Microscopy technique makes finer images of deeper tissue, more quickly

To create high-resolution, 3D images of tissues such as the brain, researchers often use two-photon microscopy, which involves aiming a high-intensity laser at the specimen to induce fluorescence excitation. However, scanning deep within the brain can be difficult because light scatters off of tissues as it goes deeper, making images blurry.

Two-photon imaging is also time-consuming, as it usually requires scanning individual pixels one at a time. A team of MIT and Harvard University researchers has now developed a modified version of two-photon imaging that can image deeper within tissue and perform the imaging much more quickly than what was previously possible.

This kind of imaging could allow scientists to more rapidly obtain high-resolution images of structures such as blood vessels and individual neurons within the brain, the researchers say.

“By modifying the laser beam coming into the tissue, we showed that we can go deeper and we can do finer imaging than the previous techniques,” says Murat Yildirim, an MIT research scientist and one of the authors of the new study.

MIT graduate student Cheng Zheng and former postdoc Jong Kang Park are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Science Advances. Dushan N. Wadduwage, a former MIT postdoc who is now a John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellow in Imaging at the Center for Advanced Imaging at Harvard University, is the paper’s senior author. Other authors include Josiah Boivin, an MIT postdoc; Yi Xue, a former MIT graduate student; Mriganka Sur, the Newton Professor of Neuroscience at MIT; and Peter So, an MIT professor of mechanical engineering and of biological engineering.

Deep imaging

Two-photon microscopy works by shining an intense beam of near-infrared light onto a single point within a sample, inducing simultaneous absorption of two photons at the focal point, where the intensity is the highest. This long-wavelength, low-energy light can penetrate deeper into tissue without damaging it, allowing for imaging below the surface.

However, two-photon excitation generates images by fluorescence, and the fluorescent signal is in the visible spectral region. When imaging deeper into tissue samples, the fluorescent light scatters more and the image becomes blurry. Imaging many layers of tissue is also very time-consuming. Using wide-field imaging, in which an entire plane of tissue is illuminated at once, can speed up the process, but the resolution of this approach is not as great as that of point-by-point scanning.

The MIT team wanted to develop a method that would allow them to image a large tissue sample all at once, while still maintaining the high resolution of point-by-point scanning. To achieve that, they came up with a way to manipulate the light that they shine onto the sample. They use a form of wide-field microscopy, shining a plane of light onto the tissue, but modify the amplitude of the light so that they can turn each pixel on or off at different times. Some pixels are lit up while nearby pixels remain dark, and this predesigned pattern can be detected in the light scattered by the tissue.

“We can turn each pixel on or off by this kind of modulation,” Zheng says. “If we turn off some of the spots, that creates space around each pixel, so now we can know what is happening in each of the individual spots.”

After the researchers obtain the raw images, they reconstruct each pixel using a computer algorithm that they created.

“We control the shape of the light and we get the response from the tissue. From these responses, we try to resolve what kind of scattering the tissue has. As we do the reconstructions from our raw images, we can get a lot of information that you cannot see in the raw images,” Yildirim says.

Using this technique, the researchers showed that they could image about 200 microns deep into slices of muscle and kidney tissue, and about 300 microns into the brains of mice. That is about twice as deep as was possible without this patterned excitation and computational reconstruction, Yildirim says. The technique can also generate images about 100 to 1,000 times faster than conventional two-photon microscopy.

Brain structure

This type of imaging should allow researchers to more rapidly obtain high-resolution images of neurons in the brain, as well as other structures such as blood vessels. Imaging blood vessels in the brains of mice could be particularly useful for learning more about how blood flow is affected by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Yildirim says.

“All the studies of blood flow or morphology of the blood vessel structures are based on two-photon or three-photon point scanning systems, so they're slow,” he says. “By using this technology, we can really perform high-speed volumetric imaging of blood flow and blood vessel structure in order to understand the changes in blood flow.”

The technique could also lend itself to measuring neuronal activity, by adding voltage-sensitive fluorescent dyes or fluorescent calcium probes that light up when neurons are excited. It could also be useful for analyzing other types of tissue, including tumors, where it could be used to help determine the edges of a tumor.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering P41 program and the NIBIB Pathway to Independence Award, the Hamamatsu Corporation, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), the Center for Advanced Imaging at Harvard University, and the John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellowship Program.

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New clues to why there’s so little antimatter in the universe

Imagine a dust particle in a storm cloud, and you can get an idea of a neutron’s insignificance compared to the magnitude of the molecule it inhabits.

But just as a dust mote might affect a cloud’s track, a neutron can influence the energy of its molecule despite being less than one-millionth its size. And now physicists at MIT and elsewhere have successfully measured a neutron’s tiny effect in a radioactive molecule.

The team has developed a new technique to produce and study short-lived radioactive molecules with neutron numbers they can precisely control. They hand-picked several isotopes of the same molecule, each with one more neutron than the next. When they measured each molecule’s energy, they were able to detect small, nearly imperceptible changes of the nuclear size, due to the effect of a single neutron.

The fact that they were able to see such small nuclear effects suggests that scientists now have a chance to search such radioactive molecules for even subtler effects, caused by dark matter, for example, or by the effects of new sources of symmetry violations related to some of the current mysteries of the universe.

“If the laws of physics are symmetrical as we think they are, then the Big Bang should have created matter and antimatter in the same amount. The fact that most of what we see is matter, and there is only about one part per billon of antimatter, means there is a violation of the most fundamental symmetries of physics, in a way that we can’t explain with all that we know,” says Ronald Fernando Garcia Ruiz, assistant professor of physics at MIT.

