Chemistry & Cocktails ~ Seeding Labs Fellows!

Pop by to meet visiting faculty from Nairobi's Kenyatta University at the Seeding Labs Chemistry Connections & Cocktails on Thursday, August 12, 2010 hosted at Novartis in Cambridge, MA. RSVP!

Competing Visions ~ Renewing Longfellow Bridge

Eric Moskowitz writes in the Globe about competing visions for the future of the Longfellow Bridge in his piece, Linking Cities and Eras...

"...the rebuilding of the Longfellow is about more than saving it from collapse. It comes at a time when key policy makers, from Boston’s mayor to the Obama administration, have pledged to rethink transportation and pull back from decades of favoring drivers and cars over bicycles and walkers. As a result, the Longfellow has emerged as a touchstone and test case in the debate over urban transportation, with officials, highway engineers, civic leaders, and community advocates grappling over whether to reclaim some of the pavement used by automobiles to make more room for everybody else. It is a thorny issue that remains unresolved even as construction begins on a bridge that is both a treasure to preservationists and a lifeline for thousands who traverse it each day by subway, car, bicycle, and foot."

Here, for instance, you can see the cross-section plans proposed by the Livable Streets Alliance (versus the MassDot plans or the current situation)... In any case, renewal is sorely needed, as this Portrait of the Aging Longfellow illustrates...

4 for 4 ~ Founder Mike Cassidy on Press:Here

Great to see MIT alum multi-co entrepreneur Mike Cassidy share on Press:Here some of his experence building up -- and successfully exiting -- four different ventures, including two MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition Winners...

Tempohousing Haiti ~ Container Hotel In-Process

One of my favorite urban innovation ventures, the Dutch Tempohousing, just sent word that their factory in China has shipped the promised ~70 prefabricated hotel units of their so-called "King" design (see above two containers side-by-side making 2 wide rooms with central hallway) for imminent delivery to Haiti. This is just one example of fast, urgent solutions desperately needed in that devastated land...

"Once the necessary funds were secured, Tempohousing was able to immediately make available these hotel rooms, that are shipped with all internal furniture and finishes to reduce on site construction as much as possible. The complete hotel is scheduled to be ready in October / November this year. [...] Speed and budget have been key issues in this hotel project, but quality and the delivery of an integrated storm and hurricane proof solution have made Tempohousing the first choice among several global suppliers. The manufacturing facility in China is capable to make layouts and interior finishes exactly to customer wishes with components that meet all international standards. Together with the separate façade system, the end results is simply amazing. An impressive hotel where nobody can see or expect it all started with complete rooms shipped in containers from the Far East."

This is fantastic. Check out the "King" room more closely here...

Apple Revenue ~ Cash Chart By Product Line

Thanks to DailyGalaxy for spotting Apple Revenue chart...

Methuselah's Mixture ~ Economist on Anti-Aging

In their piece, Methuselah's Mixture, the latest Economist surveys a new book, The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Ageing Revolution by David Stipp...

"...for all the gloomy fascination that surrounds ageing, precious little research has been done into its causes. The question of why we grow old and die still divides evolutionary biologists. Strictly speaking, ageing does not seem to be inevitable. After all, both cancer cells and some very simple forms of life appear highly resistant to the passage of time. And while we know plenty about the consequences of ageing, we know much less about the exact biological processes involved. [...] Improvements in technology, particularly the ability to sequence DNA quickly, have made the serious study of ageing possible. All this is carefully chronicled in “The Youth Pill” by David Stipp, a former medical writer for the Wall Street Journal and an able guide to this young science. His book draws readers down the blind alleys and experimental dead ends that are an inevitable part of scientific research, as well as explaining the advances that have been made and the hunches that led to them."

Sounds very compelling. I'm adding it to my reading pile. The innovation frontier of Gerontechnology is indeed wide-open and, apart from Neurotechnology, perhaps the single most important research theme of today.

Researching Researchers ~ Tech Review Survey

Technology Review has an interesting survey piece Measure for Measure, which covers recent work by MIT economists and management scientists who are "researching the researchers" trying to understand what makes science effective, especially since...

"...until recently, no one has really studied what makes scientists productive. "There are a lot of anecdotes and stories but no serious empirical basis for studying the funding of science," says Julia Lane, program director for the Science of Science and Innovation Policy group at the NSF. Within the last decade, however, a number of economists with MIT links have been shedding new light on the ways scientists work. "This topic has had a high ratio of pontificating to actual research achievements," says Pierre Azoulay, PhD '01, an associate professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "But we want to bring the scientific method to bear on the scientific enterprise." [...] In the 1990s, a few labor economists (including MIT's Joshua Angrist) discovered new ways to conduct "natural experiments," studies that mimic laboratory-style randomized trials. They began using historical data to pinpoint the impact a single difference makes between two otherwise equivalent groups of workers. At the same time, detailed Internet citation databases began cropping up, giving economists a source of hard data for natural experiments that assessed the influence, productivity, and teamwork of equivalent groups of scientists. These developments enabled economists to study scientists closely for the first time, says Scott Stern of Kellogg, a former MIT economist and a prominent figure in the analysis of science."

For results, read the piece -- and, of course, the scientific papers published by these researchers!

Rooftop Remedies ~ Having Drinks With A View!

Intrepid NYTimes reporter Frank Bruni investigates skybars!-)

Beriev Be-200 ~ Russian Amphibian Aeroplane!

