levitan more information, please call 203-327-1313. and commercialization of relational and object-relational database systems.” The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers will present SCHOLARS the award at a ceremony in Virginia Continued from Page 1 on June 18. The award recognizes outstanding achievements in comput- MIT record in the high jump and won the Coach Award for her er-related science and technology. success in track and field. The Churchill Scholarships were started in 1959 to honor the Ann Graybiel, a principal inves- memory of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The tigator at the McGovern Institute award brings exceptional young American students to his name- and Walter A. Rosenblith Professor sake college at Cambridge University to pursue graduate studies for Neuroscience at MIT, is receiving in engineering, mathematics or the sciences. the 2005 Ibsen Neuronal Plasticity U.S. Fulbright Fellows Edward Cunningham Janine Waliszewski Daniel Stein prize for “outstanding work...in the domain of Motivation and Associative Fulbright fellowships were established in 1946 to increase during a normal commuting period (two hours). “Unlike the U.S., Learning.” Awarded by the French mutual understanding between people of the United States and all the poor people live in the suburbs and the normal or rich Fondation IPSEN pour la Recherché other countries. Three MIT students have been awarded fellow- people live closer to downtown,” said Waliszewski. “So if you live Therapeutique, the prize recognizes ships for the academic year 2005-2006. in the suburbs and don’t have a car, you have to make multiple researchers who shed light on the Edward Cunningham, a third-year Ph.D. student in political transfers on your trip to work downtown.” brain’s plasticity, which refers to its science, is also a research fellow at the MIT Industrial Perfor- Waliszewski received her B.S. from the University of California, physical remodeling in response to mance Center and at Harvard’s Asia Pacific Policy Program. Dur- Berkeley, in industrial engineering and operations research. She experiences, learning, and behavior. ing his Fulbright year, he will be a visiting scholar at Tsinghua spent five months in a Nepali village teaching English to grades Graybiel will share the 40,000 euro University’s School of Public Policy and Management studying 1 to 8. And she has competed in the Chicago, New York City and prize (approximately $50,500) with China’s energy challenge. San Francisco marathons. Trevor Robbins and Wolfram Schultz, “The global importance of China’s ability to negotiate success- Daniel Stein, a senior with a double major in music and elec- both at the University of Cambridge, fully national energy demands is considerable,” said Cunningham. trical engineering and computer science, will study in Switzerland United Kingdom. “Within 15 years, China will likely account for two-thirds of global at the Conservatoire de Genève with Jacques Zoon, former prin- coal consumption, one-tenth of global oil consumption, one-sev- cipal flutist with the Boston Symphony and the Concertgebouw enth of global electric power consumption, and, more importantly, Orchestra in Amsterdam. one-fifth of total global carbon emissions.” “At this stage in my playing, I want to develop a personal artis- Cunningham majored in Chinese at Georgetown University tic style, and Mr. Zoon is the person to help me do that,” said and earned the master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Har- Stein. “I admired his playing for years during the four summers AAAS elects Guttag vard. He wrote a chapter for the first “Let’s Go” travel book for I spent at Tanglewood while I was in high school. You aren’t even In a story last week about MIT profes- China and has worked in Beijing for The Economist. He is fluent aware that he is playing an instrument, only of the music that he sors elected to the American Academy of in Mandarin. creates.” Stein said he hopes to study at a music conservatory Arts and Sciences, the name of John Gut- Janine Waliszewski, a graduate student who studies transpor- when he returns to the United States and to become a professional tag was inadvertently omitted. tation in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, performer. He is president of the MIT Symphony Orchestra, plays Guttag, a professor in the Department will study the use in Sao Paolo, Brazil, of an integrated fare card in MIT’s Chamber Music Society, and has won the MITSO Con- of Electrical Engi- that allows riders unlimited transfers between buses and subways certo Competition and a Burchard Scholarship. neering and Com- puter Science, was among five MIT faculty members 10 journalists are named Knight Fellows elected to the academy. The Knight Science Journalism Fel- The new Knight Fellows are: the Toronto Star. Fellows are lowship program at MIT has selected its • Piotr Cieslinski, science editor of • Michael Stroh, science reporter at selected through a 23rd class of Knight Fellows, a group of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s largest daily The Baltimore Sun. highly competitive six American journalists plus one each newspaper. • Luke Timmerman, biotechnology process that rec- from Australia, Canada, China and Poland. • Mary Engel, editorial writer for the reporter at The Seattle Times. ognizes individu- The 10 will study science and technology Los Angeles Times. • Corinna Wu, producer at “Science als who have made at MIT for one academic year starting in • Joseph McMaster, producer at Update,” a syndicated radio program in preeminent contri- John Guttag September. “Nova,” WGBH-TV, Boston. Washington, D.C. butions to their dis- The Knight Fellowship is a mid-career • Natasha Mitchell, presenter and • Rebecca Zacks, senior editor at Tech- ciplines and to society at large. They are program for working journalists who spe- producer for the Australian Broadcasting nology Review, Cambridge, Mass. nominated and elected to the academy by cialize in science, technology, medicine or Corp., Sydney. • Yan Zhao, science editor at Science current members. The academy elected the environment. • Rachel Ross, technology reporter at Times, a weekly newspaper in Beijing. 196 new members this year. CLASSIFIED ADS