“Now we have a chance to measure these symmetry violations, using these heavy radioactive molecules, which have extreme sensitivity to nuclear phenomena that we cannot see in other molecules in nature,” he says. “That could provide answers to one of the main mysteries of how the universe was created.”

Ruiz and his colleagues have published their results today in Physical Review Letters.

A special asymmetry

Most atoms in nature host a symmetrical, spherical nucleus, with neutrons and protons evenly distributed throughout. But in certain radioactive elements like radium, atomic nuclei are weirdly pear-shaped, with an uneven distribution of neutrons and protons within. Physicists hypothesize that this shape distortion can enhance the violation of symmetries that gave origin to the matter in the universe.

“Radioactive nuclei could allow us to easily see these symmetry-violating effects,” says study lead author Silviu-Marian Udrescu, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Physics. “The disadvantage is, they’re very unstable and live for a very short amount of time, so we need sensitive methods to produce and detect them, fast.”

Rather than attempt to pin down radioactive nuclei on their own, the team placed them in a molecule that futher amplifies the sensitivity to symmetry violations. Radioactive molecules consist of at least one radioactive atom, bound to one or more other atoms. Each atom is surrounded by a cloud of electrons that together generate an extremely high electric field in the molecule that physicists believe could amplify subtle nuclear effects, such as effects of symmetry violation.

However, aside from certain astrophysical processes, such as merging neutron stars, and stellar explosions, the radioactive molecules of interest do not exist in nature and therefore must be created artificially. Garcia Ruiz and his colleagues have been refining techniques to create radioactive molecules in the lab and precisely study their properties. Last year, they reported on a method to produce molecules of radium monofluoride, or RaF, a radioactive molecule that contains one unstable radium atom and a fluoride atom.

In their new study, the team used similar techniques to produce RaF isotopes, or versions of the radioactive molecule with varying numbers of neutrons. As they did in their previous experiment, the researchers utilized the Isotope mass Separator On-Line, or ISOLDE, facility at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, to produce small quantities of RaF isotopes.

The facility houses a low-energy proton beam, which the team directed toward a target — a half-dollar-sized disc of uranium-carbide, onto which they also injected a carbon fluoride gas. The ensuing chemical reactions produced a zoo of molecules, including RaF, which the team separated using a precise system of lasers, electromagnetic fields, and ion traps.

The researchers measured each molecule’s mass to estimate of the number of neutrons in a molecule’s radium nucleus. They then sorted the molecules by isotopes, according to their neutron numbers.

In the end, they sorted out bunches of five different isotopes of RaF, each bearing more neutrons than the next. With a separate system of lasers, the team measured the quantum levels of each molecule.

“Imagine a molecule vibrating like two balls on a spring, with a certain amount of energy,” explains Udrescu, who is a graduate student of MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. “If you change the number of neutrons in one of these balls, the amount of energy could change. But one neutron is 10 million times smaller than a molecule, and with our current precision we didn’t expect that changing one would create an energy difference, but it did. And we were able to clearly see this effect.”

Udrescu compares the sensitivity of the measurements to being able to see how Mount Everest, placed on the surface of the sun, could, however minutely, change the sun’s radius. By comparison, seeing certain effects of symmetry violation would be like seeing how the width of a single human hair would alter the sun’s radius.

The results demonstrate that radioactive molecules such as RaF are ultrasensitive to nuclear effects and that their sensitivity may likely reveal more subtle, never-before-seen effects, such as tiny symmetry-violating nuclear properties, that could help to explain the universe’s matter-antimmater asymmetry.

“These very heavy radioactive molecules are special and have sensitivity to nuclear phenomena that we cannot see in other molecules in nature,” Udrescu says. “This shows that, when we start to search for symmetry-violating effects, we have a high chance of seeing them in these molecules.”

This research was supported, in part, by the Office of Nuclear Physics, U.S. Department of Energy; the MISTI Global Seed Funds; the European Research Council; the Belgian FWO Vlaanderen and BriX IAP Research Program; the German Research Foundation; the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, and the Ernest Rutherford Fellowship Grant.

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Designing exploratory robots that collect data for marine scientists

As the Chemistry-Kayak (affectionately known as the ChemYak) swept over the Arctic estuary waters, Victoria Preston was glued to a monitor in a boat nearby, watching as the robot’s sensors captured new data. She and her team had spent weeks preparing for this deployment. With only a week to work on-site, they were making use of the long summer days to collect thousands of observations of a hypothesized chemical anomaly associated with the annual ice-cover retreat.

The robot moved up and down the stream, using its chemical sensors to detect the composition of the flowing water. Its many measurements revealed a short-lived but massive influx of greenhouse gases in the water during the annual “flushing” of the estuary as ice thawed and receded. For Preston, the experiment’s success was a heartening affirmation of how robotic platforms can be leveraged to help scientists understand the environment in fundamentally new ways.

Growing up near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Preston learned about the importance of environmental conservation from a young age. She became passionate about how next-generation technologies could be used as tools to make a difference. In 2016, Preston completed her BS in robotics engineering from Olin College of Engineering.

“My first research project involved creating a drone that could take noninvasive blow samples from exhaling whales,” Preston says. “Some of our work required us to do automatic detection, which would allow the drone to find the blowhole and track it. Overall, it was a great introduction on how to apply fundamental robotics concepts to the real world.”

Preston’s undergraduate research inspired her to apply for a Fulbright award, which enabled her to work at the Center for Biorobotics in Tallinn, Estonia, for nine months. There, she worked on a variety of robotics projects, such as training a robotic vehicle to map an enclosed underwater space. “I really enjoyed the experience, and it helped shape the research interests I hold today. It also confirmed that grad school was the right next step for me and the work I wanted to do,” she says.

