Sunset in Corsica (© Owen Franken).
Curious about Owen Franken? View more of his work via the Franken Photo of the Week category, learn more in this profile, read a What Matters opinion column he wrote called “Life in Brownian Motion,” or visit his website.
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The New York Times travel section recently featured Cambridge, Mass., and highlighted the hot spots to hit with a mere 36 hours in town. They also created the abbreviated 36 seconds in Cambridge video below. Not surprisingly, an MIT favorite is listed among the must-see sites.
What are your favorite places in Cambridge?
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The U.S. population of persons 65 years or older numbered 39.6 million in 2009 and is expected to increase to 72.1 million by 2030. Coupled with falling birth rates and lengthening age expectancies, the U.S. population is rapidly aging.
For engineers and designers, this creates design challenges that didn’t previously exist with younger populations. Existing and developing products may need to be altered to cater to the older demographic.
Thanks to MIT’s Agelab, young designers may be better equipped to understand the needs of their aging clients. Under the direction of Joe Coughlin, Agelab has created AGNES (Age Gain Now Empathy System), a suit designed to approximate the motor, visual, flexibility, dexterity, and strength of a person in their mid-70s.
AGNES simulates a gerontological atmosphere in retail, public transportation, and workplace environments. Braces and bands mimic joint stiffness and muscular fatigue. Leg straps create slower leg movements, and helmet attachments give the wearer an age-induced curved spine. Yellow eyeglasses make it difficult to read small print, and earplugs simulate difficulty with sounds and tones.
MIT Research Fellow Rozanne Puleo told Fastcodesign.com:
“We’ve suited up students and taken them to the grocery store to purchase foods with low sugar, low sodium, and low fat—foods commonly purchased by older adults. They found that it was very challenging to locate these items on the shelf. That’s valuable information that we can take back to organizations.”
Part of the Engineering Systems Division, MIT AgeLab works to transform technologies into practical solutions that improve how products are designed and services are delivered. In addition to AGNES, the AgeLab has created AwareCar (a vehicle that monitors driver state); Miss Daisy (a driving simulator used for evaluating cognitive distraction and the effects of disease and medication); and Miss Rosie (a Volkswagen Beetle that evaluates a driver’s capacity for vehicle operation), among others.
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You’ve probably heard that Old Ashdown underwent extensive renovations and reopened this semester for undergraduate residents as Fariborz Maseeh Hall, named for the alumnus who funded much of the overhaul. Take a look at the building and the new dining hall, The Howard, which is open to the entire MIT community. The dining hall’s name was chosen by an anonymous donor who made the first gift toward the renovation. All photos: Chris Brown.
Fariborz Maseeh Hall (a.k.a. Old Ashdown).
The Howard features a salad bar; stations for stir-fry and prepared entrees; a grill for burgers, pizza, chicken, and more; vegan and vegetarian fare; a deli; all-day breakfast; international cuisine; and a dedicated kosher station.
A beautiful display of glass pumpkins overlooks the salad bar. The Howard sets a new standard for sustainability in dining at MIT. The kitchens employ sophisticated, energy-efficient equipment, all food scraps are composted, and cooking oil is reused as biodiesel.
The Howard is meant to function as a gathering place for the entire MIT community.
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Statue of the Virgin Mary in Spain (© Owen Franken/CORBIS).
Sunbeams Shining Into Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City (© Owen Franken/CORBIS).
Curious about Owen Franken? View more of his work via the Franken Photo of the Week category, learn more in this profile, read a What Matters opinion column he wrote called “Life in Brownian Motion,” or visit his website.
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MIT 2030 is a wide-ranging process designed to help MIT make thoughtful decisions about the physical campus and surrounding spaces such as Kendall Square.
The Kendall Square part of the equation has been in news, including New York City’s attempt to mimic the process with a plan to entice a premier university to establish a campus in the city. The MIT 2030 process advanced in November when MIT announced it is preparing to spend $700 million to redevelop eight properties in Kendall Square.
From The Boston Globe:
“Most of MIT’s work would be around the lower Main Street corridor near the MBTA Red Line station. The construction plan calls for about 1.1 million square feet of new space at eight locations in Kendall Square, including two large office, lab, and retail buildings along Main Street.”
MIT officials are working with neighbors and city planners to formulate a concrete plan that may include additional housing units and the first buildings could be finished within two or three years of getting permits.
MIT 2030 adds to a burgeoning development scene in and around Kendall Square, with new buildings hosting operations for some of the pharmaceutical, biotech, and technological industries leading companies.
