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Thursday October 8, 2009
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There's nothing quite like having a meal with geniuses. And Popular Mechanics gave me that opportunity today, at a lunch held in honor of its Breakthrough Awards 2009 winners.
In a panel during the lunch, PM's Editor-in-Chief Jim Meigs (far right) introduced three of the honorees, each of who gave us a précis of his or her winning project.
William Borucki (far left) is the science principal investigator of NASA's Kepler mission, whose aim is to find habitable planets. As he explained it, there are a series of steps humanity needs to take in order to expand into the galaxy; first, we have to determine whether other "earths" are frequent or rare. If they are common, we need to determine more closely their habitability. Then, Borucki said, "our children decide what happens."
Aviva Presser Aiden
(second from left) is a a PhD candidate at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, as
well as an instuctor at the Harvard Idea Translation Lab and a cofounder of Lebônê Solutions, Inc. She
represented a team that's working on developing microbial fuel cells
for use in rural homes in Africa. Microbes in soil can generate small amounts of electricity, which in turn can be gathered by electrodes and harnassed for use: for example, to replace what Presser Aiden called "dysfunctional lighting"--kerosene lamps and candles that can be dangerously smoky, as well as expensive. Her team has already traveled to Africa to test the project in the field.
And Steve Weiner (second from right) of aircraft company Sikorsky spoke about its X2 Technology project, which aims to increase helicopter speed while also reducing vibration and noise. While the project was conceived years ago, said Weiner, it didn't really get off the ground until an engineer became president of Sikorsky. "When your company is successful, you need to overcome incumbent paralysis" to make big changes, he noted. Weiner estimated actual production on X2 helicopters may begin within 4 or 5 years.
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