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“their love and expertise of science.” Ram- PHOTO / ED PLATT the promised land, for me,” he said. bax members are organizing a “poster MIT resident artist and master Senegalese drummer Lamine Touré will help lead 11 mem- Woolsey added that he thinks the tour session” in which they’ll present their sci- bers of the musical group Rambax on a study tour of Senegal starting May 23. He is shown will also inspire their audiences in Bali. entific interests to students at the Univer- playing with Rambax, which performs Senegalese music. “They’ll get to see how serious people out- sity Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar. “We hope side of their community are about Balinese the trip will bridge the gap in our musical about the trip as well. “I’m excited to have and commercial activities. music, and how their culture and arts have understanding as well as help bridge a cul- this opportunity to experience the culture “I’ve always had it in my mind to bring brought so much joy to the lives of people tural gap,” said Tang. that bears such an intense form of music Galak Tika to Bali,” said the group’s direc- living half a world away,” he said. “We will The group will live in a rented house in and expression,” said Sasha Devore, grad- tor, Evan Ziporyn, who founded Galak get to play our style of Balinese music and Dakar, arranged by Touré and his family, uate student in the Whitaker College of Tika in 1993 and was once a member of share our music with people that have a who will serve as tour guides and organiz- Health Sciences and Technology, who has Gamelan Sekar Jaya, the first American deep appreciation and knowledge of it.” ers, said Tang. She reports that the co- been playing in Rambax for three years. group to perform at the Bali Arts Festival For Blair Schoene, a graduate student directors have divided the duties so that The trip has been funded in part by a 20 years ago. in earth, atmospheric and planetary sci- Touré is in charge of practical logistics grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT, This year, Ziporyn said he felt the MIT ences, the trip will be a return visit to the such a housing, food, workshops and per- Dean of Student Life Larry Benedict and ensemble was ready, “musically, artistically country and to a culture he called “so for- formances and Tang, who has traveled to Dean of Undergraduates Robert Redwine. and psychologically.” Yet he says it was the eign and yet so functional and fascinating Senegal frequently in the past nine years In a similar vein, 31 members of intense motivation and effort by the mem- that I was forced to redefine how I per- and lived there from 1997-98, is handling Gamelan Galak Tika will travel to Bali, bers that is actually making this trip pos- ceived our role as humans on this planet.” the managerial aspects. Indonesia, on June 18 for a two-week tour. sible. “I’m simply responding to their ener- Schoene notes that though world sta- “We hope that our joint leadership will The group will perform at the acclaimed gy,” said Ziporyn, who is the Kenan Sahin tistics define Bali as overpopulated and make this trip a unique opportunity for the Bali Arts Festival. Distinguished Professor of Music at MIT. impoverished, he finds it “rich in identity, students,” said Tang, who founded Ram- With a rented gamelan, similar in size Most Western or Japanese groups go community and family values, and it has bax in 2001. “Lamine is very excited about and tuning to their own, the ensemble, to Bali with almost all traditional pieces, a deep appreciation for the integration of bringing his MIT students to Senegal consisting of gamelan players and other Ziporyn said. But Galak Tika will be per- religion and the arts into a sustainable and to show them his culture and introduce instrumental soloists (guitar, cello, bass, forming only new, experimental works in happy way of life.” Schoene credits playing everyone to his family, and to study sabar percussion, keyboard) and dancers, will Bali. “I feel the Balinese don’t need to hear Balinese music with helping him remain in its original context,” she added. perform at the annual monthlong festival our versions of their traditional music,” he connected with the things he learned from Rambax members are enthusiastic of music, dance, theater and other cultural said. “The artistic challenge is to do this the people and culture there. Galak Tika presents pre-tour concert To tune up for its upcoming tour to Nyoman Catra, will be performed by Suar- Bali, MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika will close ti Laksmi and Cynthia Laksawana. its 12th season with a program combin- The concert marks the final U.S. perfor- ing new and traditional works for Balinese mances by Catra and Laksmi, who return gamelan and dancers on Thursday, May to Bali after a four-year residence at the 19, at 8 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium. College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. The concert will feature the final U.S. Galak Tika will also present four inno- appearance of two of the foremost figures vative pieces by current company mem- in Balinese music and dance—I Nyoman bers Sean Mannion, Dan Schmidt, Chris- Catra and Desak Made Suarti Laksmi— tine Southworth (S.M. 2002) and Rebecca and will include new works by composer Zook. And, to showcase the crosscultural Dewa Ketut Alit as well as new American spirit that has been the ensemble’s hall- works for Balinese gamelan by current mark, the concert will feature “Sabar Galak Tika members. Gong,” a new work composed by Artistic The concert features the Boston pre- Director Evan Ziporyn and Wolof master miere of “Gringsing,” the latest composi- drummer Lamine Touré for the inauguration by artist-in-residence Alit, co-founder tion of President Susan Hockfield. and music director of Gamelan Çudamani, Admission to the concert is $10; $5 for PHOTO / SUSAN WILSON a professional ensemble based in the vil- non-MIT students and seniors; free for Thirty-one members of Gamelan Galak Tika, shown here in 2003, will travel to Bali this June lage of Pengsekan, Ubud, Bali. Alit’s work MIT students, faculty and children under to perform at the Bali Arts Festival. “Semara Wisaya,” choreographed by 12.