Uncovering geochemical hotspots

After her Fulbright ended, Preston began her PhD in aeronautics and astronautics and applied ocean physics and engineering through a joint program between MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her co-advisors, Anna Michel and Nicholas Roy, have helped her pursue both theoretical and experimental questions. “I really wanted to have an advisor relationship with a scientist,” she says. “It was a high priority to me to make sure my work would always be a bridge between science and engineering objectives.”

“Overall, I see robots as a tool for scientists. They take knowledge, explore, bring back datasets. Then scientists do the actual hard work of extracting meaningful information to solve these hard problems,” says Preston.

The first two years of her research focused on how to deploy robots in environments and process their collected data. She developed algorithms that could allow the robot to move on its own. “My goal was to figure out how to exploit our knowledge of the world and use it to plan optimal sampling trajectories,” says Preston. “This would allow robots to independently navigate to sample in regions of high interest to scientists.”  

Improving sampling trajectories becomes a major advantage when researchers are working under limited time or budget constraints. Preston was able to deploy her robot in Massachusetts’ Wareham River to detect dissolved methane and other greenhouse gases, byproducts of a wastewater treatment chemical feedstock and natural processes. “Imagine you have a ground seepage of radiation you’re trying to characterize. As the robot moves around, it might get ‘wafts’ of the radiation,” she says.

“Our algorithm would update to give the robot a new estimate of where the leak might be. The robot responds by moving to that location, collecting more samples and potentially discovering the biggest hotspot or cause for the leak. It also builds a model we can interpret along the way.” This method is a major advancement in efficient sampling in the marine geochemical sciences, since historic strategies meant collecting random bottle samples to be analyzed later in the lab.

Adapting to real-world requirements

In the next phase of her work, Preston has been incorporating an important component — time. This will improve explorations that last over several days. “My previous work made this strong assumption that the robot goes in and by the time it’s done, nothing’s different about the environment. In reality this isn’t true, especially for a moving river,” she says. “We’re now trying to figure out how to better model how a space changes over time.”

This fall, Preston will be traveling on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography research vessel Roger Revelle to the Guaymas Basin the Gulf of California. The research team will be releasing remotely operated and autonomous underwater robots near the bottom of the basin to investigate how hydrothermal plumes move in the water column. Working closely with engineers from the National Deep Submergence Facility, and in collaboration with her advisers and research colleagues at MIT, Preston will be on board, directing the deployment of the devices.

“I’m looking forward to demonstrating how our algorithmic developments work in practice. It’s also thrilling to be part of a huge, diverse group that’s willing to try this,” she says.

Preston is just finishing her fourth year of research, and is starting to look toward the future after her PhD. She plans to continue studying marine and other climate-impacted environments. She is driven by our plethora of unexplored questions about the ocean and hopes to use her knowledge to scratch its surface. She’s drawn to the field of computational sustainability, she says, which is based on “the idea is that machine learning, artificial intelligence, and similar tools can and should be applied to solve some of our most pressing challenges, and that these challenges will in turn change how we think about our tools.”

“This is a really exciting time to be a roboticist who also cares about the environment — and to be a scientist who has access to new tools for research. Maybe I’m a little overly optimistic, but I believe we’re at a pivotal moment for exploration.”

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Pathfinder satellite paves way for constellation of tropical-storm observers

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most brutal on record, producing an unprecedented 30 named storms. What’s more, a record-tying 10 of those storms were characterized as rapidly intensifying — some throttling up by 100 miles per hour in under two days.

To provide a more consistent watch over Earth's tropical belt where these storms form, NASA has launched a test satellite, or pathfinder, ahead of a constellation of six weather satellites called TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats).

Planned for launch in 2022, the TROPICS satellites will work together to provide near-hourly microwave observations of a storm's precipitation, temperature, and humidity — a revisit time for these measurements not currently possible with other satellites.

"These storms affect a lot of people, and we expect that with the increased observations over a single storm from TROPICS, we will be able to improve forecasts, which translates to helping people get to safety sooner, protecting property, and overall enhancing the national economy," says William Blackwell, principal investigator of the TROPICS program and an associate leader of the Applied Space Systems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Six years ago, Blackwell submitted TROPICS as a proposal to NASA's Earth Venture Instrument program and was awarded funding. The program calls for innovative, science-driven, cost-effective missions to solve pressing issues related to Earth science.

The TROPICS mission will be among the first to use a constellation of small satellites for global, rapid-revisit views of tropical storms. Since tropical cyclones and hurricanes can change rapidly as they travel across the ocean, the increased observations from the TROPICS satellites will not only advance the science of understanding storm intensity, they also may improve intensity forecasts.

"As a lifelong Floridian, I’ve seen firsthand the devastating impact that hurricanes can have on our communities. And as climate change is making hurricanes even stronger, it's more important than ever that NASA and our partners invest in missions like TROPICS to better track and understand extreme weather," says NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "NASA’s innovation is strengthening data models that help scientists improve storm forecasting and understand the factors that feed these monster storms. TROPICS will help to do just that, and we look forward to next year’s launch of the TROPICS satellite constellation."

The project also holds promise to boost National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s steady improvements in weather and hurricane forecasts by feeding new environmental data into their numerical weather prediction models, says Frank Marks, director of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

After all six satellites are launched, "this new constellation will provide high frequency temperature and humidity soundings as we seek to learn how hurricanes interact with the surrounding temperature and moisture environment — key data that could improve hurricane intensity forecasts," Marks says.

A critical step to preparing for the constellation was the launch on June 30 of a pathfinder satellite, a seventh identical copy of the TROPICS smallsats. The pathfinder will enable full testing of the technology, communication systems, data processing, and data flow to application users in advance of the constellation's launch. This will allow time for adjustments to the ground system and data products, helping ensure the success of the TROPICS mission.