From MIT News:
“In the past decade, the robust ecosystem for tech and biotech innovations has drawn large multinational corporations to locate in Kendall Square, particularly those specializing in the life sciences. Since Novartis moved in, pharmaceutical giants Sanofi Aventis, Merck and Genzyme have erected research facilities in Cambridge. Biogen Idec, a biotech company co-founded by MIT’s Phillip Sharp, moved from Kendall Square to a suburban location seven months ago, and is now returning its headquarters to the square. And this week, MIT and Pfizer broke ground on a new complex that will house the company’s Cardiovascular, Metabolic, and Endocrine Disease (CVMED) and Neuroscience research units.”
For more information, view the video on the 2030 website. For information on Kendall Square developments, follow @kendallnow on Twitter.
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Image: Ming-Zher Poh
For most people, heart rate monitors are simple devices strapped to the chest that records a heartbeat’s measurements in real-time. But for some populations–like burn victims or infants–chest straps can be burdensome and painful.
In 2009, doctoral candidates Ming-Zher Poh (SM’07, EECS) and Daniel McDuff sought to change this. Today, their invention, Cardiocam, is a non-contact device that can measure heart rate using a patient’s owns web cam, a cell phone camera, or even a mirror.
Popular Science Magazine named Cardiocam one of the ten best inventions of 2011, and it won a $50,000 award from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology.
From Popular Science:
“When your hear beats, it sends a pulse of blood through your blood vessels. Blood absorbs light, so when more of it travels through the vessels, less of the light hitting your skin is reflected. A webcam can pick up those small fluctuations in reflected light, Poh says, and a computer program can translate that data into a heart-rate reading.”
Part of the Media Lab’s Affective Computing group, Poh and McDuff worked with their advisor, Affective Computing group head Rosalind Picard, and developed an algorithm that separates small fluctuations in the heart rate’s light pattern from other reflected light captured by a webcam and wrote code that processes the data in real time. Previous research used a high-resolution camera, but the ability to use a web cam or cell phone makes virtually any computer or smart phone a heart rate monitor.
Similar technology could be applied to a bathroom mirror, using a wireless webcam installed behind the mirror. Such a mirror is on display at the Media Lab and can get accurate readings from three people in the camera’s view at the same time.
Poh has plans to commercialize the product in 2012, and envisions the Cardiocam eventually measuring respiratory rate and blood-oxygen saturation.
For more information, view the video demonstration on the Popular Science website or visit the Affective Computing group web page.
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MIT research is often quite practical. And just in time for the influenza season, we have a new study that will help each of us stop the dreaded flu virus before it makes us sick.
#1 suggestion to prevent the flu: wash your hands!
Even though there are now some helpful vaccines, the best barrier to sickness is prevention, according to a pair of MIT researchers who have identified specific practices you can employ to avoid the dreaded bug.
Professor Richard Larson ’65, EE ’67, SM ’67, PhD ’69 and Senior Research Scientist Stan Finkelstein ’71, both members of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, reviewed some 40 studies of the effectiveness of various non-pharmaceutical interventions and published their recommendations in the December issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, an American Medical Association publication.
In brief, here are their recommendations:
• Wash your hands thoroughly after leaving a sick person’s room. Scrub with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer for 20 to 30 seconds.
• Wear a mask. At minimum, the mask prevents a healthy person from transferring a virus to his/her own nose and mouth—the highway to infection.
• Install air filters. High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters can remove nearly 98 percent of virus particles; portable air purifiers and pointing a window fan out the window of the sickroom can also help.
• Control temperature and humidity. Higher temperatures and humidity levels can kill or disable viruses.
• Install an ultraviolet light. UV light is antimicrobial, and portable air purifiers with both UV lamps and HEPA filters can be purchased for $180 to $370.
Learn more in the MIT News Office article.
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We all have those moments when we wish we had said or done more. When that happens to MIT students, they can try to get a second chance through the I Saw You MIT website, billed as “a place to discuss missed connections at MIT. Interpret ‘connection’ loosely.”
Posts—which might admit adoration for a fellow student or simply admire something on campus—are anonymous. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Anyone reporting a sighting has the option of enabling direct replies from MIT community members (who are authenticated by a certificate) to an undisclosed email address.
Here are some examples of what you might find on the site:
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Professor Patrick Henry Winston ’65, SM ’67, PhD ’70
I hear my Studio 360 inteview turned out ok. I attribute that to a sort of aural cosmetology. Jonathan Mitchell came into my office about a month ago, chatted me up for an hour or so, and somehow he and the other geniuses at Public Radio International and WNYC found a few coherent sentences on the tape about my group’s research on story understanding.
Here is the story: As a species, we became symbolic and different from other primates a little more than 50,000 years ago; becoming symbolic meant that we could describe events. Once we strung events together into sequences, we could tell stories. Mastering story telling meant we could teach through case studies, ranging from fairy tales to blogs. Finally, by learning to blend stories together to make new stories, we developed one highly useful kind of creativity. So, if we are to understand intellligence, we need to put a lot of effort into understanding story understanding.
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