MIT harpsichordist wins Prague competition ARTNEWS Mary Farbood, graduate student in mance of Bohuslav Martinu’s Concerto Kroll, who had been working to media arts and sciences, was awarded for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra, arrange concerts for Farbood, says the Albert Chan (S.M. 1999, Ph.D. 2004) top honors for her harpsichord perfor- which all finalists had to perform in the victory will open a lot of doors of her. is featured in “#2 Pencil,” a 35-minute film mance at the 57th Prague Spring Inter- final of three rounds of competition. “She already has an offer to play a con- premiering at Paradise Rock Club (967-969 national Music Competition, earning Formerly affiliated with the MIT certo this August in the Czech Republic, Commonwealth Ave., Boston) on Tues- cash prizes, professional engagements Music and Theater Arts Section, Bos- and she will play for the Prague Spring day, May 24, at 8 p.m. According to Chan, and the chance to make a studio record- ton-area harpsichordist, fortepianist, Festival in June of 2006,” he said. he plays a dorky high school kid, which he ing. Farbood outperformed 37 young conductor and author Mark Kroll has The prize was presented in a cere- admits might not be considered acting. “I artists from Korea, Japan, China, the taught Farbood for more than two mony on Sunday, May 15. assure you,” he wrote, “I perform all my own United States and every country in years. As one of the international panel stunts.” Europe. of judges at the competition, Krull Erratum: The April 6 story on Far- The Paradise show includes performances In addition to winning first prize in recused himself during Farbood’s per- bood mistakenly credited Professor Tod by the band Cherry S/T, which contributed the overall harpsichord competition, formances, but admitted, “my enthusi- Machover with the development of Hyper- original music to the film. Tickets are $15, Farbood also won the Bohuslav Martin asm for Mary’s playing was probably score. Hyperscore was developed by Far- available at Ticketmaster. Foundation Prize for the best perfor- obvious—and I hope contagious.” bood. PAGE 8 May 18, 2005 CALENDAR MIT Tech Talk