"The TROPICS Pathfinder satellite is similar to a screening before the opening night of a big show," says Nicholas Zorn, the pathfinder program manager from MIT Lincoln Laboratory. "Its mission is a real-world, end-to-end test, from environmental verification through integration, launch, ground communications, commissioning, calibration, operations, and science data processing. Any areas for improvement identified along the way can be reinforced before the constellation launches."

Aboard each TROPICS small satellite is an instrument called a microwave radiometer, which detects temperature, moisture, and rainfall in the atmosphere. On current weather satellites, microwave radiometers are about the size of a washing machine. On TROPICS’ small satellites the radiometers are about the size of a coffee mug.

Microwave radiometers work by detecting the thermal radiation naturally emitted by oxygen and water vapor in the air. The TROPICS instrument measures these emissions via an antenna spinning at one end of the satellite. The antenna listens in at 12 microwave channels between 90 to 205 gigahertz, where the relevant emission signals are strongest. These channels capture signals at different heights throughout the lowest layer of the atmosphere, or troposphere, where most weather we experience occurs.

Lincoln Laboratory has been working to miniaturize microwave radiometers for the last decade, spurred by the invention of CubeSats, satellites the size of a loaf of bread that are economical to launch. This work has been an ongoing collaboration between Blackwell and MIT Associate Professor Kerri Cahoy of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. TROPICS builds on that team's joint 2018 success in launching the first microwave radiometer on a CubeSat to collect atmospheric profiling data. The instrument aboard the TROPICS' six satellites has been upgraded to provide improved sensitivity, resolution, and reliability and will make more targeted and rapid weather observations.

"It is amazing technology that we have proven out that allows us to maximize the science from the instrument's size factor. To pull this off has taken contributions of so many people," Blackwell says.

The TROPICS science team includes researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory; NOAA National Hurricane Center; NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; University of Miami; Colorado State University; Vanderbilt University; and University of Wisconsin. The University of Massachusetts Amherst, Texas A&M University, and Tufts University contributed to the technology development. Maverick Space Systems provided integration services for the Pathfinder, which was launched from SpaceX’s Transporter 2 mission. Astra Space Inc. is providing launch services for the constellation. NASA’s Launch Services Program based at Kennedy Space Center procured and managed the Tropics Pathfinder launch service.

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Summer 2021 recommended reading from MIT

As we enter the heart of summer, many of us will find ourselves with added time for relaxation and deep reading. The following titles represent a selection of recent offerings from MIT faculty and staff. Happy reading!

Novel, Biography, and Memoir

“The Planet After Geoengineering” (Actar, 2021)
By Rania Ghosn, associate professor of architecture

This graphic novel makes climate engineering and its controversies visible in five stories assembled from the deep underground to outer space. Each “geo-story” — Petrified Carbon, Arctic Albedo, Sky River, Sulfur Storm, and Dust Cloud — depicts possible future Earths that we come to inhabit on the heels of a geoengineering intervention.

“Camino Road” (Artbook, 2021)
By Renée Green, professor of architecture

Green’s debut novel is an homage to (and parody of) the historically male-dominated genre of the road novel. Set between the late 1970s and early 1980s, and combining the genres of road novel, countercultural memoir, travel journal, epistolary novel, and screenplay, it is the record of the mind of a young woman coming of age as an artist, traveling in Mexico, and exploring the bohemian milieu of 1980s New York.

“The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir” (Crown, 2020)
By Sara Seager, the Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Sciences and professor of Earth, atmospheric and planetary Sciences; physics; and aeronautics and astronautics

A pioneering planetary scientist, Seager searches for exoplanets — especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of her husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. As she struggles to navigate life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration.

“The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir” (Penguin, 2021)
By Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society

In this vivid narrative, Turkle ties together her coming of age and her pathbreaking research on technology, empathy, and ethics. Growing up in postwar Brooklyn, Turkle searched for clues to her identity in a house filled with mysteries. Before empathy became a way to find connection, it was her strategy for survival.

Science and Medicine

“Viruses, Pandemics, and Immunity” (MIT Press, 2021)
By Arup Chakraborty, Institute Professor and professor of chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics; and Andrey Shaw

This book provides an accessible explanation of how viruses emerge to cause pandemics, how our immune system combats them, and how diagnostic tests, vaccines, and antiviral therapies work — concepts that provide the foundation for our public health policies.

“Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World” (University of Chicago Press, 2020)
By David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science in the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society; professor of physics, and associate dean of social and ethical responsibilities of computing in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Kaiser introduces readers to iconic episodes in physicists’ still-unfolding quest to understand space, time, and matter. He explores moments of discovery and debate among the minds of Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Stephen Hawking, and many more who have indelibly shaped our understanding of nature as they’ve tried to make sense of a messy world.

“Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings” (Pantheon, 2021)
By Alan Lightman, professor of the practice of the humanities in MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing

From the acclaimed author of “Einstein’s Dreams” comes a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities — and impossibilities — of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between.

“Mercury Stories: Understanding Sustainability through a Volatile Element” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Noelle E. Selin, associate professor in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; and Henrik Selin

This book explores how people have made beneficial use of mercury for thousands of years, how they’ve been harmed by its toxic properties, and how they’ve tried to protect themselves and the environment from its damaging effects. The authors develop and apply an analytical framework that can inform other efforts to evaluate and promote sustainability.

“Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality” (Penguin, 2021)
By Frank Wilczek, the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics

Wilczek offers a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and joy, he guides readers through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way — bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before.

