Free Republic

For Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the “social injustice” of college tuition, here’s a curveball bound to scramble your worldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) will announce on Monday that they intend to launch an online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.

Lori Berenson's parents raged last night against a human rights court ruling that will keep their activist daughter in prison for the next 11 years. Mark and Rhoda Berenson, who live in Gramercy Park, said the ruling marked "a tragic day for human rights in the Western Hemisphere and in the world." They faulted the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Human Rights Court's decision to uphold a Peruvian court ruling that declared their activist daughter a Marxist terrorist who conspired in 1995 to overturn the Peruvian government. Berenson was originally tried by a tribunal of hooded judges. It was later found she...

BOSTON (AP) — A Harvard University fellow who was studying ethics was charged with hacking into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's computer network to steal nearly 5 million academic articles. Aaron Swartz, 24, of Cambridge, was accused of stealing the documents from JSTOR, a popular research subscription service that offers digitized copies of more than 1,000 academic journals and documents, some dating back to the 17th century. In an indictment released Tuesday, prosecutors say Swartz stole 4.8 million articles between September 2010 and January after breaking into a computer wiring closet on MIT's campus. Swartz, then a student at the...

TeraDiode, a spinout company from MIT and located nearby in Littleton, MA, has unveiled, a new powerful direct-diode laser capable of cutting all the way through steel up to half an inch thick at various speeds. The laser is based on technology developed by company co-founders Dr. Bien Chann and Dr. Robin Huang while still at MIT. The new laser system is based on semiconductor technology, which means it uses electricity, rather than chemicals, and employs an optical system that directs multiple individual beams into one single stronger one, and, according to the company website, the laser has "revolutionary TeraDrive...

In an effort to combat soaring fuel prices and cut greenhouse gas emissions, the aviation industry is racing toward the use of biofuels. In 2008, Virgin Atlantic became the first commercial airline to fly a plane on a blend of biofuel and petroleum. Since then, Air New Zealand, Qatar Airways and Continental Airlines, among others, have flown biofuel test flights, and Lufthansa is racing to be the first carrier to run daily flights on a biofuel blend. However, researchers at MIT say the industry may want to make sure it has examined biofuels' complete carbon footprint before making an all-out...

We’ve always wondered why there is so much debate about the rate of inflation. It seems like such a simple thing to track. You go in the store. You buy a box of Wheaties. You write down the price. Next month, you do the same thing. What’s so hard about that? But what if the box is smaller next month? What if the Wheaties are twice as good? What if you can get the same enjoyment from a box of Wheatie-Puffs at half the price? What’s the real rate of inflation? It depends on how you figure it. The Labor...

There are some indications today that the mainstream scientific community's attitude towards cold fusion and specifically the Rossi/Focardi energy catalyzer may not be as dismissive as some may seem. An article by Natalie Wolchover on the website Life's Little Mysteries today included a review of the E-cat and comments from some leading researchers in the field of nuclear science -- and an interesting invitation was extended by one of them.

MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology acknowledged 12 years ago that it had discriminated against female professors in “subtle but pervasive” ways, it became a national model for addressing gender inequity. Now, an evaluation of those efforts shows substantial progress — and unintended consequences. Among other concerns, many female professors say that M.I.T.’s aggressive push to hire more women has created the sense that they are given an unfair advantage. Those who once bemoaned M.I.T.’s lag in recruiting women now worry about what one called “too much effort to recruit women.” Much as a report accompanying M.I.T.’s...

A two-part operation to spray water into the used fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi reactor 4 ended just before 7 A.M. EDT. Japan's defense ministry announced that the Self Defense Force discharged more than 100 tons of water at the pool, and concluded that much of it reached inside the reactor building. This was the first time since the March 11 quake that reactor 4 has been doused. Yesterday the Tokyo elite fire services used a high-pressure fire truck to spray water for more than 13 hours into the fuel pool of reactor 3. The ministry also reported conducting surface...

