As promised, my guide took me straight to the tomb of Rosie and the Jolly Green Giant. Bundled up against winter’s relentless bite, we wound our way through a wide-open cavern spotted with the deserted artifacts of previous occupants.  Following a maze of makeshift partitions, we eventually came to what I believed to be a back entrance, although I was so turned around that I couldn’t be sure. Stepping out into the refreshingly crisp air for just a few steps, we crossed a patch of treacherous ice and entered the tomb. Full Article »

From the same lab that brought us Foldit, the online protein folding game that allowed non-scientists to figure out the structure of an AIDS-causing virus, we now have a brand new protein that binds to a potentially toxic molecule.

Scientists used a cutting edge computer algorithm to design a protein that binds to digoxigenin, a common component of a heart disease medication used to treat congestive heart failure, atrial fibrillation and abnormal heart rhythms. Dignoxigenin becomes toxic if left in the body after treatment. Full Article »

A new non-destructive computational technique that measures the strength and condition of the canvas beneath great works of art could one day help museum curators determine if it is safe to loan rare pieces, according to art conservators.

A research team led by Dr. Marta Oriola of the University of Barcelona and Dr. Matija Strlic of University College London tested the new method on twelve Dali paintings. They found that the painted canvases were strong enough to travel to other museums.

Interestingly, their method also revealed that Dali used cheaper cotton canvases during his student days in Paris before later upgrading to linen. Previously, it would have been impossible to identify the canvas material without cutting out a piece to examine under the microscope. Full Article »

A new non-toxic material that turns wasted heat into electricity may be a positive step in an emerging field of power generation.

All metals can generate power from heat using what scientists call the thermoelectric effect. The few metals that do it efficiently have been used to power electronics on spacecraft and to cool down car seats, but scientists hope that expanding the range of metals that can perform well, lowering costs and making further improvements to their efficiencies could make them useful in many more applications like generating electricity from the tail pipes of cars or the smoke stacks of power plants.

Tin telluride was written off in the past for its low efficiency, but researchers at the University of Houston, MIT and Boston College recently announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that adding a touch of indium to the material brought its efficiency, known as its ZT value, from about 0.7 to 1.1. Experts say any efficiency greater than one is noteworthy.

The way thermoelectrics work is simple. When they get hot on one side and cold on the other, the hotter and more energetic electrons rush onto the cold side, creating a buildup of charge that can power an electric current.

Scientists hoping to make these materials efficient enough for power generation want to increase their electrical conductivities to make the electrons move faster while making the flow of heat as slow as possible. Full Article »

I was born at the tail end of the creation of the world. Back then, most people could live in only one way, in the dull reality of one single place at a time. But I had a choice. In my dirty socks, I made regular pilgrimages to the basement, sidling past broken toys and half-folded linens. Our computer was, if I remember correctly, a dusty old Dell. I booted it up the way my mother had taught me. I waited. There was always that chance the connection wouldn’t make it—that AOL’s eerie mechanical music would suddenly falter, buck up, and die, taking all of my hopes down with it.

Back then, I thought that I was a regular earthly creature. I am an animal, therefore I must belong outside with the other animals. I should have known better. I should have known the first time I visited a beach in August heat, slathered in and reeking of high-powered sun goop. Children shrieking everywhere, while tears of sweat ran down the seam of my back. I waded into the ocean and asked for relief, and then it gagged me with salt instead. The message was loud and clear: This sloppy world is no place for someone like me. Full Article »

There are no beakers, centrifuges, or spectrometers in Michael Demkowicz’s lab at MIT. In fact, the office seems rather sparse, with the exception of a large whiteboard on the wall that always seems to have multicolored lines and equations scribbled across the surface. Besides that, the walls are bare and the unadorned windows are situated close to the ceiling, a result of the lab being on the basement floor. But the light shines brightly at that angle, the white walls seem almost cheerful, and everyone seems happy to be sitting in front of their computer screens.

When people hear the words “materials science,” an image of a man in a laboratory coat may come to mind, experimenting with plastics or smelting metals and creating things that can be measured for strength, flexibility, and other tangible qualities. But none of that happens in the Demkowicz lab. In fact, none of the researchers will probably ever touch, let alone experiment with, any of the materials they painstakingly design using computer modeling. Instead of a laboratory, they have stacks of supercomputers to analyze their data, which are conveniently located next door to their office and must be kept near fans or in air conditioning at all times to prevent overheating. I am told by one of the researchers that I would probably be able to afford just one of these computers in my lifetime. They utilize around fifty to run their experiments. Full Article »

Take a look around your city. There’s the old man walking his dog, the flocks of pigeons on the roof, and the constant honk of cars rushing by the smeared windowpanes. But these images and sounds are more than fleeting. This is all data.

Data from taxis in New York, data from cell phone conversations in Brazil, data from trash collectors in Spain. Lines and lines of unending data are created every day, every second, by people going about their lives, including you. 2008 was the first time in the history of civilization that 50 percent of the people on earth lived in what is classified as an urban area. It’s not all data from companies or government entities either. It’s data from the average, plugged-in person, like his rants about traffic on Twitter or her images of potholes on Instagram.

The question is, what does this data mean? What can it do? Given a little exercise, a little insight, and a dash of design, the SENSEable City Lab at MIT hopes to explain. They want to use that data to turn a mere “city” into a “smart city.”

A city is like a clock, filled with interlocking parts that are dynamic and changeable but governed by the complex mechanics whirring just beneath the surface. Pry open the back and the inner contents are revealed, a mess of information from each user in the city. Full Article »

I sit in the small windowless room at the back of the MIT Humans and Automation Laboratory staring excitedly at the computer screen in front of me. The tutorial for the simulation begins. I will have four drones at my disposal, or unmanned vehicles as those in the know call them. Three are aerial vehicles. The fourth is a watercraft that navigates its way on a river cutting through the center of the digital battle ground. A series of controls will allow me to direct these drones, but there is a catch.

I cannot micromanage the drones the way one would move pieces on a chessboard. Instead, the interface asks me to pick from a variety of priorities, such as seeking out potential targets, babysitting ones I have already found, and destroying hostile ones. A complicated algorithm, I am told, will ensure my priorities are doled out to my machines in the most efficient way possible. In other words, my puny mind can’t fly three planes at once, but a computer can. The question is, how? Full Article »

Geodesign technology is revolutionizing how we envision the future, according to planners, architects, and engineers alike.

These new technologies could “totally change how we do things,” from urban design to environmental planning, says Eric Wittner of Esri, a GIS software company working on Geodesign software

Geodesign technology builds on geographic information systems (GIS) to create virtual workspaces where users can visualize—in two or three dimensions—physical spaces, be they city blocks, entire cities, or larger landscapes. With these visualizations in front of them, users can play with possible ways of designing or using these spaces, see what their proposed plans would look like, and then evaluate the potential implications of their designs—all in real or close-to-real time. Full Article »