Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 34). / Spider silk is a material of extraordinary beauty and utility. From the spider's perspective, it is foremost a building material, but also a safety net, a sensory organ, a weapon. From a human perspective, it is a material of extraordinary mechanical properties, an object of artistic and cultural interest, and a valuable window into the evolutionary history of spiders. Historically, there have been a mere handful of spider silk textiles, the most recent example of which was constructed by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley. This was an extravagant work of art, and the silk was collected entirely by hand. Though the finished article is a testament to the beauty of spider silk, it also illustrates the technical challenges associated with obtaining it in any significant quantity. The effects of this scarcity are evident in the lab of David Kaplan at Tufts University. His group has developed a wide variety of applications for silk, but has focused mainly on silkworm silk in spite of spider silk's greater variety and superior mechanical properties. In the wild, spiders use silk for everything from weaving webs and capturing prey to breathing underwater. Shaped by almost every environment on Earth, spider silk has evolved into endless variations and permutations, offering a vast wealth of material knowledge if we can find a way to tap it. A visit to Cheryl Hayashi's spider silk genetics lab at the University of California, Riverside offers a look inside a spider and a glimpse of how genetic research can illuminate the evolution of silk. At the same time, it puts the limits of our knowledge into stark relief. The scarcity of natural spider silk has helped to drive a small industry in bioengineered and synthetic silk research, and also motivated projects that seek to apply the structural principles of silk fibers to other materials. But so far, these efforts are only a pale imitation of the real thing. For now, the spider is keeping her secrets. / by Gillian S. Conahan. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 23-24). / Cities are very much alive. Like islands, they provide a natural testing ground for evolution. With more than half of the world's population living in urban areas now, the influence cities have on the planet's life is enormous. But can they produce species? Foxes are learning to take advantage of human handouts in London, blackbirds are adjusting their physiology to relax around humans, and two forms of mosquito are diverging in the London tube system. Cities are hotbeds of evolutionary change, and regardless of whether or not new forms of life are destined to arise, they may help shed light on the origin of species. / by Kenrick Vezina. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-40). / Aspartame has become an extremely popular artificial sweetener since its entry into the American market in 1981. Humans have an evolutionary preference for sweet tastes, and artificial sweeteners became a mainstream alternative to cane sugar in the 2 0 th century for people looking to cut calories. Saccharin and cyclamates, both discovered accidentally in early chemistry labs, set the scientific precedent for low-calorie sweeteners and also built the consumer base that would lead to aspartame's rise after its own accidental discovery in 1965. This thesis takes a journalistic look at how artifice came to satisfy the human sweet tooth. Drawing on expert interviews, scientific papers, historical accounts and congressional records, it also examines some of the health complaints like headaches and seizures that have been attributed to aspartame's breakdown products, such as phenylalanine. Even after extensive FDA testing has found little scientific proof for many of these claims, controversy and uncertainty about aspartame persist. There are also new challenges: researchers are now investigating the idea that consuming diet drinks may actually contribute to weight gain. At the same time, as obesity rates climb and schools and cities look to ban calorie-dense sodas, many public health experts welcome aspartame because it poses a less clear-cut risk than sugar. / by Allison MacLachlan. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 44). / This thesis investigates the notion of embodied cognition in humans using the research of former University of Washington researcher William Calvin and robots using the research of former MIT professor Rodney Brooks. The idea is that the feedback from the physicality of humans is a precognition to our intelligence. The choice example I use for our physicality is the motion of throwing, particularly the javelin throw. For robotics, I focus on the development of 'eyes' in Brooks' robot Cog and show how it demonstrated behavior we deem to be intelligent using the feedback gleaned from 'seeing'. Altogether, I present evidence for and against the notion that we are who we are, cognitively speaking, because of the sensory feedback of our physical bodies, and what that may mean going forward in the future for our intelligence. / by Conor L. Myhrvold. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 23-24). / In today's increasingly digitized, data-driven world, the "old ways" of doing things, especially science, are quickly abandoned in favor of newer, ostensibly better methods. One such discipline is the ancient study of taxonomy, the discovery and organization of life on Earth. New techniques like DNA sequencing are allowing taxonomists to gain insight into the tangled web of relationships between species (among the Acanthomorph fish, for example). But is the newest, shiniest toy always the best? Are we in danger of losing vital information about the world if we abandon the thousands of years of cumulative human knowledge to gather dust in basements? This thesis explores the current crossroads at which taxonomy finds itself, and offers a solution to preserve the past while diving headlong into the future. / by Lindsay Kirlin Brownell. