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The article reports that demand for rare-earth elements used in wind turbines and electric cars is exceeding supply, putting China in advantageous position as 95 percent of supply is from it. It states that dysprosium and neodymium which are used to make magnets to generate torque in motors of automobiles are expected to fall short by 2015. It mentions that Molycorp Minerals LLC which owns a site of these in Mountain Pass, California is rebuilding infrastructure to turn them into magnets.

A photo essay is presented which shows several building structures that uses parametric software in architectural designs and plans including the proposed design for the Shenzen Airport, the 2004 State Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Beijing National Stadium.

Photographs that show several processes on how to create optical fibers are presented.

A photo essay which documents the restoration of the original photographs of the moon's surface taken by satellites and recorded on magnetic tapes lying discarded for decades in Sunnyvale, California is presented.

The article focuses on the concept of dark matter as well and discusses the technologies used in the search for dark matter. As reported, dark matter which was first postulated by astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky in 1930s is believed to have no interaction with light but scientists see signs of its existence in gravitational interactions whose impact is visible in distant galaxy clusters. As cited, the most promising technology used in the hunt for dark matter are system for direct detection of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) including cryogenic dark-matter search (CDMS) which physicists believe as the one to find WIMPs first.

The article discusses the implications of the blood flow theory conceptualized by Christopher Moore, assistant professor at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. According to the author, the theory of Moore could help neuroscientist leverage their understanding of the dynamics of perception as well as developed treatments on brain disorders. Father of functional magnetic resonance imaging Kenneth Kwong stressed that Moore's theory presents a credible regarding the fluctuations in blood flow changes. It also presents Moore's explanation on his theory called the hemo-neural hypothesis and its association on neuronal circuitry.

A photo essay which documents the making of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is presented.

The article reports on the research conducted by Robert Weinberg, the country's pioneering biologists, on how cancer spreads in the U.S. Cancer cells evade the immune system, travel down blood-vessel thoroughfares, colonize distant regions of the body and recruit normal cells to support their cause. He played a leading role in defining the battleground in the war on cancer because he was the first to discover cancer-causing gene and the first to isolate a human tumor-suppressing gene. Recently, he studies on metastasis and found that cancer cells in initial tumor produce enzymes that break down the surrounding tissue, clearing the way for the cells to invade it and some of it are able to enter the bloodstream and were able to lodge in another place thus metastasis takes place.

The article offers information on the efforts done by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) researcher to study cancer in Massachusetts. Sangeeta Bhatia, is one of the many MIT researchers who will benefit from the establishment of the new David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research wherein MIT gave $100 million to fund research that brings together biological and engineering approaches in fighting cancer. According to Tyler Jacks, director for the Center for Cancer Research at MIT, bringing together intellectuals from other discipline is important in the fight against cancer.

The article features Ronald Prinn, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Center for Global Change Science. The professor of atmospheric science has played an important role in raising climate change awareness in the general public with his Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), which is celebrating its 30th year of monitoring ozone-depleting compounds, including the chlorofluorocarbons once widely used in aerosols and greenhouse gases like methane. According to Paul Fraser of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Prinn's big contribution was to expand the idea that people had to look at the planet globally, not only for CO2 but for all the gases important for climate change and ozone depletion.

The article focuses on the efforts by researchers at the Broad Institute, which is jointly run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, to sequence and analyze the genome of boxer dogs. Molecular biologist Kerstin Lindblad-Toh describes the structure of the genome underlying the boxer's build as beautiful due to a relative lack of genetic diversity. This means that the dog genome holds valuable clues to the causes of common disease in both dogs and humans. Lindblad-Toh is also overseeing the sequencing and analysis projects for more than 20 animals at the Broad to shed more light on how the human genome is regulated.

A photo essay which features the solar power plant located in the Portuguese town of Serpa, owned by General Electric and operated by PowerLight of Berkeley, California is presented.

The article reveals that the researchers from the University of Wisconsin, led by Richard Weindruch, have been testing a calorie-restricted diet in a group of rhesus monkeys in 1989. It notes that 38 out of the 76 monkeys in the study which now range in age from 18-31 years are on calorie restriction. Nine of the animals on normal diets have died of age-related causes such as diabetes and cancer and only five of the dieting monkeys have died of such causes. There is some evidence that the diet prevents diabetes because three of the monkeys on an unrestricted diet have the disease while none of the dieters do.