Culture, Humanities, and Social Sciences

“Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance” (NYU Press, 2021)
By Moya Bailey, MLK Visiting Professor in the MIT Program in Women’s and Gender Studies

When Bailey first coined the term “misogynoir,” she defined it as the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women, particularly in visual culture and digital spaces. In this book, Bailey shows how Black women actively reimagine the world by engaging in powerful forms of digital resistance at a time when anti-Black misogyny is thriving.

“Combating Inequality: Rethinking Government’s Role” (MIT Press, 2021)
Edited by Olivier Blanchard, professor emeritus of economics, and Dani Rodrik

Economic inequality is the defining issue of our time. In this book, leading economists, many of them current or former policymakers, bring good news: We have the tools to reverse the rise in inequality. In their discussions, they consider which of these tools are the most effective at doing so.

“Insurance Era: Risk, Governance, and the Privatization of Security in Postwar America” (University of Chicago Press, 2021)
By Caley Horan, associate professor of history

Horan shows that “the rise and dissemination of neoliberal values ... were the result of a project to unsocialize risk, shrinking the state’s commitment to providing support.” This has had the effect of laying burdens on people who are often the least capable of bearing them.

“Just Money: Mission-Driven Banks and the Future of Finance” (MIT Press, 2021)
By Katrin Kaufer, director of Just Money at the MIT Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and Lillian Steponaitis, CoLab research affiliate

In this book, Kaufer and Steponaitis take readers on a global tour of financial institutions that use finance as a force for good. In so doing, they remind us that money, if used intentionally and equitably, can be just money — a tool that serves nature, human development, and social justice.

“The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge” (Seven Stories Press, 2021)
By Peter B. Kaufman, project manager for resource development and strategic initiatives in MIT Open Learning

How do we create a universe of truthful and verifiable information, available to everyone? In this book, Kaufman describes the powerful forces that have purposely damaged our efforts to share knowledge widely and freely, drawing up a progressive agenda for how today’s free thinkers can band together to fight them — and win.

“The Mental Life of Modernism: Why Poetry, Painting, and Music Changed at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Samuel Jay Keyser, professor emeritus of linguistics

Keyser argues that the stylistic innovations of Western modernism reflect not a cultural shift but a cognitive one. Behind modernism is the same cognitive phenomenon that led to the scientific revolution of the 17th century: the brain coming up against its natural limitations.

“Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century” (MIT Press, 2020)
Edited by Chappell Lawson, associate professor of political science; Alan Bersin; and Juliette N. Kayyem

What does it mean to “secure the homeland” in the 21st century? What lessons can be drawn from the first two decades of U.S. government efforts to do so? In this book, leading academic experts and former senior government officials address the most salient challenges of homeland security today.

“Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made The World Rich” (Random House, 2020)
By Thomas Levenson, professor of the practice in MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing and director of the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing

Advances of the Scientific Revolution created newly abstract ideas about money, transforming it from something material — discs of precious metal — to a mathematical notion of money, shares, or bonds, or insurance that could evolve over time. Levenson shows how we are still vulnerable to the same risks that brought down Britain’s first experiments with financial invention.

“States of Childhood: From the Junior Republic to the American Republic, 1895-1945” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Jennifer S. Light, the Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology in the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society

Across the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th century, simulated cities, states, and nations sprang up in which children played legislators, police officers, bankers, shopkeepers, and other adults. They passed laws, grew food, and constructed buildings, among other tasks, inside virtual worlds. Light examines these “junior republics” and argues that they marked the transition to a new kind of “sheltered” childhood for American youth.

“American Fascism” (Society for Cultural Anthropology, 2021)
Edited by Heather Paxson, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Anthropology, with Christopher Nelson and Brad Weiss

If the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol represents a return of fascism, when was it here before? Is fascism an appropriate category to understand this moment? The essays within this anthology provide some context for our current political moment; they are provocations for the future, and for the anthropological work that lies ahead.

“Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn” (Doubleday, 2020)
By Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning, and Luke Yoquinto, research associate in the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics

Sarma and Yoquinto summarize the history of pedagogy and offer a vision for a different future, asking important questions about the efficacy of exams, the notion of innate ability, and new scholarship on how learners understand, absorb, and utilize information and skills. They argue for a more accessible, flexible, and engaging learning ecosystem.

“Wall to Wall: Law as Culture in Latin America and Spain” (Vernon Press, 2021)
Co-edited by Ana Yáñez Rodríguez, lecturer in Spanish within MIT Global Languages

In this collection, a wide array of scholars based in the U.S., Spain, and Latin America explore the encounter of Hispanophone cultures and the law. Contributors delineate a fraught relationship of complicity, negotiation, and outright confrontation covering five centuries and a global landscape.

Technology and Society

“Redesigning AI: Work, Democracy, and Justice in the Age of Automation” (Boston Review, distributed by MIT Press, 2021)
Edited by Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor and professor of economics

This book brings together experts — economists, legal scholars, policymakers, and developers — to explore the intersection of technology and economic justice, and to consider what steps tech companies can do take to ensure the advancement of AI does not further diminish economic prospects of the most vulnerable.

“The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health — and How We Must Adapt” (Currency, 2020)
By Sinan Aral, the David Austin Professor of Management and professor of information technology and marketing

Drawing on decades of research and business experience, Aral provides an insider’s tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical insights into the social media trends of the 2020 election and beyond.

“The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots” (Macmillan, 2021)
By Kate Darling, researcher at the MIT Media Lab

Are robots going to replace us and take our jobs? While those discussions are going on in many industries, Darling offers a different take. She argues that by treating robots the same way we treat animals — with humanity — and incorporating them in our work, military, and family life, our future with robot technology looks bright.

