MIT Stories

• MIT News | June 4, 2012

  Survey: Latin American and Asian cities lead way in planning for global warming

  Quito, Ecuador, is not considered a global leader by most measures. But there is one way in which Quito is at the forefront of metropolises worldwide: in planning for climate change. For more than a decade, officials in Ecuador’s mountainous capital ...
• MITgcm News | May 18, 2012

  Ocean Biology Meets Physics

  In this video, Mick Follows describes his group's work using MITgcm and ECCO2 products to better understand the global carbon cycle and plankton populations.
• MIT News | May 2, 2012

  Inventor honored for bridging innovation and humanitarianism to help millions globally live safer lives

  The Lemelson-MIT Program today announced Dr. Ashok Gadgil as the recipient of the 2012 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation in recognition of his steady pursuit to blend research, invention and humanitarianism for broad social impact. Gadgil is a chair professor of Safe Water and Sanitation at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose diverse inventions and sustainable innovations are helping those in the developing world to live healthier, safer lives.
  
  Gadgil is a physicist by training whose unwavering curiosity and commitment to employ his expertise to benefit humankind has led to a string of inventions and innovations from safe drinking water solutions and a utility-sponsored energy efficiency program, to fuel-efficient stoves for displaced persons in Africa. He also works with stakeholders in beneficiary communities to rally support and increase adoption of his inventions. His innovative solutions, which integrate science with cultural needs, have helped an estimated 100 million individuals in dozens of countries across four continents.
  
  “Ashok Gadgil’s long record of inventive solutions to problems in the developing world is an example of how passion coupled with creative problem solving can have a colossal impact,” states Joshua Schuler, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. “Dr. Gadgil truly encompasses what it means to be a global innovator.”
  
  To read the full press release about the 2012 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation winner, visit: http://web.mit.edu/invent/n-pressreleases/n-press-12LMA.html
  
  MIT Tech TV
• MIT News | April 12, 2012

  New method to prevent undersea ice clogs

  During the massive oil spill from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well in 2010, it seemed at first like there might be a quick fix: a containment dome lowered onto the broken pipe to capture the flow so it could be pumped to the surface and disposed of ...
• MIT News | April 10, 2012

  Oceans apart

  Three-fifths of Earth’s crust lies underwater, spread out along the seafloor. More than four cubic miles of ocean crust forms each year, constantly regenerating like new skin across the globe. This ocean crust arises along mid-ocean ridges — underw...
• MIT News | April 3, 2012

  Using new technology to measure nitrogen in coastal surface waters

  While many of us, especially those of us trying to feed young children, think of nutrients as desirable, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Excessive nutrients in an ecosystem disturb the chemical and environmental balance that allows nat...
• MITgcm News | March 29, 2012

  “Van Gogh” Perpetual Ocean Visualization

• MITgcm News | March 27, 2012

  Under the Ice

  In a new paper published in the Annals of Glaciology, long-time MITgcm users Patrick Heimbach and Martic Losch investigate the sensitivity of sub-ice-shelf melt rates under the Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, to changes in the oceanic state.
• MIT News | March 21, 2012

  Water world

  Video: Melanie Gonick Fluid dynamics plays a central role in determining Earth's climate. Ocean currents and eddies stir up contents from the deep, while atmospheric winds and weather systems steer temperature and moisture around the globe. As the pl...
• MIT News | March 14, 2012

  Guiding robot planes with hand gestures

  Video: Melanie Gonick Aircraft-carrier crew use a set of standard hand gestures to guide planes on the carrier deck. But as robot planes are increasingly used for routine air missions, researchers at MIT are working on a system that would enable them...
• MIT Sea Grant | March 12, 2012

  Pierre Lermusiaux, Doherty Associate Professor in Ocean Utilization

• MIT News | March 5, 2012

  In the World: How rainwater can meet clean-water needs

  At a remote village called Bisate in the desperately poor nation of Rwanda, a clinic faced chronic shortages of water during the nation’s twice-yearly dry seasons. Sometimes there was simply not enough water available even for seriously dehydrated pa...
• MIT News | February 28, 2012

  A climate window in the Southern Ocean

  The world’s oceans act as a massive conveyor, circulating heat, water and carbon around the planet. This global system plays a key role in climate change, storing and releasing heat throughout the world. To study how this system affects climate, scie...
• MITgcm News | February 16, 2012

  Modeling the Gulf of Aqaba (Gulf of Eilat)

  Long-time MITgcm-ers Eli Biton and Hezi Gildor have been using the model to explore the circulation in the Gulf of Aqaba (Gulf of Eilat), a terminal elongated basin that exchanges water with the northern Red Sea
• MIT Sea Grant | January 30, 2012

  MIT Sea Grant to host 15th annual Blue Lobster Bowl Feb. 4

• MIT News | January 26, 2012

  Viruses con bacteria into working for them

  MIT researchers have discovered that certain photosynthetic ocean bacteria should beware of viruses bearing gifts: These viruses are carrying genetic material taken from their previous bacterial hosts that tricks the new host into using its own machine...
• MIT - The Darwin Project | January 4, 2012

  Microbe Metabolism

  Diverse microorganisms undergoing growth and reproduction. As organisms evolved from simple prokaryotes to unicellular eukaryotes to multicellular organisms their strategies for internal energy partitioning dramatically changed as illustrated by a recent mathematical model. Image courtesy of Mari Kempes Population growth rate is a fundamental ecological and evolutionary characteristic of living organisms, but individuals must balance … Continue reading Microbe Metabolism →
• MITgcm News | January 1, 2012

  2011 Research Roundup

  To round off the year we have collected a sample of 2011 research articles that involved MITgcm in some way. Take a look...
• MIT News | December 21, 2011

  Modeling the spread of radioactivity in seawater

  When earthquake-triggered tsunami waves hit Japan in March, the surging water overtopped seawalls and caused massive damage. On top of the loss of life and general destruction, the disaster resulted in a release of radioactive seawater. Researchers Cha...
• MIT News | December 6, 2011

  Marilyn Wolfson named 2012 fellow of the American Meteorological Society

  Marilyn M. Wolfson SM '83, PhD '90, associate leader of the Weather Sensing Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, has been named a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). She was recognized for “outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or...