MIT EVENT HIGHLIGHTS MAY 18–22

WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY May 18 May 19 May 20 May 21 May 22

Science/ Performance Architecture/ Humanities Artist Behind CAVS “Read- Spring Book Asado MITHAS Technology Planning the Desk In” Buyback Barbecued Celebration of Debussy per- Time out for 10:30 a.m.–5 lunch of meat Indian Music formed by group read- p.m. Lobby 10. cooked the Presented by soprano Alecia Batson ing of arts publications 499-3201. Argentinean way.1–4 MITHAS (MIT Heritage of of the Office of the collected for Travelling p.m. Kresge barbeque South Asia). Tara Anand, Music Exhibit Reading Special President with David Magazine Table. 6:30–9 MIT Anime pits. vocal; K.V.S. Vinay, mri- Interest McGrory on piano. Noon. p.m. Room N52-390. Club Weekly dangam. $20, MIT stu- Killian Hall. 253-9821. 452-2484. Showing “Sturtevant: dents free. 1 p.m. Wong The MIT Anime The Brutal Auditorium. 258-7971. Gallery Talk: “A MIT Gamelan Club shows the best of Truth” Walk Through Galak Tika both recent and classic List Curator Bill MITHAS Business/ Film Sports Featured the Muse” World premiere Japanese animation. Arning discusses this Celebration of Money Event Deborah of ‘Gringsing’ Room 6-120. 7 p.m. Paris-based American Indian Music Douglas, MIT Musuem by renowned Balinese artist known for her repli- Presented by curator of science and composer Dewa Ketut Vesak Day cations of famous works MITHAS (MIT Heritage of technology, conducts Alit. 8 p.m. Kresge Celebration in a gallery talk. 2 p.m. South Asia). T.M. Krishna, a tour of main gallery Auditorium. 253-9800. Singaporeans List Visual Arts Center. vocal; R.K. Sriram Kumar, exhibitions. Noon. MIT and non- violin; K. Arunprakash, Museum. 253-5297. MIT Tea Time Singaporeans celebrate MITHAS mridangam; B. Jack Derby Vesak Day, a Singapore Celebration of Purushottam, ghatam. “Seeing the (founder holiday. 7–10 p.m. Indian Music $20, MIT students free. Landscape: of Derby Student Center PDR 1. Presented by 4 p.m. Wong Auditorium. Richard Serra: Management) will talk MITHAS (MIT Heritage 258-7971. Tuhirangi about writing a business LiveMusic- of South Asia). $20, MIT Contour” plan and incorporating @theEAR students free. Deepak International Documentary about the your company. 5:30–8:30 Must be 21+. Ram, flute, Jerry Leahe, Folk Dancing sculptor’s massive earth- p.m. Room 66-168. I.D. required. tabla, at 1 p.m. and with live music works by Alberta Chu. Doors: 8 p.m., show: Padma Talwalkar, khyal; (participatory) 7 p.m. Bartos Theater. Karaoke Night 9p.m.–1 a.m. The Thirsty Sudhanshu Kulkarni, 8 p.m. Lobdell Dining 253-4400. at the Thirsty Ear Pub, Ashdown harmonium; Satyajit Hall. 253-FOLK. Ear House. Talwalkar, tabla at 4 p.m. American Jiu- Must be 21+. Wong Auditorium. 258- Jitsu I.D. required. 8 p.m. 7971. PHOTO / MURRAY ROBINSON Practical The Thirsty Ear Pub, Contours in context self-defense. Ashdown House. Beginners welcome, Landscape sculptor Richard Serra found himself at especially on Mondays odds with his patron, his materials, his environment and and Wednesdays. the harsh realities of physics when creating ‘Tuhirangi DuPont (W32) Wrestling Contour,’ in New Zealand, above. The List Visual Arts Room. 9–11 p.m. Center will present a documentary film this evening on the creative process behind the sculpture. ‘Seeing the Landscape: Richard Serra: Tuhirangi Contour,’ will be screened at 7 p.m. in Bartos Theater.

