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The Reality of Our Worst Airport Security Nightmare
Posted by Mark Wilson at 3:00 AM on September 20, 2008
A year ago, MIT student Star Simpson arrived at an airport wearing an LED sweatshirt. And while this sweatshirt was not much different than LED apparel we've featured on Gizmodo before, Simpson was tackled by security before going through months of media attacks and court processes to clear her name. In an absolutely superb interview, Simpson takes BoingBoing (and now you) through the entire story. Watch it over your lunch if you need to, but definitely give it a few minutes of your time. And from now on, only wear your finest name-brand Wal-Mart attire when travelling. [boingboing]
Forget "pretend" black holes in 
MIT Researchers are working on virus-based microbatteries that are about half the size of a human cell. Using a combination of virus cultivation (which assembles itself) an soft lithography, Paula Hammond and team were able manufacture the battery, which consists of a cathode, anode and electrolyte. They hope the breakthrough will allow for applications like implantable medical sensors and labs that fit on a computer chip. [
Wireless power for charging gadgets has been among the more vapourous of developments we've been hearing promises of for years. While there are a 
"Want free subway rides for life?" teased the description of the talk "Anatomy of a Subway Hack" by three MIT students at DefCon this past weekend, where 
3-D images? Peshaw. Those are so 2007. What humanity needs now is what MIT researchers hope to provide very soon: super realistic "passive 6-D reflectance field displays" that not only look great, but also respond to stimuli, like lighting conditions. And, not only will these uber images do all that and a bag of chips, they'll be able to change over time as lighting conditions change, with "no electronics or active control" from we mere humans. Oh, and the displays will respond the changes in viewpoint, meaning these visual wonders will have a creepy degree of interactivity to them too (read: legitimate holograms).
Forget the 
A team of MIT engineers is hoping to develop tomorrow's body armour today with a fish whose family tree stretches back 96 million years. Called the Polypterus senegalus, or "dinosaur eel" to layman schlubs like me, this primitive fish still thrives in the muddy rivers of Africa, and has retained a full-body suit of armoured scales that was common on species of fish millions of years ago. For years scientists have known that the eel's interlocking, millimeters-thick scales were capable of stopping penetrating attacks, but couldn't figure out why. Now, thanks to nanotechnology and a grant from the U.S. Army (go Joe!), they've figured it out.
Solar power has a lot of promise, but until recently there hasn't been an adequate way to store the energy the sun produces. Scientists at MIT have come up with a new fuel cell process that mimics the way plants store the sun's rays that is both efficient and inexpensive, not to mention environmentally sound. Without getting too technical, the system uses sunlight to separate water's hydrogen and oxygen atoms and then puts them back together in a fuel cell, providing energy. This means an almost limitless supply of clean energy might be just a few years away, though it's still too early to say when you'll have what you want: a solar powered laptop. [
Joe Davis is telling me about his design for a 110-foot lightning-laser tower that will literally seize a hurricane's force, bottle it up and hurl it angrily back into the sky. It's intended as a memorial for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Davis—whose official role at MIT is research affiliate associate in the biology department—plans to name the tower "Call Me Ishmael." I ask him why, but before I finish the question, he smashes his steel peg leg down onto the table.