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 27-29). / The Tevatron was the world's highest energy particle accelerator for more than two decades. Built at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois in the early 1980s, the machine accelerated protons and antiprotons through its 4.26-mile ring of magnets and smashed them together in one of two 5,000 ton detectors that traced and measured the collision debris. Scientists then analyzed the results in search of new fundamental particles or a deeper understanding of existing ones, and in 1995, they discovered the top quark, one of only 17 known fundamental particles in the universe. The discovery made headlines around the world and became the Tevatron's crowning achievement. When the U.S. Department of Energy decided to shut the Tevatron down in 2011 after a more powerful collider began running in Europe, the old machine entered a kind of limbo. Its life in the world of experimental particle physics was over, but there were no plans for its remains. Using the Tevatron as a case study, this thesis asks the fundamental question: what can and should be done with the ruins that lie in the wake of progress? In doing so, it examines a difficult challenge facing today's science and technology museum curators, namely how to preserve the historical and scientific value of important artifacts amid the acceleration of scientific progress and the growing prevalence of big science. / by Suzanne E. Jacobs. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 23-25). / The consumption of shark fin soup dates back to the Ming Dynasty in China, when it was served to emperors. Today, the cultural delicacy represents wealth, status, and power. Over the past 30 years, with the rising middle class in China, the demand for shark fins has surged. To address the increasing demand, a group of fishermen came to realize there was little value in carting massive shark bodies to shore when all they needed were the highly valued fins. So they sliced off the fins, and threw the still living, rudderless sharks to die in the open ocean. So began the gruesome practice known as "shark finning." Shark populations have been unable to withstand the demand for their fins, and dozens of species are now threatened or endangered. From enhancing legislation to control the shark fin market to building sustainable fisheries to promoting synthetic shark fin soup - efforts to address the issue of shark depletion are seemingly endless. And yet despite these efforts, both the market for shark fins and global catch rates have continued unabated. If the demand for fins and the practice of shark finning continue at the current rate, human interference may forever change the nature of our oceans. / by Alexandra H. Morris. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 24-26). / In the early 1950s, C.C. "Sparkplug" Sanders began harvesting brine shrimp from Utah's Great Salt Lake. Sanders built up a small business selling their eggs, called "cysts, to aquarium stores across the country. During the 80s, cysts were found to be an effective food source for aquaculture and a multimillion-dollar commercial harvesting industry quickly emerged. As the cysts rose in value, competition between harvesters grew fierce and annual catches soon began to drop. Environmentalists also became concerned, as the shrimp are an important food source for millions of migratory birds. The harvest was almost entirely unregulated during this period. Unlike other fisheries, where industry members have fought government intervention, many of the harvesters called on the state to increase oversight. Scientists hired by Utah's natural resource agency found that no comprehensive studies had ever been conducted on the lake's ecosystem, complicating initial efforts to manage the harvest. A twenty-year effort by the state, harvesters and other stakeholders to develop a science-based management strategy has recently begun to pay off as cyst populations appear to be stabilizing and the harvesting industry has once again become profitable. / by Samuel Alex Wotipka. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "September 2016." / What if, during your next luxuriously long shower, a small device on the showerhead catches your eye? It counts gallons like a stopwatch. As the numbers grow, a cartoon polar bear despairingly watches the iceberg beneath him slowly melt. Small psychological nudges like this have profoundly shaped people's choices in countless fields, from medicine to economics to policy. But can these tiny nudges help us take on the largest problems? Before the Goliath climate change, here stand the pioneers in psychology, economics and energy management, with a behavioral slingshot in hand. / by Eben Eliot Bolte Bein. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 19-23). / In 2009, Larry Leverenz, Eric Nauman, and Thomas Talavage at Purdue University formed the Purdue Neurotrauma Group (PNG), and set out to study concussions in high school football. They set up a study that combined helmet sensors with fMRI brain scans and cognitive testing, hoping to figure out what happens when a player gets a concussion on the field. Instead, they uncovered something shocking and wholly unexpected. Players' brains were significantly changing even in the absence of concussions, due to an accumulation of smaller impacts called subconcussive blows. Years of subsequent research have only confirmed their initial results-season after season, they found that about half of the players in their study that didn't sustain concussions exhibited significant brain changes over the course of a season. They don't yet know exactly how these brain changes relate to short or long-term cognitive damage, but when their findings are scaled across the landscape of high school football, the implications are enormous-brain changes may be occurring in some half a million teenaged athletes. However, even as public awareness of concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) reaches new heights, subconcussive blows continue to fly under the radar. For the past seven years, the PNG has run their research on a shoestring budget, and now, at the end of their funding, they are running out of time and options. Meanwhile, in a few short months, 1.1 million high school football players will suit up for the start of football season. / by Catherine Curro Caruso. / S.M. in Science Writing