As Japan scrambles to cope with a nuclear reactor damaged in the quake, Josh Dzieza talks to Ron Ballinger, a nuclear expert at MIT about how the plants work, worst-case scenarios, and more. Plus, full coverage of Japan's catastrophe. Shortly after Japan was hit with the double disaster of a magnitude 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, a possible third reared its head: nuclear meltdown. The quake caused 11 of Japan's nuclear reactors to shut down automatically, including three at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, 170 miles northeast of Tokyo. But the quake also cut Fukushima off from the power grid,...

Japan being a major player in the constantly improved development in health and safety for it’s millions of inhabitants, clearly has more than one trick up it’s sleeve to make sure IF disaster hits the spot, that the people are as safe as possible. Unfortunately a tsunami + an 8.9 earthquake is just a bit to huge for even the most water tight evacuation plan out there. The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear reactor buildings located closely to the epicenter of the quake are under constant monitorring and everything possible is done to make sure IF radioactive substances hit the air, the...

Below is the O so apt resignation of  Steven J. Welcenbach from the American Chemical Society (ACS). In it he describes how the largest scientific society in the world has become a non-scientific activist group bowing to political pressure and ignoring it’s members objections. Such is his ire and dismay, he is not only pulling his membership but vows to do all he can to make sure ACS does not receive public money. He suggests that many former members will form a new society that rigorously follows the scientific method (hear hear). It’s time to start talking about that new...

Modern cosmology theory holds that our universe may be just one in a vast collection of universes known as the multiverse. MIT physicist Alan Guth has suggested that new universes (known as “pocket universes”) are constantly being created, but they cannot be seen from our universe. In this view, “nature gets a lot of tries — the universe is an experiment that’s repeated over and over again, each time with slightly different physical laws, or even vastly different physical laws,” says Jaffe. Some of these universes would collapse instants after forming; in others, the forces between particles would be so...

Comic treatment for health planMIT econ whiz’s hip idea to explain overhaul By Christine McConville / The Pulse Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - Updated 2 hours ago The MIT economics whiz who crafted President Obama’s national health-care overhaul now plans to explain the complex and controversial plan to the masses — in one long comic book. Jonathan Gruber, a nationally recognized health economist who devised the economic underpinnings of Obamacare (Gruber hates the term), said his three comic-loving kids encouraged him to use the hip format of the graphic novel — basically an expensive comic published in book form —...

U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist punctuated the first day of her attempted murder trial Tuesday by shouting that the prosecution's first witness was lying, prompting her to be pulled from the courtroom. Aafia Siddiqui, a reputed al-Qaida supporter, is charged with trying to kill U.S. military officers and federal agents in Afghanistan in July 2008. Her outburst came less than two hours after her trial began in federal court in Manhattan. U.S. Army Capt. Robert Snyder testified that documents found in Siddiqui's purse included targets for a mass casualty attack, including the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street and...

Imagine this nightmare courtroom scenario: Un hinged Jew-bashing, open mockery of American soldiers, juror intimidation and coldly calculated exploitation of US constitutional protections by a suspected al Qaeda defendant. Well, there's no need to wait for the Gitmo terror trial circuses. New York City is already getting a glimpse of the future. Jihadi scientist Aafia Siddiqui is on trial right now in a Manhattan federal court for the attempted murder and assault of US military personnel in Afghanistan's Ghazni province two years ago. She's an accomplished Karachi, Pakistan-born scientist who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology...

<p>Global warming is real. It is predominantly anthropogenic. Left unchecked, it will likely warm the earth by 3-7 C by the end of the century. What should the United States do about it?</p> <p>Very little, if anything at all.</p> <p>As economists, we are inclined to take the vantage point of the benevolent dictator, that omnific individual with his hands upon all of the policy levers available to the state. When placed in such a position, the question of how to respond to global warming is answered by performing a simple comparison: does x, the cost of optimally mitigating carbon emissions, exceed y, the benefit of that carbon mitigation? Where the answer is yes, the global carbon mitigation effort remains rightfully nascent, where the answer is no, it springs up and becomes law with a just and sudden force.</p>

Seaswarm, an autonomous, solar-powered skimmer, may be the answer to less expensive and more efficient methods for cleaning up future oil spills. The robot prototype promises to absorb 20 times its weight in oil. Created by researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab, Seaswarm employs a conveyor belt of absorbent, nanowire mesh. The specially deigned mesh can suck up oil on the water’s surface and then process and dispose of the oil it’s collected. The Seaswarm can continue to absorb more of the spill while the robot autonomously navigates and cleans the ocean for weeks on end. Researchers claim that 5,000...

