Meet Maker Culture's MIT Stars

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Latest news for friends of MIT. ________________________________ ________________________________ May 2014
________________________________ ________________________________ IN THIS ISSUE ________________________________ Maker Culture How Brains Pay Attention Cough Contagion Research & Discovery ›  Erasing Genetic Mutations ›  Designing Living Materials ›  Microbes and Mass Extinction Student Prize Winners MIT Shines at TED's 30th Black Literature Quantum Computing Switch Underwater Dreams Campus ›  Caltech Hacks MIT ›  Gap Year Students ›  Humans of MIT Slice of MIT ›  Infinite Zero Footprints ›  What's Next for Oculus? ›  Making Waves Podcast ________________________________ ________________________________ To learn more about research and happenings on campus, read the Slice of MIT blog and Tech Connection, follow the Alumni Association on Twitter, join the LinkedIn group, and become a fan on Facebook.	________________________________ ________________________________ Maker Culture's MIT Stars PopMech honored seven MIT makers, including Eric Wilhelm '99, SM '01, PhD '04 and Christy Canida '99, shown in their Dune-themed Halloween costumes. Maker culture has swept through technology circles, bolstering invention, celebrating hands-on construction, and encouraging do-it-yourselfers—to be more like the MIT community. In fact, seven of the "25 Makers Who Are Reinventing the American Dream" recently honored in Popular Mechanics hail from MIT. "My MIT experience was instrumental," says Ayah Bdeir SM '06, founder of littleBits. "As soon as I set foot in the Media Lab, I learnt a whole new way of looking at engineering." Find out who was honored and why maker culture is hot now. ________________________________ ________________________________ How Brains Pay Attention Neuroscientists identified a brain circuit that shifts focus from one object to another. ________________________________ Sneeze, Cough Contagion Coughs and sneezes stay airborne for longer distances than previously thought. ________________________________ ________________________________ Research & Discovery ________________________________ Erasing a Genetic Mutation An MIT team reversed a liver disorder in mice by correcting a mutated gene, which provides the first evidence that the gene-editing technique, CRISPR, can reverse disease symptoms in living animals. Engineers Design Living Materials Working with E. coli bacteria, MIT engineers have designed a way to produce gold nanowires that conduct electricity; they produced biofilms that can incorporate nonliving materials. Microbes Caused Largest Mass Extinction? An MIT team has found that methane-producing microbes are responsible for the largest mass extinction on Earth. Three sets of evidence from around 252 million years ago, when some 90 percent of all species suddenly died, bear them out. ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ Three from MIT Win Lemelson-MIT Student Prizes Media Arts and Sciences doctoral candidate David Sengeh SM '12, one of three MIT winners of the national prizes, was honored for his development of wearable, mechanical interfaces that improve comfort and mobility for amputees. ________________________________ ________________________________ MIT All Stars Shine at TED's 30th TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Talks' 30th anniversary in March featured many MIT speakers including Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte '66, MArch '66, whose 1984 TED talk predicted tablet computing and online shopping. ________________________________ ________________________________ Black Literature Sandy Alexandre explores the complex relationship between black literature and history. ________________________________ Quantum Computing Tool Light lattice that traps atoms may help build quantum information transmitter networks. ________________________________ ________________________________ Underwater Dreams Features MIT ROV Team MIT alumni of the 2004 Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) team are featured in a new documentary, Underwater Dreams, the story of four teenagers from an impoverished area of Arizona who competed against them. ________________________________ ________________________________   Campus ________________________________ Caltech Hacks MIT Reviving a historic rivalry, Caltech students pranked MIT pre-frosh during Campus Preview Weekend, April 11–13. They handed out mugs that read "MIT" until filled with hot liquid and then this appeared: "Caltech: the Hotter Institute of Technology." See alumni responses on Facebook. Gap Year Students Enrich the Class of 2018 Mix Several members of the Class of 2018 took a gap year and their adventures ranged from teaching in a Tanzanian village to working in a San Francisco startup on the verge of acquisition. Meet the Humans (and Robots) of MIT Patterned on the Humans of New York blog, four current MIT students created Humans of MIT, a Facebook page that profiles community members through a single photo and the subject's own words.
________________________________ ________________________________ Slice of MIT ________________________________ ________________________________ Leaving Zero Footprints in the Infinite Corridor Enjoy an April Fools' jest about a proposed moving walkway, Zero Footprint, that would allow the MIT community to safely text while traveling the Infinite Corridor. ________________________________ Facebook Just Acquired Us. What's Next? The morning after Facebook announced its $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, company COO and acting CFO Laird Malamed '89 phoned Slice of MIT to share the news. ________________________________ Alum Books Podcast: Making Waves Hear Fredric Raichlen SM '55, ScD '62, a Caltech civil engineering professor emeritus, talk about his new book, Waves, via a new Alum Books Podcast. ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ About Tech Connection ________________________________ Tech Connection, an e-newsletter for alumni and friends of MIT, is available as an HTML newsletter and online. Content is provided courtesy of the MIT Alumni Association.  Please email comments to tc_friends@mit.edu. ________________________________ MIT Alumni Association 600 Memorial Drive, W98 Cambridge, MA 02139-4822 tc_friends@mit.edu | 800-MIT-1865