Personal Blog

Vaccine Could Stop Nicotine from Reaching the Brain - Technology Review

Update on the Satellite that Fell From the Sky | MIT SciWrite

In mid-January I reported on the remains of a Russian satellite discovered on a remote beach in the Grenadines. The satellite washed ashore in mid-December and I concluded that its history – including how it got there – was an unsolved mystery.

See more at: http://blogs.plos.org/mitsciwrite/2012/03/09/update-on-the-satellite-that-fell-from-the-sky/#

Pictures of the mysterious satellite that fell from the sky | MIT SciWrite

Perhaps the most recognizable sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is the match cut between a rotating bone and an orbiting satellite, a representation of human progress from its earliest stages fast forwarded, in one fell swoop, to the forefront of human technical achievement.

via blogs.plos.org

MIT Entrepreneurship Review | MIT’s New Nuclear Reactor: an Interview with Transatomic Power

January 9, 2012 at 10:22am

MIT students have a lot of resources available to them if they want to start a new company. In fact, many do so while still students. One such example is Transatomic Power. Two nuclear engineering graduate students have applied some of their research and PhD work to develop a new nuclear reactor design. They have created a company, Transatomic Power, to help license and deploy it. 

MIT Entrepreneurship ReviewThe MIT Entrepreneurship Review is an online publication focused on thought-leadership in innovation based entrepreneurship. MITER engages in rigorous, expert-driven, and insightful discussions, providing a view into what entrepreneurs, particularly at MIT, are doing to address the most critical challenges faced by industries such as energy, tech, and life sciences.

via miter.mit.edu

The Jekyll and Hyde Immune Cell | Scope

In HIV infection populations of immune system cells are devastated, but researchers have found one immune cell type that survives the onslaught.

These surviving cells prevent inflammation, but they do so by suppressing the immune system. This new finding raises the question of whether their survival during HIV infection helps the body or the attacking virus.

The cells, called T regulators, may be useful because they normally prevent a hyperactive immune system which leads to its exhaustion.

via scopeweb.mit.edu

Nepotism study proves life really is unfair | MIT SciWrite

Many of us have wondered how the slacker bureaucrat who made our lives difficult, in the government or corporate office, successfully got through the hiring process…and whether it was a fair occurrence or a result of inside connections, wheelings and dealings.

Now, a new tool developed by Stefano Allesina makes it easier to detect nepotism and quantify its effect in the public sector, and all that is needed is a laptop, a name database and a penchant for statistics. The Italian researcher at the University of Chicago has created a series of scripts using surnames and geographic origins to spot nepotism amongst Italy’s 60,000 tenured university faculty. His PLoS ONE study published in August confirms suspicions that nepotism is extensive in Italy, and he now says this tool might be more broadly used.

Allesina’s process, which he likens to “extracting balls from an urn”, looks at how likely one is to draw the same name from a subset of academia – such as a specific discipline like medicine – from randomly selecting names from the entire pool of all disciplines (all of Italian academia).

via blogs.plos.org

The Dirty Side of Climate Science | MIT SciWrite

When you think of climate change research, mucking through mangrove mud in the Federated States of Micronesia probably doesn’t first come to mind. But there I was, waist deep in evidence. Welcome to the dirty side of climate science.

While much of spotlight of global warming has focused on the climate models themselves and data from polar ice cores, scientists are increasingly looking for physical evidence of recent manifestations of tropical climate change several thousand years ago to make sure the parameters in the models are grounded in reality, and that means taking sediment cores.

As sediment accumulates chronologically in a peat bog, pond bottom or mangrove swamp, what’s in it can tell us a lot about what the climate was like. The key is analyzing the ratio of different types of hydrogen and oxygen contained in the sediment. Because different ratios are uniquely associated with saltwater and freshwater looking at those ratios can give us an idea of the relative proportion of ocean water to rainfall at a given time   and thus, an idea of the precipitation. In the tropics, hydrogen isotopes are the preferred inferer of precipitation, or “proxy.” As the amount of sediment in a given year can be highly variable, dates obtained from plant particles and other organic material located throughout the core can then provide us with a context of time. The only catch is finding undisturbed sediment…and that means going places where people have not been before, and places that are not currently connected to the ocean.

via blogs.plos.org

New MIT SciWrite PLoS blog post, 10/26/11, mentioning Sachs Lab Kosrae 2011 expedition

A Shifting Band of Rain - Now in French!

The Sachs' Lab SciAm article from March has now been translated in French!

http://www.pourlascience.fr/ewb_pages/f/fiche-article-une-bande-de-precipitations-mouvante-27112.php

For more see the magazine Pour La Science, No. 405 Juillet 2011 (July 2011 issue).  I am now not only an author, but a  "l'auteur", a classy if not accidental manuever on my part.

Apparently I can get a PDF of the article for only 1 Euro, a bargain!  Tempting...

http://www.pourlascience.fr/ewb_pages/e/espace-numerique-detail.php?art_id=27112