In the Media

"A graduate student who developed a method for sequencing the genome in 3-D, invented a shoe insole to help detect balance problems in the elderly, and studied the evolution of language was awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT student prize." - Story on the winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT student prize, Erez Lieberman-Aiden.

"Really, it's not fair. Even when MIT scientists make a mistake, they end up inventing amazing machines." - Article on MIT research that led to the ability to stamp gold MEMS into a sheet of plastic.

"MIT and two other schools, along with several minority-focused institutions, plan to establish a research center, based at MIT, that will help engineers create sophisticated, multi-cell systems or machines." - Story on the founding of EBICS, Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems Center.

"The story of iGEM and, to some degree, the vision of synthetic biology that it champions, begins not with biologists but with engineers." - "Do-It-Yourself Genetic Engineering," which references MIT's iGEM: International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition.

"If workers put in the time upfront, and pound the pavement, if they’re able to land a direct-hire job, it tends to be more stable and to lead to other more stable employment over a longer term." - MIT economist David Autor on his research regarding temporary work.

"OCW provides a unique outlet for him to share his passion for mathematics and his teaching skills with an appreciative worldwide audience." - Cecilia d'Oliveira, the executive director of MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW), on Professor Gilbert Strang's video lecture for course 18.06, Linear Algebra, which has been downloaded more than 1.8 million times since 2003.

"[I hope] to return to the classroom in some capacity, perhaps at MIT or Harvard, if they'll have me." - Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, on his decision to step down in 2011 and his possible future.

"This is a very important breakthrough, one I would say that has the highest possible significance in the field." - UC Berkeley Professor Eli Yablonovitch on germanium laser chip research from MIT Professor Lionel Kimerling's lab.

"We didn't lose the moon today; we very subtly lost the moon a long time ago when the amount of money disappeared a few years ago." - Edward Crawley, professor of AeroAstro and engineering systems, on President Obama's decision to change NASA's course of action.

"When some highly intelligent MIT professors invite you to breakfast to discuss, well, intelligence, it’s probably a smart idea to go along." - New York Times blog post on presentations by MIT faculty at the Davos World Economic Forum meetings.

"This presents an opportunity for both Washington and Tokyo to step back and reconsider how the alliance should function and how it should be sold to the Japanese people in Japan's new democracy." - MIT doctoral student Tobias Harris, in an OP/ED on the Japan-U.S. Alliance

"[It] greatly increases the chances that Haitians in Haiti and abroad will be able to find each other." - Center for Future Civic Media Director Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, on FriendFinder, a Google tool being used to help find missing people in Haiti.

After Samuelson, the elementary student was taught to deal with data (real and hypothetical), analyze them by diagrammatic methods or with simple equations, and use economic principles to answer concrete questions: What would you expect to happen if? - Economics Professor Emeritus Robert Solow, on the legacy of Paul Samuelson, who died on Dec. 13.

"Music is really audible time. It can’t be experienced in an instant; it has to be unfolded in time." - Marcus Thompson, professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section, on the "Musical Time" series, which starts tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 9.

"We can now digitally turn off regions of the brain. We can alter the information in the brain in a strategically useful way." - Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, on a way to shut down parts of a brain just by shining light on them