“Data Feminism” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Catherine D’Ignazio, assistant professor of urban science and planning, and Lauren F. Klein

Data are neither neutral nor objective. While they have been used for good (exposing injustice, improving health outcomes), they have also been used to discriminate (granting home loans, determining jail sentences). The authors present a new way of thinking about data informed by intersectional feminism, and offer strategies for how data scientists can work toward a more just society.

“Recommendation Engines” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Michael Schrage, visiting scholar in MIT Sloan’s Initiative on the Digital Economy

Schrage explains the origins, technologies, business applications, and increasing societal impact of recommendation engines, the systems that allow companies worldwide to know what products, services, and experiences “you might also like.” Part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series.

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration” (Basic Books, 2020)
By Julie Shah, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and associate dean of social and ethical responsibilities of computing in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and Laura Major SM ’05

A vision for how robots can survive in the real world and how they will change our relationship to technology. From teaching them manners, to robot-proofing public spaces, to planning for their mistakes, this book answers every question you didn’t know you needed to ask about the robots on the way.''

“Data Action: Using Data for Public Good” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Sarah Williams, associate professor of urban studies and planning

Data inevitably represent the ideologies of those who control their use; data analytics and algorithms too often exclude women, the poor, and ethnic groups. In this book, Williams provides a guide for working with data in more ethical and responsible ways.

“Make it Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform” (MIT Press, 2021)
By Patrick Henry Winston, former Ford Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science

Effective communication can be life-changing. This book from the late MIT professor and former director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory helps readers understand how writing and speaking tools can help you get a job, make a sale, convince a boss, inspire a student, or even start a revolution.

Work, Business, and Management

“Workforce Education: A New Roadmap” (MIT Press, 2021)
By William Bonvillian, senior director for special projects at MIT Open Learning, and Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning

Bonvillian and Sarma offer a roadmap for rebuilding America’s working class. They argue that we need to train more workers more quickly, and they describe innovative methods of workforce education that are being developed across the country.

“Step Up, Step Back: How to Really Deliver Strategic Change in Your Organization” (Bloomsbury, 2020)
By Elsbeth Johnson, senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management

Johnson challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about how to lead change — and about what we consider “leadership.” She suggests leaders need to do more in early stages of the change, in specific ways and at specific times, and do less in later stages of the change.

“Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do About It” (Princeton University Press, 2020)
By Erin L. Kelly, MIT Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies, and Phyllis Moen

Years of research shows how organizational change and work redesign strategies can address burnout, overload, and turnover — especially timely as many professionals in the past year have been asked to do more with less in extremely challenging circumstances.

“Shaping the Future of Work: A Handbook for Action and a New Social Contract” (Routledge, 2020)
By Tom Kochan, the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, and Lee Dyer

This book provides a clear roadmap for the roles workers and leaders in business, labor, education, and government must play in building a new social contract for all to prosper. It is a call to action for a collaborative effort to develop both high-quality jobs and strong, successful businesses while overcoming the deep social and economic divisions that are all too apparent in society today.

“Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive at Work . . . Wherever You Are” (Harper Business, 2021)
By Robert Pozen, senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Alexandra Samuel

You can thrive and excel when you’re working remotely, if you adopt the mindset, habits, and tech tools of professionals who are even more productive outside the office. Learn to think like a “business of one,” and that entrepreneurial mindset will transform your experience of remote work.

Arts, Architecture, and Design

“Dance, Architecture and Engineering (Dance in Dialogue)” (Bloomsbury, 2021)
By Adesola Akinleye, research affiliate in the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology and a CAST Visiting Artist

Generated from a year of exchanges of movement ideas in cross-practice conversations and workshops with dancers, musicians, architects, and engineers, Akinleye engages with dance’s offer of perspectives on being in place. Themes addressed include how dance and city-making cultures engage with female bodies and non-white bodies in today’s era of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter.

“Architecture of Coexistence: Building Pluralism” (Architangle, 2020)
Edited by Azra Aksamija, associate professor of architecture

This book investigates how architecture can shape an open-minded and inclusive society, highlighting three internationally renowned projects: the White Mosque in Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina (1980); the Islamic Cemetery in Altach, Austria (2012); and Superkilen park in Copenhagen, Denmark (2011). Essays and interviews provide intriguing insights into architecture’s ability to bridge cultural divides.

“The Cannibal’s Cookbook: Mining Myths of Cyclopean Constructions” (ORO Editions, 2021)
By Brandon Clifford, associate professor of architecture

Bridging the realities of our ancestors and ourselves, this book proposes a series of architectural “recipes” after dining on a body of past expertise. Recipes are deciphered from ancient cyclopean masonry systems, but with a contemporary twist; they cannibalize leftover debris — building rubble that typically stuffs our landfills — to construct new buildings.

“Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Sasha Costanza-Chock, associate professor of civic media

“Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. This book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices and connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival.

“The World as an Architectural Project” (MIT Press, 2020)
By Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) and Roi Salgueiro Barrio, lecturer in SA+P, with Gabriel Kozlowski, researcher in SA+P

The world’s growing vulnerability to planet-sized risks invites action on a global scale. This book shows how, for more than a century, architects have imagined the future of the planet through world-scale projects. With 50 speculative projects by visionary architects documented in text and images, this ambitious and wide-ranging book is the first compilation of its kind.

“Things Fall Together: A Guide to the New Materials Revolution” (Princeton University Press, 2021)
By Skylar Tibbits, associate professor of architecture and co-director of the MIT Self-Assembly Lab

Today’s researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. This book describes how these materials open new directions for industrial innovation and challenge us to rethink the way we build and collaborate with our environment.