I've mentioned the Russian UAC's Beriev Be-200 a couple years before but it's such an fantastically interesting aircraft, I want to spotlight it again! Beyond the obvious firefighting, emergency response, and marine-industrial capabilities, I'm especially keen on the huge tourism implications -- i.e. opening up small islands, connecting with floating docks linked to cruiseships, accessing inaccessible coastlines, lakes, and riverways, and more! P.S. Here you see as of 8 August 2010, the Be-200 in-use fighting the fires ravaging Russia... P.P.S. And here as of 12 August 2010, you see Russian Prime Minister Putin flying a Be-200 waterbomber on a fire fighting run...

The New Ferrari ~ Red Copenhagenize Bullitt;-)

I'll have one of each, please! Courtesy, Copenhagenize...

MRO Leaders ~ Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul

Big capital equipment needs world-class MRO -- Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul/Operations -- services. Historically this was something the owner-operator would handle in-house, but increasingly the work is being done by autonomous subsidiaries, spinoffs, and especially outsourced to contract service providers. Here are a few of my favorites. First, NedTrain, the Dutch locomotive and rolling stock maintenance and repair firm... Second, the German Lufthansa Technik, top manufacturer-independent provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for aircraft, engines and components... And third, Korean-owned STX Europe's ship repair and conversions yards...

Innovation District ~ Boston's Harbor Boomzone

After visiting MIT-alums Jason Kelly, Reshma Shetty, TK and colleagues at Ginkgo, plus seeing Ted Acworth from Artaic during lunch at local seafood house -- two robotics and automation ventures, btw, focused on synthetic biology and mosaic art, respectively -- I got very excited about the boomzone business park they're located in. This is the newly christened Boston Innovation District...

"A new approach is called for on the waterfront -- one that is both more deliberate and more experimental... The massive expanse of the South Boston waterfront, with its existing knowledge base, opportunity for growth, and world-class infrastructure is ripe to produce world-class products and services." -- Boston Mayor Menino

P.S. In Mon 26 July 2010 Globe, there's a nice piece by Andrew Ryan, Ideas percolate in Innovation District, which includes this map...

Microneedles ~ Fast, Painless Drug Delivery

Great to see the latest use of microneedles for vaccine delivery done by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University and reported in Sunday's edition of Nature Medicine according to PhysOrg...

"In this study, we have shown that a dissolving microneedle patch can vaccinate against influenza at least as well, and probably better than, a traditional hypodermic needle," said Mark Prausnitz, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Just 650 microns in length and assembled into an array of 100 needles for the mouse study, the dissolving microneedles penetrate the outer layers of skin. Beyond their other advantages, the dissolving microneedles appear to provide improved immunity to influenza when compared to vaccination with hypodermic needles."

In addition to this initial use for flu vaccines, this method has many compelling potential applications for other diagnostic and therapeutic pharmaceuticals.

Projector Ring ~ Jerram's Wedding Photoshare

Thanks to imaging entrepreneur Gregg Favalora for spotting this gloriously clever piece of geek chic, a wedding ring with embedded photo projection optics by Luke Jerram, noted here in Gizmodo...

Leveraged Freedom Chair ~ Guatemala Trials...

Excellent to see MIT's Amos Winter and colleagues testing their updated Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) design in Guatemala....

Aga Khan Uni ~ President Rasul on Next 25 Years

Thanks to HBS Professor Karim Lakhani for spotting this presentation by Aga Khan University President Firoz Rasul on their plans and ambitions for their next 25 years, which include taking...

"...an important evolutionary step to become a comprehensive university. With a vision for the University "to be on the frontiers of scientific and humanistic knowledge," [they plan] to offer programmes in the liberal arts, media and communications, law and public policy, and government [and] to build several new campuses and to embark on regional integrated health care strategies in South and Central Asia and East Africa."

Where's My Jetpack? ~ Unconsummated Futures

Yardena Arar collects a slideshow in PCWorld about Jetpacks, Androids, and the Future That Never Came about...

"...venerated visions of future technology that totally missed the mark. [...] From Jules Verne to Stanley Kubrick and beyond, writers and artists have imagined what the future would be like. Their visions range from the comically bizarre to the uncannily accurate to the wildly optimistic..."

Arcosanti ~ Exploratory City w/ Eco-Architecture

Given the tremendous interest in ecological cities, for instance the carbon-neutral Masdar in Abu Dhabi, it makes sense to take a look at Arcosanti, a 40-year old "urban laboratory" in central Arizona...

"...demonstrating ways to improve urban conditions and lessen our destructive impact on the earth. [...] Arcosanti is designed according to the concept of arcology (architecture + ecology), developed by Italian architect Paolo Soleri. In an arcology, the built and the living interact as organs would in a highly evolved being. This means many systems work together, with efficient circulation of people and resources, multi-use buildings, and solar orientation for lighting, heating and cooling. In this complex, creative environment, apartments, businesses, production, technology, open space, studios, and educational and cultural events are all accessible, while privacy is paramount in the overall design. Greenhouses provide gardening space for public and private use, and act as solar collectors for winter heat."

It sounds wonderful and visionary, but I wonder why it has the aura of egomaniacal lunacy?

Rail Work ~ Worktrains For Track Maintenance

I love infrastructure! Check out this worktrain maintaining tracks... Thanks to UniqueDaily for the spot!

Autom Emerging ~ Weight-Loss Coachbot...

The Most Interesting Entrepreneur in the World has his Autom weight-loss coachbot showcased in the WSJournal!