This article focuses on the energy problem being prioritized by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After the appointment of Susan Hockfield as president of MIT, she immediately established the Energy Research Council. The Council proposed a three-part interdisciplinary research plan that includes work aimed at improving energy systems. Curriculum changes have been proposed by The Council's heads Moniz and Robert Armstrong to help students work on energy problems. MIT researchers who are working on the energy problem are Vladimir Bulovic, Leon Glicksman and Karen Polenske.

The article presents a photo essay which features the space cameras of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration designed to detect damage that the Discovery space shuttle's protective tiles might sustain during the trauma of leaving Earth's atmosphere.

This section presents photographs illustrating the process, and impact, of extracting oil from sand.

The article discusses Nanocomp Technologies' transformation of carbon nanotubes into thin and long sheets with the aim of making materials that reflect the properties of the individual nanotubes. The use of nanotube sheets by U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to protect a deep-space probe from radiation is mentioned. The importance of practical large-scale manufacturing in developing futuristic applications for nanotube sheets is also addressed.

The article focuses on the invention of solar cells producing high-energy photon by assistant professor at the Stanford University in California Jennifer Dionne, who has been selected by the journal in its 35 technological innovators under the age of 35.

The article focuses on the research by Ali Javey, a professor at the University of California in Berkeley, California on sheets turned to low-power transistor arrays that match human skin's sensitivity. It provides the process of painting with nanowires. It says that to turn the nanowire array into a pressure sensor, he tops it with a sheet of treated rubber. Moreover, he used the printing method that works with any inorganic nanowires to print active materials for light sensors and solar cells.

The article reports on the creation of first viable cell with synthetic genome by Li Ma, technician of J. Craig Venter Institute, in Rockville, Maryland. Ma discovered that the synthetic cells has the capability to control all the ordinary functions of cells, but did not originate in any bacteria. Ma also found that these cells fuses together in the solution, engulfs synthetic genomes and replicates and lives under its control.

The article reports on the plans of computer manufacturing company Hewlett-Packard (HP) to produce plastic arrays. The HP researchers in Palo Alto, California are scaling up a process to produce amorphous-silicon transistor arrays on 33-centimeter-wide plastic rolls to be used in the displays. It informs that the company is engineering a process to produce the arrays at volumes of about 46,500 square meters a year with Phicot, a manufacturer of thin-film electronics based in Ames, Iowa. Further, it also demontrates the process called self-aligned imprint lithography, which is the key to forming nanoscale electronics on distortion-prone plastic. It also states that these silicon-on-plastic displays might be used in laptops.

The article reports on the use of carbon nanotubes' solutions to make long nanotube fibers. It states that Matteo Pasquali, a chemical engineer at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and his colleagues have spun carbon nanotubes into fibers hundreds of meters long, showing the possibility to create commercially useful manufacturing techniques for the production of macroscale materials from pure carbon's cylindrical molecules. It notes that Rice professor Richard Smalley, who was known for the discovery of spherical carbon molecules called buckyballs, dreamt of making carbon nanotubes into fibers.

The article offers information on the potential of Applied Materials Inc. in Santa Clara, California, to make the world's largest solar panels. It notes that the company has developed the equipment to produce extremely large photovoltaic panels. It aims to lower the price of solar power, which is crucial if solar will compete on price with fossil-fuel electricity. It further stresses that the value of a solar installation comes down to the cost of each watt of power it can produce over the lifetime of a panel.

The article discusses the production of solar cells from a cheap compound of fool's gold, also called as pyrite or iron sulfide formulated by Cyrus Wadia, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. It notes that the use of solar cells made up of silicon are expensive, although silicon is abundant but processing is costly, which opted the researcher to produce solar cells from fool's gold. Wadia studies not only the chemistry and physics of possible solar-cell materials but also their availability. One of the standouts was the fool's gold because it is abundant and converts light into electricity efficiently.

The article focuses on the procedure followed by Nicholas Kotov, chemical engineer at the University of Michigan in transforming the fabric into a biosensor and an electrical conductor by dipping it into a solution of carbon nanotubes, polymer and antibodies. As reported, the procedure followed by Kotov in making carbon nanotube treated textiles starts with ordinary cotton thread and ethanol based solution of carbon nanotubes and polymer Nafion. As stated, graduate student Jian Zhu at Koto's laboratory pulls the cotton thread out of nanotube solution and allows the thread to dry a fter which treated threads are attached to five light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Zhu holds patches of cotton cloth and the dipping technique used on threads may turn cloth into an electronic textile.