Cities and Planning

“A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy” (Island Press, 2021)
Edited by Alan Berger, professor of urban studies and planning; Carolyn Kousky; and Billy Fleming

Coastal adaptation is necessary if communities are to adequately protect themselves from increased tidal flooding and sea level rise. Planning is critical to their survival. “A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation” inspires innovative and cross-disciplinary thinking about coastal policy at the state and local levels while providing actionable, realistic policy and planning options for adaptation professionals and policymakers.

“Street Commerce: Creating Vibrant Urban Sidewalks” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
By Andres Sevtsuk, associate professor of urban studies and planning

Will e-commerce and big-box stores overtake the smaller-scale stores lining streets accessible on foot or by public transit? Sevtsuk offers a thoughtful analysis of the issues involved in implementing successful street commerce and provides examples from around the world where cities have reinvigorated their street commerce.

“Furthering Fair Housing: Prospects for Racial Justice in America’s Neighborhoods” (Temple University Press, 2021)
Edited by Justin P. Steil, associate professor of law and urban planning; Lawrence J. Vale, associate dean of the School of Architecture and Planning and the Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning; Nicholas F. Kelly PhD ’21; and Maia S. Woluchem MCP ’19

The 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule was repealed by the Trump administration, jeopardizing the most significant federal effort to increase equal access to valuable opportunities such as top-performing schools and good jobs. By placing the history of fair housing in the context of the centuries-long struggle for racial equity, the authors show how the policy can be revived and enhanced to advance racial equity in America’s neighborhoods.

“Toward Urban Economic Vibrancy: Patterns and Practices in Asia’s New Cities” (SA+P Press, distributed by MIT Press, 2020)
Edited by Siqi Zheng, the Samuel Tak Lee Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability, and Zhengzhen Tan, executive director of the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab

This book presents new cities in Asia from the perspective of economic vibrancy, identifying key mechanisms for measuring success. This analytical framework addresses the mechanisms along three dimensions: underlying forces that foster the dense and diverse production and consumption activities; creative financing; and the digitalization of urban systems.

For Young Readers

“Peculiar Produce: The Alphabet Book” (Hand Press Ink, 2021)
By Thomas Moya; illustrated by Arthur Grau, senior communications officer in the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics

A picture book that teaches about uncommon foods and introduces readers to children’s names from different cultures. Using alliterative text and aspirational vocabulary to encourage discussion of body image and healthy eating, characters represent fruits and vegetables that highlight differences and imperfections.

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Professor Emeritus Sow-Hsin Chen, global expert in neutron science and devoted mentor, dies at 86

Sow-Hsin Chen, emeritus professor of nuclear science and engineering (NSE) at MIT, died peacefully on June 26 in West Newton, Massachusetts. He was 86.

Born in pre-World War II Taiwan in the small rural town of Puzi (in Chiayi County), Chen excelled academically, receiving a BS in physics from National Taiwan University in 1956 and an MS in nuclear science from National Tsing Hua University in its first graduating class in 1958. A highly competitive International Atomic Energy Agency fellowship brought Chen to the University of Michigan, where he earned a second MS in nuclear science in 1962. Two years later, he received his PhD in physics from McMaster University, working with professor and Nobel laureate Bertram N. Brockhouse, who pioneered the development of neutron scattering and spectroscopy for studying condensed matter.

Chen joined MIT in 1968 as an assistant professor in the Department Nuclear Engineering and became full professor in 1974. He was a devoted teacher and mentor to over 50 PhD students and postdocs, many of whom are in leadership roles in academia, government, and industry around the world. For his scientific achievement in research and teaching, Chen was recognized with the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Distinguished U.S. Scientist Award (Germany) in 1987. 

Over the span of his 50-year career, Chen was instrumental in advancing the understanding of the dynamical properties of supercooled and interfacial water, and the development of new methods for data analysis. His pioneering experiments on the structure and mutual interactions of self-assembled systems such as micelles, microemulsions, and protein-surfactant complexes in solution have left an enduring impact on the field.

Chen’s innovative and novel contributions, employing small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering in fundamental studies of soft condensed-matter physics, established him as a distinguished scientist and expert in the international community. Fort these contributions he was awarded the Clifford G. Shull Prize in 2008 — the highest award of the Neutron Scattering Society of America — and the Guinier Prize in 2015 by the International Union of Crystallography for lifetime achievement and contribution to the field of small angle neutron scattering.

Chen’s collaborations with Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Brookhaven National Laboratories, as well as the National Institute of Standards and Technologies, contributed to the Department of Energy’s bold “grand challenge,” an initiative to focus research in five related areas to allow unprecedented control over the microscopic world. His work is memorialized in over 520 papers in leading peer-reviewed journals, 20 co-authored books, and the Sow-Hsin Chen Fellowship in Neutron Sciences.

In addition to his numerous awards, Chen was also inducted in 2006 into the Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s preeminent academic research institution, which reports directly to and advises the president. Chen was also awarded two honorary degrees in recognition of his global contributions to the field — honorary doctor of science, honoris causa, from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and dottore di ricerca “honoris causa” in fisica (honorary doctorate in physics) from University of Messina in Italy.

Chen was tireless in his research. When diagnosed with an incurable genetic Parkinson's-like disease, he noted the realization that he “was racing against time.” Thanks to valued collaborations with several European and Asian colleagues, he describes this phase of his professional life as “the most productive period of my scientific achievements.” Chen delighted holding intense discussions and offering suggestions about how his, and his former students’, experimental data could be built upon for further advancements. He is fondly remembered for his lifelong passion for science, good sense of humor, and love of fine food and wine.

