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Tech Connection - A monthly e-newsletter for MIT Alumni

January 2007

	SPOTLIGHTS
		New RNA Class Tiddlywinks Returns Biofuel Efficiency

In This Issue:

Like Chatting with Fellow Alumni? Try the New Discussion Network

Interested in sharing thoughts about education & parenting, careers & networking, reminiscences about campus life, or other topics? Join the Alumni Association's new Discussion Network and connect with your peers worldwide. Anyone can view bulletin board posts but only Infinite Connection account holders can contribute.

RESEARCH & DISCOVERY

• Heat Mining Proposed as Key U.S. Energy Source
  A major new MIT-led study has found that huge amounts of heat, stored as thermal energy in the Earth's crust, could supply a substantial portion of future U.S. electricity at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.

• MIT Creates 3D Scaffold for Growing Stem Cells
  Stem cells grew, multiplied, and differentiated into brain cells on a new three-dimensional scaffold of tiny protein fragments designed to be more like a living body than any other cell culture system.

• Memory Experts Show Sleeping Rats May Have Visual Dreams
  MIT scientists propose that memories are reinforced during sleep, a finding based on experiments that tracked the visual dreams of rats. This work boosts understanding of animal dreams and the role of sleep in processing memories of past experiences.

• Podcasting Enables 24/7 Foreign Language Study
  MIT's Foreign Languages and Literatures section is using podcasting and mobile media players such as iPods in foreign language teaching so students can hear and speak foreign languages throughout the day.

Annual Mystery Hunters Face 100 Puzzles

Students, alumni, and visiting puzzle champions faced sleepless nights and 100 challenging puzzles in the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, Jan. 12-14. The winning team, Dr. Awkward, was the first to solve the final puzzle by manipulating the answers from other puzzles into US state abbreviations and then applying the order of the US Senate seating assembly. Learn about Mystery Hunt history since 1980.

Quick Take: Mystery

Explore puzzles that the MIT community loves to solve in this feature covering research, books, and problem-solving for fun. Learn about the secrets of sleep, MIT's crop circle hack, how psychology influences investing, how spinning black holes dent space and time, Technology Review's Profound Questions of Science, and mysteries solved by MIT Nobel laureates.

Get MIT News Via Podcast

Get a weekly audio digest of top MIT happenings via the new MIT News Office podcast service. A recent file offers a four-minute overview of the Draper Prize, tiddlywinks, a field trip, 50 years of RNA, and a new molecule. Audio files, updated on Mondays, are MP3 format and available by RSS feed.

ALUMNI ON TV

• Alumna Co-Hosts PBS WIRED SCIENCE Pilot
  The PBS pilot for WIRED SCIENCE explores discoveries and technology innovations through the lens of Wired magazine. Co-host Aomawa Shields '97 reports on new uses for extremophiles, viruses that thrive in the hot acidic waters of Yellowstone National Park. You can watch the pilot, explore features, and add your comments.

• Alumnus Competes on Beauty and the Geek
  What prompted Matt Herman '06 to try out for the cast of Beauty and the Geek? Find out by reading his interview in The Tech, then you can check the CW show's Web site to watch his casting clip.

MIT10 Can Exercise the Power of Participation

MIT10 undergraduate alumni--those who graduated in the past 10 years--can have a powerful impact on today's MIT students through the power of participation. Alumni Association President Martin Tang GM '72 will contribute $100,000 to MIT's student life and learning programs--if they increase their collective participation by 50 percent before June 30. Learn more about the challenge.

Power Up with Spectrum

The winter 2007 issue of MIT Spectrum, "Powering Up: Confronting the Global Energy Challenge," focuses on the faculty and students who are leading the Institute's efforts to solve the growing crisis.

Influence the Association's Future with Your Vote

Vote now to elect three new members to the National Selection Committee, the group responsible for selecting top alumni leaders to serve on the Alumni Association's board of directors and as alumni nominees to the MIT Corporation. Committee members serve at large, so all alumni vote for candidates in all districts. Cast your vote today using the quick online ballot.

Travel: Switzerland and CERN Laboratories, May 23-31

Join fellow MIT alumni in Switzerland for a rare opportunity to tour the CERN laboratories to see the CMS detector and the Large Hadron Collider. Trip highlights include historic Geneva and Lausanne; the Martin Bodmer Foundation Library, Mt. Pilatus, and a private tunnel tour in Zurich. Talks by MIT Institute Professor and Nobel Laureate Jerome I. Friedman will focus on the frontiers of particle physics.

EVENTS

• Southeast Michigan: Meet President Susan Hockfield, Feb. 7
  Join the Club of Southeast Michigan for a cocktail reception to welcome MIT's president.

• Cambridge: Argentine Tango & Salsa Dance Class Series, Tuesdays
  Renowned dance instructors Cheryl Casquejo-Adcock '91 and her husband are teaching classes in Argentine Tango and Salsa. Register separately for classes on Tuesday nights through Feb. 27.

• Cambridge/Web Cast: Educating for Our Future, Feb. 27
  Alumni who earned MIT graduate degrees and their guests are invited to hear MIT panelists discuss how to maintain and strengthen K-12 science and technology. Come to campus or check to see if your local club is hosting a Web cast.

About Tech Connection

Tech Connection, a monthly e-newsletter for alumni and friends of MIT, is available in HTML and text-only formats. Please email mitalum@mit.edu to request the text-only format or to subscribe.

Please email comments to:
Nancy DuVergne Smith
Editorial Director
MIT Alumni Association