The article focuses on the piezoelectric nanowires. It highlights Zhong Lin Wang, materials scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology, who brings power to the nano world with minuscule generators that take advantage of piezoelectricity. he was the first to demonstrate piezoelectric effect at the nanoscale by bending zinc oxides nanowires with the probe of an atomic-force microscope. Wang calls the technology as nanopiezotronics, which exploit the fact that zinc oxide nanowires exhibit the piezoelectric effect and semiconductors.

A photo essay which documents the performance of carbon nanotube arrays is presented.

The article reports on the silkworm cocoons as a material for building optical materials that can serve as the basis for sensors and other devices. It states that incorporating silk in sensors is aimed to build implantable, biodegradable sensors that could help monitor patient's progress after the surgery or track chronic diseases such as diabetes. It also notes that silk is well suited for use in biosensors because it can be manufactured in gentle environment and it can incorporate additional biological molecules while it is being built.

The article reports on the joint operation of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Caltech in the U.S. The author stated that the LIGO, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, measures tiny distortions in the fabric of space-time. Moreover, the LIGO team plans to replace the initial detectors with a new set, which will be ten times as sensitive and increasing the volume of observable space a thousandfold.

The article features the discovery of atomic magnetometers by John Kitching, a physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Eventhough magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are being used almost everywhere in the industry, from human body to metal in a buried land mine, it also has its limitations. Some of them are portable and cheap but not very sensitive while others are highly sensitive but stationary, expensive and power-hungry. Such problem can be addressed by atomic magnetometers. It is a tiny, low-power magnetic sensors almost as sensitive as their big, expensive counterparts but it is just as small as the size of a fat grain of rice.

The article provides information on a study led by Hidde Ploegh, a biology professor and member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, on the cells of the immune system. The study found that unlike most other disease-causing microbes, herpesviruses does not only know how to infect the host and hide within it but also how to reactivate from their latent state. The research has shown that human cytomegalovirus is among the herpesviruses that can cloak themselves by preventing the cells they infect from displaying their molecular flags to the immune system.

The article reveals that doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital led by Gordon Harris are using whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the hallmarks of a genetic disease called neurofibromatosis. It notes that the MRI provides detailed anatomical images that map out the location and size of each tumor but it does not reveal anything about the activity of tumors and other tissues. The primary technological advances over traditional MRI are a table that moves a patient through the machine smoothly enough not to blur the image and software that can seamlessly weave together five or six sets of images.

The article features the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) Complex of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was claimed that the said Complex is the world's largest neuroscience research center. According to MIT President Susan Hockfield, there is enormous possibility and opportunity in neuroscience. Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, remarked that advances in understanding the genetic basis of life and brain images has been achieved. Researchers in BCS Complex are committed to developing a more complete, nuanced understanding of the brain through interdisciplinary, collaborative research. Hockfield explained the value of the BCS complex.

The article looks at a demonstration on how to grow miniature liver tissues in laboratories conducted by Sangeeta Bhatia, associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and technology and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Inspired by the work of others in her laboratory who were growing multiple cell types in the same cultures and combining fibroblasts with skin cells, Bhatia tried micropatterning fibroblasts alongside her hepatocytes. The fibroblasts turned out to be particularly good at bolstering liver functions. The presence of fibroblasts in Bhatia's cultures coddles the hepatocytes and keeps them functioning.

The article offers information on a technique developed by Solomon Assefa, researcher at International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) in which the device which amplifies optical signals called photodetector can be shuttled around in a microprocessor.

The article offers information on the research of Daniel Gibson of J. Craig Venter Institute for making synthetic cells. It states that he has created bacteria whose entire collection of genes was edited on computer. It mentions that he used yeast cells to solve the problem of making large enough pieces of DNA to make the entire genome. It highlights that he believes that these cells could be used to produce biofuels and other industrial products.

The article focuses on various technologies being developed by entrepreneurial space companies that offer cheap and efficient ways to put people and cargo in space. It says that the New Shepard spacecraft of Blue Origin LLC has a crew capsule and a propulsion module allowing the spacecraft to shut off its engine and coast after an almost two and half minutes of boost. It adds that the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) finances the development of a capsule by SpaceX Corp.

The article reports that theoretical physicist Michelle Povinelli has developed models on how photons interact with complex materials in the U.S.