Go Online! For complete events listings, see the MIT Events Calendar at: http://events.mit.edu. Go Online! Ofﬁce of the Arts website at: http://web.mit.edu/arts/ofﬁce.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

RECOMB 2005 “COMPUTATIONAL CELEBRATION OF May 18 COUTURE” May 20 INDIAN MUSIC May 21 Multidisciplinary conference Large-scale multimedia run- Presented by MIT Heritage on the latest research in bio- Kresge Auditorium way show of innovative cloth- Media Lab of South Asia. Performances Wong Auditorium ing designed by students and informatics, computational 9 a.m.–5 p.m. 8 p.m. on May 21 and 22. $20, MIT 1 and 4 p.m. biology. Last day. alums of MIT, Harvard and students free. 258-7971. RISD. 452-5308.

MIT EVENT HIGHLIGHTS MAY 23–27

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY May 23 May 24 May 25 May 26 May 27 “The Traveling “Sturtevant: “COLLISION- “Constructing Artifacts Magazine The Brutal box” Stata: Related to MIT Table” Truth” Exhibit mixing Photographs of Presidents and Collection of Paris-based art and tech- Richard Sobol” Inaugurations magazines published by American artist known for nology with a duo of A collection of unpub- Exhibition marking the nonprofit and alternative her replications of works. interactive video-based lished photographs inauguration of MIT’s spaces, groups and art- Noon–6 p.m. List Visual displays. $5, free with an captures the construction 16th president, Susan ists’ collectives. Noon–6 Arts Center. 253-4680. MIT ID. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. process that brought MIT Hockfield. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Room N52-390. 253-4444. and the world the Frank p.m. MIT Museum. $5, 452-2484. Screening of Gehry-designed Stata free with an MIT I.D. 253- Robert Breer’s “Sturtevant: Center. 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. 4444. A Visit to the animated films The Brutal Room 10-150. 253-4444. Galapagos Three playful Truth” MIT Anime Exhibits built and humorous cartoons List curator Bill Meditation and Club Weekly by students in explore the simple Arning discusses this Discussion on Showing 1.016. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. delights of life. 24 hours. Paris-based American Enlightened The MIT Anime Lobby 13. 253-4074. Media Test Wall, Whitaker artist known for her repli- Mind: Club shows the best of Building 56. 253-4400. cations of famous works. Bodhicitta both recent and clas- State of the Noon. List Visual Arts Study of “Vast as sic Japanese animation. Institute Forum Astrophysics Center. Heavens, Deep as Room 6-120. 7 p.m. “Looking Colloquium the Sea: Verses on Forward” forum 4 p.m. Room “Romance & Bodhicitta.” Sponsored Whirling PHOTO / LARISSA HARRIS with President Susan 37-252. Reality in the by Buddhist Community Dervishes and Ready, set, read Hockfield, Provost Robert Clipper Ship at MIT. 7–8 p.m. MIT Suti Music Brown and Executive Tuesday Night Era” Chapel. 324-6030. Performance The MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies is hosting Vice President John Sports With the Hart Nautical Collections by Konya Suti Music a ‘read-in’ from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, May 19, Curry. 1–3 p.m. Kresge Red Sox curatorial assistant Jenny Karaoke Night Group. Sponsored by to encourage people to enjoy the ‘Traveling Magazine Auditorium. 21+. Proper ID O’Neill discusses the at the Thirsty Turkish Students Assn. Table,’ a collection of independent publications, before required. 7 p.m. Thirsty reality behind the roman- Ear $25. 7:30–9 p.m. Kresge the material moves on. ‘There’s stuff here you won’t Kokikai Aikido Ear Pub, Ashdown tic representation of the Must be 21+. Auditorium. 628-4578. find anywhere else,’ said Larissa Harris, associate Kokikai is House. clipper ship era. Free with I.D. required. 8 p.m. The director of CAVS. ‘Cutting-edge artists from Lithuania, a modern museum admission. 2 Thirsty Ear Pub, Ashdown LIVEmusic- Finland, Venezuela, you name it, have contributed to Japanese p.m. MIT Museum. 253- House. @theEAR: the collection. Bring your dictionary and come on over.’ martial art that teaches 5297. Laura Azzarello Meg Rotzel and Joe Zane, above, look over some of coordination of mind Must be 21+. the offerings. and body. Beginners I.D. required. 9 p.m. The welcome. 7:15–9 p.m. Thirsty Ear Pub, Ashdown DuPont (W32) Wrestling House. Room. 253-0772.