Sampling MIT

At MIT, graduate students have recently collaborated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to create the HoloPod imaging system which Museum visitors will be able to experiment with. This camera is a unique modification of an experimental oceanographic instrument used to study the tiny, but hugely important life cycles of plankton, the critical base of the marine food chain.

Contributors
MIT Mechanical Engineering Professor George Barbastathis
Dr. Cabell Davis, WHOI Senior Scientist

MIT Professor Daniel Nocera and his research team are in a race to make inexpensive energy from the sun – and they want to do it soon. Using plant photosynthesis as their inspiration, this exhibit will show how they can now use the sun’s energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases in a safe and simple way. Converting sunlight into chemical energy opens the door to making solar energy mainstream, and Nocera hopes that within 10 years, people will be able to power their homes by a combination of solar and hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells.

Contributors
Daniel Nocera, Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT; principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project and Co-director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center.

Imaginative MIT scientists have taken the microscopic properties of molecules to create larger than life consumer goods that will change the way we live. A battery built by a virus might soon power electronic gadgets, or even transportation systems. And forget the pillbox! Drug release systems implanted in the human body using recent advances in nanoengineering and biology, will keep us healthier than ever. This exhibit explores the beginning of an exciting new field of applied science.

Contributors
Professor Paula Hammond and students of the Hammond Lab, Chemistry Department
Professor of Biological Engineering and Material Science and Engineering Angela Belcher, Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Television, as good as it is—high definition, vivid and bright—is viewed in two dimensions, but for years futurists have wanted to bring three dimensional life to viewers through a television set. Solutions to this challenge have remained elusive, but research at MIT has now put a consumer friendly system of 3D TV within reach. The exhibit at the MIT Museum will include a demonstration of the new system.

Contributors
Professor Michael Bove and students from the Consumer Electronics Lab (CELab) at the MIT Media Lab.

When should the United States retire the Space Shuttle? How should the nation use the International Space Station? Should the United States return to the moon? How should future plans balance exploration of the moon, Mars, and other possible destinations? Research by the MIT Space Policy and Society group will shape the most important human space policy decisions in a generation.

Contributor
The Space, Policy and Society Research Group including MIT Professor David A. Mindell, Professor Dava Newman whose work is featured in this exhibit Space, Policy, and Society research group.

Applying the computational power of modern software and the interactive nature of the internet, the Climate Collaboratorium, based at MIT’s Sloan School of Management is perhaps best thought of as a global conference in which everyone’s research on climate change is accessible and made ready for discussion. The goal is to better facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration not just among scientists and policy makers, but also among ordinary citizens – the many people ‘on the ground’ being most affected by changes to their environment.

Contributors
Thomas Malone, Founder and Director, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management, Sloan School of Management.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revolutionized brain research in much the same way that the telescope revolutionized astronomy. Using a powerful magnetic field, radio frequency pulses and software, this technology has illuminated the most complex of human organs for researchers to study.  At the MIT Martinos Imaging Center, the advancement of MRI technology and brain research proceed hand-in-hand, focusing on topics such as how memories are developed in childhood, how the brain recognizes unfamiliar objects, and what happens in the brain when we make moral judgments. Museum visitors will have the opportunity to sign up using our red telephone to become part of breakthrough research on the human brain.

Contributors
MIT Martinos Imaging Center
Nancy Kanwisher, Ellen Swallow Richards Professor, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Rebecca Saxe, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
John Gabrieli, Director of the Martinos Imaging Center