NEW YORK (AFP) – This could give a whole new meaning to the phrase power dressing. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a cloth that can hear and emit noise. The team, led by MIT professor Yoel Fink, has reached "a new milestone on the path to functional fibers: fibers that can detect and produce sound," MIT said in a statement. The development, described in the August issue of Nature Materials, transforms the usual passive nature of textiles into a virtually all-singing, all-dancing version. According to MIT, "applications could include clothes that are themselves sensitive microphones, for...

"SCHWARZENEGGER FLEXES MUSCLE FOR MOSCOW, WHILE OBAMA IGNORES WARNINGS FROM RUSSIAN DISSIDENTS" International News Analysis Today June 29, 2010 By Toby Westerman SNIPPET: "California governor, and former film superhero, Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged to lead a trade mission to Russia and assist "in any way possible" Russia's drive to develop its own high tech "Silicon Valley." U.S. president Barack Obama has also promised his backing in facilitating the flow of U.S. technology to Russia. The eager participation of Schwarzenegger and Obama in exporting U.S. technological capabilities came during Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's three day visit (June 22-24) to the United...

June 07, 2010 SNIPPET: "His appointment to head the MIT immediately preceded the "humanitarian" flotilla organized by terrorist-linked Turkish organization IHH. Prior to being this most recent appointment he was central to moving Turkey into the Iranian camp."

No one really knows why, but for an open wound, simply applying suction dramatically speeds healing times. (The theory is that the negative pressure draws bacteria out, and encourages circulation.) But for almost everyone, that treatment is out of reach--simply because the systems are expensive--rentals cost at least $100 a day and need to be recharged every six hours. No more. Danielle Zurovcik, a doctoral student at MIT, has created a hand-powered suction-healing system that costs about $3. The device is composed of an airtight wound dressing, connected by a plastic tube to a cylinder with accordion-like folds. Squeezing it...

SNIPPET: "Jack Bauer may be the first fictional character in history who has been accused of inciting war crimes. During the shooting of Season 6, a group of real-life interrogators from the FBI, CIA, and the Army paid a visit to the set to make their case that the depiction of torture on "24" was not only unrealistic, but was also inspiring cadets at West Point and soldiers in the field to ape Bauer's methods of extracting information. The professionals pointed out that in their experience, torture never works, and that the "ticking bomb scenario" itself is a fantasy that...

The plot of the hit Fox drama “24” may make for exciting television, but Muslim groups fear their representation as terrorists does more than entertain - it vilifies an entire religious group. “I think that TV has quite an effect on how people think,” said Nadeem Mazen, past president of the MIT Muslim Association. “So much of what we hear on Muslims is hearsay - an expert opinion by people with a personal agenda and not necessarily motivated by truth. And then a show like this comes along that perpetuates the ‘them’ factor.” The plot of the sixth season of...

A team of scientists at MIT have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say. The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” says Michael Strano, MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, who was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings that appeared in Nature Materials on March 7. The lead author was Wonjoon Choi, a doctoral...

Senators Query MIT Economist Bethany Stotts, February 2, 2010 MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber was contacted last week by two Republican Senators who took exception to his role in the Administration’s health care reform efforts. “When MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber allowed himself to be quoted by numerous media outlets about his sunny analyses of ObamaCare, including a big push by Peter Orszag on his OMB site and in challenging reporters to use Gruber’s conclusions, Gruber never bothered to mention that he was receiving money through HHS to provide consultation on health-care reform,” writes Ed Morrissey on the Hot Air...

President Obama capped off his first 12 months with a job-approval rating that has dipped by a dozen percentage points since he got to work in Washington last Jan. 20. One group Obama has not lost favor with is Chocolate City, a 28-member black organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Members say the president “hit the ground running” by taking on problems left by the Bush administration.

