Tech Connection: November 2009

Spotlight Focuses on MIT's Novel Clean-Energy Technologies

In This Issue

Ballot Cryptographic Voting Debuts
A new, accurate voting system passes its first real-world test.













Manhattan project Travel: Entering the Atomic Age
Learn about the Manhattan Project, May 20-25, 2010, with Gino Segre PhD '63.













Corn Bioplastics from Corn
New factory to make biodegradable plastics.














Research & Discovery

Origins of Pancreatic Cancer Probed

Tumors can arise from different cell types in the pancreas, depending on the circumstances, according to MIT cancer biologists. Now they have identified a subpopulation of cells that can give rise to this disease.

What Computer Science Can Teach Economics

Computer science techniques that pinpoint how long a given calculation takes to perform are now being applied to game theory, a branch of mathematics with applications in economics, traffic management, and biology.

Nanoparticles Improve Gene Therapy

Nanoparticles made of biodegradable polymers may overcome one of the biggest obstacles to realizing the promise of gene therapy: the viruses often used to carry genes into the body can endanger patients.


Three Rhodes Scholars Named

Three MIT students—Ugwechi Amadi, Caroline Huang, and Steven Mo—have won Rhodes Scholarships to study next year at Oxford University, the highest number of MIT winners from the U.S. tapped in a single year.


Quick Take: List

Lists help people make sense of the world and, at MIT, much more. The List Visual Arts Center is a stellar gallery and lists of notable research, awards, and blog posts illuminate campus culture.


Campus News

Baker Piano Drop Leads Vote among MIT 150 Objects

You can check real-time votes for objects nominated for the MIT 150 Exhibition at the MIT Museum in 2011. Vote online for your 10 favorite objects, add a story about an object, or write in a new nomination.

Ever Participate in the MIT Mystery Hunt?

Your help is needed! The Alumni Association is creating a map of Mystery Hunt coin hiding places to celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary. Please share the hiding spots you know plus stories or photos.

MIT Students Work the Runway!

Freshman Larry Pang photographed the Katwalk, a fashion show put on by the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. Students strutted the runway in outfits that ranged from cardboard to couture by Marc Jacobs and Club Monaco.


About Tech Connection

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Professor Donald Sadoway and graduate student David Bradwell Professor Donald Sadoway and graduate student David Bradwell MNG '06 observe a test of a small liquid battery encased in an insulated metal cylinder. Photo: Patrick Gillooly, MIT News Office.





















Liquid-metal batteries, water-splitting catalysts, and dirt-powered batteries are groundbreaking technologies emerging from MIT. Several of these novel clean-energy technologies have been deemed "potentially transformative" by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)—and won new sources of funding. President Susan Hockfield was named among America's Best Leaders, cited for the energy initiative.

Professor Donald Sadoway's research into a new form of fixed energy storage is one of six MIT-sparked efforts that won support from DOE's newly established Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy (ARPA-E). His work on liquid batteries, which stay so hot they remain liquid, could be used by grid-scale utilities.

New work on waste-energy harvesting is attempting to turn the excess heat in a cell phone, for example, into stored energy that could power the phone. A simple system using power generated by a single quantum-dot device is key to understanding how to design the ideal thermal-to-electric converter.

A dirt-powered battery designed for rural, off-grid communities won an MIT IDEAS award and now is one of Popular Mechanics 10 Most Brilliant Innovations of 2009. Biology graduate student Aviva Presser Aiden is on the Lebônê Solutions Inc. team that developed the microbial fuel cell.

Take a tour of MIT labs with President Barack Obama, during his October visit to campus, to hear MIT faculty explain how genetically engineered viruses can produce self-assembling solar cells and batteries as well as new ideas for wind power energy storage.


Wheelchair Tennis Player Wins Nationals

A graduate student in MIT's engineering logistics program, who became paraplegic after a rock-climbing accident five years ago, won the National Collegiate Wheelchair Tennis Championships this fall.


Submit an Idea for 150th Anniversary Symposia

Alumni are invited to suggest topics and speakers for five symposia intended to form the intellectual centerpiece of MIT's 150th anniversary celebrations during spring semester 2011. Initial ideas are due by Dec. 20.


Multimedia MIT

Electrochromic Windows Respond

In a short video, you can see a window design that alters light and privacy in response to both human needs and environmental conditions. The MIT Mobile Experience Lab project is part of the lab's research on sustainable, connected homes. 

Exploring the Biochemistry of Mental Illness

MIT Biology Professor of Practice Ed Scolnick's early research defined specific genes that cause human cancer. Now a researcher at the Broad Institute, Scolnick describes his work identifying risk genes for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Volunteer Leaders Ring NASDAQ's Bell

NASDAQ invited MIT folks to ring the closing bell Nov. 6 to recognize MIT's entrepreneurial vigor, particularly the MIT Enterprise Forum. See a video of the event and MIT displayed on the seven-story building in Times Square.


Join the F.A.T. Chain Reaction

Participate in the MIT Museum's annual Friday After Thanksgiving (F.A.T.) Chain Reaction by reading kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson's description and watching the 2008 video. If you are near campus, go to the museum for the hands-on experience.


Read Technology Review Features Online

Learn about the history of the legendary MIT Science Fiction Society collection, now totaling 60,000 books and magazines, or the new MIT Military Alumni/ae Alumni Association.


Slice of MIT

Always Moving Forward

Professor Patrick Henry Winston '65, SM '67, PhD '70 comments on the last football game of DeRon Brown '10, whose spectacular performance—he leads in rushing yards in the division—has attracted national attention.

Cambridge Politics: Grad Student Wins Firsts

Leland Cheung didn't have enough to do as a graduate student at both Harvard and MIT Sloan. Now he has been elected as a member of the Cambridge City Council—the first university student and first Asian-American member.

Alumnus Brings on the Funny as Writer for Psych, Frasier

Saladin K. Patterson '94 became a successful writer/producer for top TV shows by first using his engineer's analytical, process-oriented approach to understand script structures. Now he is coexecutive producer on USA Network's dramedy Psych.

Quite Possibly the Coolest Pop-Up Book Ever

The MIT Media Lab's Electronic Popables combine traditional pop-up mechanisms with thin, flexible, paper-based electronics (the circuitry is made with paint on paper) to create an interactive book that sparkles, sings, reacts, and moves.