On the occasion of Chen’s 80th birthday, the collaborators and students who Chen so cherished joined to celebrate his accomplishments with a one-day workshop on “Topics in Soft Condensed Matter.” “It is a great honor to have studied with Professor Chen as an MIT student,” says Yun Liu, a former graduate student and current University of Delaware professor. “The breadth and depth of his scientific contribution to the neutron scattering field and soft condensed matter physics is tremendous and far-reaching.”

"Sow-Hsin has always 'embodied the core of the department’, as many NSE faculty will attest," says Professor Anne White, head of NSE. "He will be remembered as much for his towering scholarly stature and transformative research as for his contributions to mentorship of students and junior faculty. He was always supportive of junior faculty, and passionate about the future strategic directions for the department. I am personally very grateful for his insightful conversations and correspondence since becoming department head, and will always remember his support and encouragement."

Chen’s enthusiasm for his work was second only to his love of family. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Ching-Chih, and their three children and their families: Anne and her husband, Don, of Lexington, Massachusetts; Catherine and her husband, Edward, of Needham, Massachusetts; and John and his wife, Yi-Ling Jennifer Wang, of Menlo Park, California. He is also survived by his five grandchildren — Emily, Jason, Christopher, Melanie, and Heidi. 

Donations in Chen’s memory can be made to the Sow-Hsin Chen Fellowship for Neutron Sciences Fund at MIT, and the Sow-Hsin Chen Distinguished Lectureship on Neutron Science and Technology of the National Tsing Hua University.

NSE will hold a memorial service at a later date, when it is possible to gather in person on the MIT campus.

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Synthetic biology circuits can respond within seconds

Synthetic biology offers a way to engineer cells to perform novel functions, such as glowing with fluorescent light when they detect a certain chemical. Usually, this is done by altering cells so they express genes that can be triggered by a certain input.

However, there is often a long lag time between an event such as detecting a molecule and the resulting output, because of the time required for cells to transcribe and translate the necessary genes. MIT synthetic biologists have now developed an alternative approach to designing such circuits, which relies exclusively on fast, reversible protein-protein interactions. This means that there’s no waiting for genes to be transcribed or translated into proteins, so circuits can be turned on much faster — within seconds.

“We now have a methodology for designing protein interactions that occur at a very fast timescale, which no one has been able to develop systematically. We’re getting to the point of being able to engineer any function at timescales of a few seconds or less,” says Deepak Mishra, a research associate in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and the lead author of the new study.

This kind of circuit could be useful for creating environmental sensors or diagnostics that could reveal disease states or imminent events such as a heart attack, the researchers say.

Ron Weiss, a professor of biological engineering and of electrical engineering and computer science, is the senior author of the study, which appears today in Science. Other authors include Tristan Bepler, a former MIT postdoc; Bonnie Berger, the Simons Professor of Mathematics and head of the Computation and Biology group in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; Brian Teague, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin; and Jim Broach, chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

Protein interactions

Inside living cells, protein-protein interactions are essential steps in many signaling pathways, including those involved in immune cell activation and responses to hormones or other signals. Many of these interactions involve one protein activating or deactivating another by adding or removing chemical groups called phosphates.

In this study, the researchers used yeast cells to host their circuit and created a network of 14 proteins from species including yeast, bacteria, plants, and humans. The researchers modified these proteins so they could regulate each other in the network to yield a signal in response to a particular event.

Their network, the first synthetic circuit to consist solely of phosphorylation / dephosphorylation protein-protein interactions, is designed as a toggle switch — a circuit that can quickly and reversibly switch between two stable states, allowing it to “remember” a specific event such as exposure to a certain chemical. In this case, the target is sorbitol, a sugar alcohol found in many fruits.

Once sorbitol is detected, the cell stores a memory of the exposure, in the form of a fluorescent protein localized in the nucleus. This memory is also passed on to future cell generations. The circuit can also be reset by exposing it to a different molecule, in this case, a chemical called isopentenyl adenine.

These networks can also be programmed to perform other functions in response to an input. To demonstrate this, the researchers also designed a circuit that shuts down cells’ ability to divide after sorbitol is detected.

By using large arrays of these cells, the researchers can create ultrasensitive sensors that respond to concentrations of the target molecule as low as parts per billion. And because of the fast protein-protein interactions, the signal can be triggered in as little as one second. With traditional synthetic circuits, it could take hours or even days to see the output.

“That switch to extremely fast speeds is going to be really important moving forward in synthetic biology and expanding the type of applications that are possible,” Weiss says.

Complicated networks

The toggle network that the researchers designed in this study is larger and more complex than most synthetic circuits that have been previously designed. Once they built it, the researchers wondered if any similar networks might exist in living cells. Using a computational model that they designed, they discovered six naturally occurring, complicated toggle networks in yeast that had never been seen before.

“We wouldn’t think to look for those because they’re not intuitive. They’re not necessarily optimal or elegant, but we did find multiple examples of such toggle switch behaviors,” Weiss says. “This is a new, engineered-inspired approach to discovering regulatory networks in biological systems.”

The researchers now hope to use their protein-based circuits to develop sensors that could be used to detect environmental pollutants. Another potential application is deploying custom protein networks within mammalian cells that could act as diagnostic sensors within the human body to detect abnormal hormone or blood sugar levels. In the longer term, Weiss envisions designing circuits that could be programmed into human cells to report drug overdoses or an imminent heart attack.

“You could have a situation where the cell reports that information to an electronic device that would alert the patient or the doctor, and the electronic device could also have reservoirs of chemicals that could counteract a shock to the system,” he says.

The research was funded by the Siebel Scholars Award, an Eni-MIT Energy Research Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies through the U.S. Army Research Office, a SynBERC grant from the National Science Foundation, and the Center for Integrated Synthetic Biology through the National Institutes of Health.

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