MIT must do a better job recruiting and retaining black and Hispanic faculty, who have a significantly more difficult time getting promoted than white and Asian colleagues, according to a frank internal study released today by the university. In some departments, such as chemistry, mathematics, and nuclear science and engineering, no minorities have been hired in the last two decades, according to the report, which was more than two years in the making. MIT's first comprehensive study of faculty racial diversity and the experiences of underrepresented minority professors highlights a national problem across academia: the need to improve the pipeline...

MIT Health Care Debacle Bethany Stotts, January 12, 2010 A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist is being roundly criticized for promoting the Obama Administration’s health care reform efforts while receiving extensive government funding as a consultant—and not telling journalists about the connection. Professor Jonathan Gruber, in turn, has maintained that “at no time have I publicly advocated a position that I did not firmly believe—indeed, I have been completely consistent with my academic track record.” Aleksandra Kulczuga, writing for the recently-launched Daily Caller, shares a few more details: Widely cited health-care economist Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT, accepted...

Computers keep getting more powerful because silicon transistors keep getting smaller. But that miniaturization can't continue much further without a change to the transistors' design, which has remained more or less the same for 40 years. Five different test structures feature stacks of nanowires with different numbers of levels. The bottom structure has only one level; the top structure has five. One potential successor to today's silicon transistors is silicon nanowires, tiny filaments of silicon suspended like the strings of a guitar between electrically conducting pads. But while silicon nanowires are certainly small enough to keep the miniaturization of computer...

id the economic crisis stabilize oil prices? What is the future of energy security? Has China bypassed the United States in the green energy revolution? How will the global community approach the “fourth corridor” pipeline in relation to Iranian power and Russian resurgence? Dr. Daniel Fine, research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, addressed a diverse set of energy-related questions at The Fletcher School on September 15. The presentation was part of the International Security Studies Program Global Speaker Series.

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber raked in nearly $300,000 from the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services while frequently appearing in news accounts as a non-partisan analyst who supported Democratic health care legislation. Gruber defended himself to Ben Smith at the Politico, arguing that HHS didn’t fund his “public declarations” and that he didn’t say anything that was contrary to what he believed.

Jon Gruber, a prominent MIT economist has been been one of the country's leading advocates of Democratic health care reform legislation. Most recently he wrote an editorial for the Washington Post in support of the Cadillac Tax As we prepare for the final round of debate over health reform, perhaps the most contentious issue will be financing...So in the end, we have a policy that provides the necessary financing to pay for subsidies to low-income families; induces employers to buy more cost-effective health insurance, lowering U.S. health-care spending; offsets a bias in our tax system that favors more expensive insurance;...

A new analysis by a leading MIT economist provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating the historic health-reform bill being pushed by President Barack Obama. The report concludes that under the Senate’s health-reform bill, Americans buying individual coverage will pay less than they do for today's typical individual market coverage, and would be protected from high out-of-pocket costs. So Democrats will argue that under the Senate bill, Americans would pay less for more.

A Pakistan native who was trained as a scientist in the US and suspected of being an al-Qaida operative has promised to boycott her January trial in New York. Aafia Siddiqui interrupted lawyers to announce in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday that she did not plan to participate in her trial. Then, during a break, she told US marshals she did not want to return to the courtroom when they led her out as she continued talking. Siddiqui faces charges after US authorities said she grabbed a gun and fired it at a police station in Afghanistan in July...

.. and all he got was an MIT t-shirt hpotomop.

Locating unidentified homosexual men on Facebook? There's an app for that. It was created by two students at MIT, who discovered that gay men tend to have more male Facebook friends of their own orientation. The students, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree, ran the program on 10 men who were gay, but didn't reveal that information on their profiles. The software predicted that all ten were gay. The software apparent does not work for bisexual people or lesbians. No word on when it will be available for the iPhone.

It started as a simple term project for an MIT class on ethics and law on the electronic frontier. Two students partnered up to take on the latest Internet fad: the online social networks that were exploding into the mainstream. With people signing up in droves to reconnect with classmates and old crushes from high school, and even becoming online “friends” with their family members, the two wondered what the online masses were unknowingly telling the world about themselves. The pair weren’t interested in the embarrassing photos or overripe profiles that attract so much consternation from parents and potential employers....

