Biology

All that is solid melts into air: Tomás Saraceno visits MITCAST visiting artist creates inflatable and airborne biospheres: speculative models for alternate ways of living.

Sitting still or going hunting: Which works better?If you’re a microbe floating in the ocean, there’s no single best strategy for getting food, MIT research shows.

Jaenisch, Suresh named Franklin Institute laureates

Department snapshot: Mechanical EngineeringMore MechE students choose to design their own education.

Mehrdad Jazayeri to join BCS, McGovern Institute faculty

Probing matters of the heartNew study of stem cell differentiation could help researchers better understand the genetic basis of heart disease.

Tracking stem cell reprogrammingBiologists reveal genes key to development of pluripotency, in single cells.

Four from MIT win NIH grantsBrown, Gore, Ploegh and Zhang receive grants for innovative biomedical research.

Converting plant waste into biofuelsPromising advances using yeast and fungi.

Fundamentals of Biology now available in OCW Scholar formatCourse is the last of seven OCW has published this year specifically to meet the needs of independent learners.

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscleTechnique may enable robotic animals that move with the strength and flexibility of their living counterparts.

Seth Mnookin wins 2012 Science in Society AwardNational Association of Science Writers honors his book The Panic Virus.

Turning on key enzyme blocks tumor formationDrug-like molecule restores normal cell metabolism, preventing cancer cells from growing.

Teaching a microbe to make fuelGenetically modified organism could turn carbon dioxide or waste products into a gasoline-compatible transportation fuel.

Plants exhibit a wide range of mechanical properties, engineers findBiological structures may help engineers design new materials.

Protein that boosts longevity may protect against diabetesSirtuins help fight off disorders linked to obesity, new MIT study shows.

New study finds link between cell division and growth rateFindings answer puzzling question of how cells know when to progress through the cell cycle.

Berger named ISCB fellowApplied mathematics, computer science professor honored for contributions in computational biology and bioinformatics.

Chris A. Kaiser selected as MIT provostLongtime member of the biology faculty to succeed L. Rafael Reif as the Institute’s senior academic and budget officer.

Fishing for answers to autism puzzleBiologists take a new approach to deciphering the roles of genes associated with autism.

Study identifies enzymes needed to mend tissue damage after inflammationFindings may help predict colon cancer risk for patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Piece by pieceMIT biologist Schwartz relishes the challenge of picking apart the cell’s most complex structure.

One-two punch knocks out aggressive breast cancer cellsNew MIT study shows that staggered delivery of cancer drugs is far more effective than administering them at the same time.

Inhibitory and excitatory synapse dynamics in the brain

Pinpointing how antibiotics workTeam uncovers mechanism that produces fatal DNA damage in bacteria.

Targeted nanoparticles show success in clinical trialsTiny particles designed to home in on cancer cells achieve tumor shrinkage at lower doses than traditional chemotherapy.

Predicting how proteins will partnerAmy Keating models critical interactions that underlie most cellular functions.