MIT
The songwriter Noel Coward once declared that only mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the midday sun. Now MIT biologists have a third candidate--fruit flies with defects in a gene called dTrpA1. National stereotypes aside, most living creatures know when they are too hot or too cold and need to move. In biology, it's called thermotactic behavior. But until this new work, no one had a good molecular explanation of how environmental temperature is sensed and how it governs behavior. If this new role for Drosophila dTrpA1 holds up, it will be the first time a temperature-sensing protein has been implicated in mediating thermotaxis in animals.
Magnesium helps build bones, make proteins, release energy stored in muscles and regulate body temperature. In the cover story of the Dec. 2 issue of Neuron, MIT researchers report a possible new role for magnesium: helping maintain memory function in middle age and beyond. The adult daily nutritional requirement for magnesium, a trace mineral found in foods such as dark green, leafy vegetables, is around 400 mg a day. But studies show that as many as half of all Americans do not consume enough magnesium. Magnesium deficits have been tied to allergies, asthma, attention deficit disorder, anxiety, heart disease, muscle cramps and other conditions.
Robert Fox Bacher, a renowned California Institute of Technology physicist who headed the experimental physics division at Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, died Thursday, November 18, in Montecito, California. He was 99. Bacher was affiliated with MIT's Radiation Laboratory when the Manhattan Project began, and took a leave of absence to head the experimental physics division and, once the bomb-production phase began, the bomb physics division. After the war he became one of the first members of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and also served on the President's Science Advisory Committee during the Eisenhower Administration.
Researchers have identified three new chemical risk factors for bladder cancer in a study involving some 600 people in the Los Angeles area. The newly discovered carcinogens are found in cigarette smoke, which is already known to be a major cause of bladder cancer, contributing to at least 50 percent of the approximately 60,000 cases in the United States every year. All three of the new carcinogens, however, were also found to be risk factors for bladder cancer in nonsmokers. Although second-hand smoke is one source of exposure for non-smokers, the researchers say that it is very important to identify the other sources of exposure for nonsmokers.
For the first time, MIT researchers have incorporated a plant's ability to convert sunlight to energy into a solid-state electronic ''spinach sandwich'' device that may one day power laptops and cell phones. At the heart of the device is a protein complex dubbed Photosystem I (PSI). Derived from spinach chloroplasts, PSI is 10 to 20 nanometers wide. Around 100,000 of them would fit on the head of a pin. ''They are the smallest electronic circuits I know of,'' said researcher Marc A. Baldo, assistant professor of electronic engineering and computer science at MIT.
Mice ''rewired'' to receive visual cues in the hearing region of their brains learned to respond to a fear-inducing flashing light as if they had heard it instead of seen it. This research shows that even the adult brain is far more plastic, or adaptable, than previously believed. If extended to humans, this may mean that in the future, individuals with brain damage from aging, disease or injury may be able to have stimuli from the outside world routed in new ways to major brain structures--even those responsible for emotional responses and learning.
A painkilling device approved Aug. 17 by the FDA could offer relief to children and adults who hate the sharp stab of pain that comes with needles and IVs. The medical device, called SonoPrep, uses an ultrasonic method created by MIT researchers to make skin temporarily more permeable. A painless 15-second treatment by the new device, followed by an application of lidocaine cream, will anesthetize the skin in five minutes. By itself, lidocaine takes one hour to work.
Every algae's got a hungry heart, and--who knew?--some algae are especially hungry for the tasty toxins in modern smog. For example, single-cell algae readily consume carbon dioxide and other power plant emissions and emit oxygen during photosynthesis. This makes single-cell algae tiny power plants in their own right--power plants that may transform toxic emissions to renewable energy, according to Isaac Berzin, 37, a former MIT postdoctoral student in chemical engineering and founder of a Cambridge-based company, GreenFuel Technologies.
It's readily apparent that handling two things at once is much harder than handling one thing at a time. Spend too much time trying to juggle more than one objective and you'll end up wanting to get rid of all your goals besides sleeping. The question is, though, what makes it so hard to process two things at once?
Two theories try to explain this phenomenon: ''passive queuing'' and ''active monitoring.'' The former says that information has to line up for a chance at being processed at some focal point of the brain, while the latter suggests that the brain can process two things at once -- it just needs to use a complicated mechanism to keep the two processes separate. Recent research from MIT points to the former as an explanation.
Forget the drastic reduction in carbs and calories called for by diet dictators. The day when people can eat their favorite foods, stay thin and live to be 120 without getting age-induced diabetes or cancer may be nearer than we think. Scientists have known for decades that controlled famine can extend the lifespan of mammals by as much as 50 percent and that those long-lived, lean mammals don't get the diseases of old age. But just how a vastly reduced caloric intake achieves that feat has been a mystery begging for a solution -- until now.
Why are some companies much better than others at dealing with sudden supply chain disruptions? A research project at MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics is studying the impact of terrorism on supply chains and identifying what companies can do to be resilient when disaster strikes. Supply chains can be thrown into disarray for many reasons. A severe storm can delay urgently needed raw materials. A major dock strike can halt the movement of goods. Then there are low-probability, high-impact incidents such as an earthquake or terrorist attack.
Pointing out that invention requires both ingenuity and a skilled workforce, a new report to be released this month says that the United States must take action now to maintain its position as the world invention leader. Through five National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported workshops, the Lemelson-MIT Program, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/invent, collaborated with many of the nation's leading experts to examine the factors that drive invention. The findings and recommendations from the workshops are presented in the report "INVENTION: Enhancing inventiveness for quality of life, competitiveness and sustainability."
Memories do indeed light up the corners of our mind, just as the songwriter said. Scientific evidence for this notion comes from studies using magnetic resonance imaging to examine the living human brain. These studies show that certain brain areas "light up" as an individual is learning information. Scientists had previously established that people remember emotionally charged events and facts better than neutral ones. Now researchers at MIT have discovered that memories with an element of arousal or excitement are remembered by a different area of the brain--the amygdala--from memories of a calmer nature, which are remembered by the prefrontal cortex.
A computational technique used to predict everything from books that a given customer might like to the function of an unknown protein is now being applied by MIT engineers and colleagues to the search for new materials. The team's ultimate goal: a public online database that could aid the design of materials for almost any application, from nanostructure computer components to ultralight, high-strength alloys for airplanes.
researchers have developed an injectable tissue implant that could be used to repair damage caused by breast cancer surgeries. The implant, made of donor cells grown onto tiny beads, could reduce scarring, help restore the breast's natural shape and promote quicker surgical recoveries, ay the researchers. The research calls for cells to be grown on a scaffolding of tiny beads, then mixed with a gel and injected into the human body. Gel and beads are absorbed, leaving only the cells, which grow to fill the damaged area.