Monday, July 13, 2009 How to Stage a Revolution A new mathematical model reveals the tactics that a small number of interlopers can use to seize power. How is it possible for a small number of newcomers to displace a well-established group of leaders? That's not just a question for military organizations wanting to overthrow governments; it's a question for political parties controlling national debates, new products displacing well-established market leaders, and flocking birds following leaders to new food sources. Social scientists have studied the nature of effective leadership for centuries with limited success. Physicists, on the other hand, are...

According to an MIT study, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.It's just another inconvenient truth: If Americans want any of the government remedies that would supposedly save a planet allegedly imperiled by global warming, it's going to cost them. Just how much it will cost them has been a point of contention lately. Many congressional Republicans, including members of the GOP leadership, have claimed that the plan to limit carbon emissions through cap and trade would cost the average household more than $3,100 per year. According to an MIT study, between 2015 and...

I was surprised to learn that there has been a small vandalism wave targeted towards specific advocacy groups along the Infinite Corridor. In the past two months, a display about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was removed, a Martin Luther King display was vandalized twice, the United Christian Organization (UCO) bulletin board was torn down and pro-life ads were completely taken down along with the entire pro-life Bulletin Board. It made me particularly upset to see the pro-life bulletin board be taken apart, not only because I personally helped to maintain it, but also because MIT has a commitment to diversity and...

Viral Batteries: A Case for Evolution? by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Researchers at MIT have invented a “greener” battery with the help of viruses. Three years ago, they engineered a virus that coats itself with material that serves as an anode, a structure within a battery that attracts positive ions. They have now engineered a virus (bacteriophage) that serves as a cathode, which indirectly links to the anode to help make the battery functional. The result is a battery with little impact on the environment. National Public Radio (NPR) ran a report on its Morning Edition that compared the development of...

I'll have this as link only.

Powered up: An amorphous layer (light-colored band at the right) on a crystalline battery material improves its performance. Credit: Byoungwoo Kang, MIT A lithium-ion battery electrode described this week in the journal Nature can deliver electricity several times faster than other such batteries. It could be particularly useful where rapid power bursts are needed, such as for laser weapons or hybrid race cars. Test batteries based on the new electrode--developed by Gerbrand Ceder, a professor of materials science at MIT--can be discharged in 10 seconds. In comparison, the best high-power lithium-ion batteries today discharge in a minute and a...

It might be easier to work up a proper sense of dread at a scary new “climate change model” if the group doing the scaring didn’t use a roulette wheel for illustration. And “The Greenhouse Gamble” graphics only make the Washington Post’s one-sided report on the model more laughable. On the Feb. 23 “Capital Weather Gang” Web site, the Post’s Andrew Freedman reported that MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change revised its predictions about just how hot the Earth will become in this century. Not surprisingly, the MIT group said that if governments don’t institute...

Despite medicine's inestimable progress over the past century, surgery can still leave scars that look more appropriate to Frankenstein's monster than to the beneficiary of a precise, modern operation. But in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Irene Kochevar and Robert Redmond have developed a method that has the potential to replace the surgeon's needle and thread. Using surgical lasers and a light-activated dye, the researchers are prompting tissue to heal itself. Laser-bonded healing is not a new idea. For years, scientists have been trying to find ways to use the heat generated by lasers to weld...

Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct...

Sony Robots bust a move! holy cow. the japanese are taking things to a whole new level. this is awesome, if not for much more than entertainment value.

It’s not often that an incoming college freshman is already starting his own multimillion dollar business. But that’s what’s happening to Ben Gulak. He’s a 19-year-old Canadian who’s just starting at MIT. Gulak’s was inspired by the overwhelming smog he saw on a trip to China two years ago. He thought there should be something better than all the polluting scooters. He spent two years tinkering and came up with a contraption he calls the Uno. It’s an electric vehicle that looks like a cross between a motorcycle and a unicycle. There are actually two wheels, but they’re side by...