His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke at an inaugural event for a new institute in his name, the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values. He tempered his provocative ideas about promoting ethics in a secular society with a stream of lively banter. He recalled that he had visited a homeless shelter in San Francisco the other day and told a man he met that he, too, had suffered the same fate after he went into exile in 1959. "I said, 'me too. Homeless'."

MIT researchers have produced carbon fibers coated in carbon nanotubes without degrading the underlying fiber's strength. The engineered fibers may be woven into composites to make stronger, lighter airplane parts.Image: Stephen Steiner
Planes, trains and automobiles: faster, stronger, lighter
New technique advances carbon-fiber composites.