The article reports on the development of alternative materials to silicon technology, including gallium arsenide, graphene and carbon nanotubes, to make smaller, faster and more efficient transistors.

The article reports on the introduction of compact designs for processors used in mobile devices by chip makers. It notes that chip makers are rolling out these designs to meet the increasing computing demands of mobile devices. It states that Intel Corp. has integrated insulating materials into its chips to address the impact of small transistors on battery-powered devices.

The article examines the importance of implantable electronics in making better medical implants in the U.S. It discusses the production of implants that combine silk with flexible silicon electronics and function well in small animals by Tufts University biomedical engineer Fiorenzo Omenetto, in partnership with biomedical engineer David Kaplan and materials scientist John Rogers. It elaborates the impact of biocompatibility issues on the use of implantable electronics.

The article profiles professor Dianne Newman, who studies rocks for clues about the origins of photosynthesis and how chronic infections take hold at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Newman came to MIT in 1993 to get a master's degree in engineering, thinking she would work in the field for a few years before going to law school to become a patent attorney. But a class in environmental microbiology left her fascinated by the diversity of bacteria's metabolisms and the chemical reactions they perform to live. Lately, Newman and colleagues at MIT focus on rocks like a polished and spherical rock to study how bacteria living in the ancient seas were incorporated into rock over millions of years.

The article reports on the contribution of Nicholas Fang to the nanotechnology industry in Illinois. He hopes that the technology will enable biologists to watch living cells at a resolution as minute as 15 nanometers, revealing not only cell organelles but as well as its molecular workings. He stamps out nanoscale silver gratings that make it possible to convert conventional light-microscope parts in superlenses.

The article reports on the light-focusing optical antennas that could lead to digital versatile discs (DVD) that hold hundreds of movies created by Harvard University electrical engineers Kenneth Crozier and Federico Capasso. Crozier and Capasso discovered a simple process that could bring the benefits of tightly focused light beams to commercial applications by adding nanoscale optical antennas to a commercially available laser. According to the researchers, the antenna does not impose design constraints on the laser.

The article presents an interview with Roy Saltman, a computer scientist and author of the book "The History and Politics of Voting Technology." When asked what the 2000 presidential election bring to light about voting in the U.S., he said that it was the fact that the voting process in the country was poorly administered. He also compared the difference of U.S. elections to other democracies.

The article reveals the plan of John Durant, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) museum, to transform the museum into a high profile venue that showcases cutting-edge MIT research. New ideas are in the mind of Durant to create exhibits of research in progress. A collaboration among museum staff, computer scientists and historians on a project that will transform that campus into a digital museum. Expansion plans are also in progress that would incorporate working lab space into the museum.

The article features Matthew Wilson, Picower Institute researcher and faculty member at the Brain and Cognitive Sciences in Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the device fabrication laboratory he helped design, Wilson picks up what looks like a very fine silver hair, four electrodes twisted together. He uses groups of such wires to probe into the brains of rats and mice in order to study the role of sleep in memory formation and maintenance. It was learned that neurons communicate by means of electrical signaling. Wilson also works with Picower Institute director Sussumu Tonegawa to identify the genetic basis of signaling patterns in the brain.

The article features Nancy Kanwisher, McGovern Institute investigator and professor of cognitive neuroscience. Nancy Kanwisher has spent a decade strengthening the case that a blueberry-sized area of the brain is active only when one looks at another person's face. According to Kanwisher, her laboratory focuses on parts of the brain that are very specialized for one particular cognitive function. In addition to the face responses area, she and her colleagues have identified three other brain regions that respond only to images of places, bodies, and written words in almost every person tested. She explained that cerebral cortex or higher brain has a motor area that specializes in mental processes. She uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to locate regions of the brain specialized for particular tasks.

The article discusses the move of SENSEable City Laboratory to track campus Wi-Fi use at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Carlo Ratti, a practicing architect who also runs SENSEable City Laboratory in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, wants to study how people work in and move through physical spaces on campus. He maps real-time usage of Wi-Fi hubs at MIT in a project he calls iSpots. The laboratory collects data from Information Services and Technology log files that track how many people are connected to the wireless access points of MIT. The heartbeat graph can be refined to show wireless usage by campus area, building, floor or room.

The article profiles Sarbajit Banerjee, a materials chemist at the University of Buffalo in New York who developed a heat-blocking window coating material that is based on vanadium oxide, which he is in the process of licensing to a building-materials company in the U.S., and who has a partnership with Tata Steel company in India.