2A — Monday, November 2, 2015
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THREE THINGS YOU
SHOULD KNOW TODAY
The Michigan hockey
team split a two-game
series
with
Robert
Morris this weekend at Yost
Ice Arena. The Wolverines
were shut out Saturday for
the first time since Feb. 14
against Minnesota.
2
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Author lecture
WHAT: Naomi Klein
will talk about her latest
book, “Capitalism vs.
the Climate” followed
by a reception and book
signing.
WHO: Institute for
Humanities and Gerald R.
School of Public Policy
WHEN: Today from 4
p.m. to 6 p.m.
WHERE: Rackham
Auditorium
Bipolar
research
WHAT: President of
Institute for Systems
Biology will lecture.
WHO: Depression Center
WHEN: Today from
1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Palmer Com-
mons, Forum Hall
Greek tragedy
demonstration
WHAT: Two
undergraduate students
will perform excerpts
from a Greek play.
WHEN: Today from
4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
WHERE: Michigan
League
A
Russian
airliner
with
224
people
aboard
crashed
in
Egypt
Saturday,
Reuters
reported.
ISIS
claimed
responsibility for the attack,
but the Russian Transport
Minister said he is not
1
Med school
preparation
WHAT: Representatives
from the medical schools at
Duke University and Case
Western University will
share tips for preparing for
medical school.
WHO: The Career Center
WHEN: Today from 9:0
a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
WHERE: The Center
Center
Ohio State QB J.T.
Barrett was arrested
Saturday for driving
while
intoxicated,
ESPN
reported.
He
failed a breathalyzer test
administered
by
police.
In response, head coach
Urban Meyer suspended
him
for
one
game.
3
KRISTINA PERKINS/Daily
Belleville resident Mallory Frazier participates in arts and crafts
during the Blood Battle kickoff event at Michigan Stadium on
Sunday.
Student voice
recital
WHAT: Voice students
will perform their latest
songs. This event is free to
the public and no tickets
are required to enter.
WHO: School of Music,
Theatre & Dance
WHEN: Today at 6:45 p.m.
WHERE: Earl V.
Moore Building,
Britton Recital Hall
TUESDAY:
Campus Voices
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Photos of the Week
WEDNESDAY:
In Other Ivory Towers
MONDAY:
This Week in History
FORTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO THIS WEEK, NOV. 4 1967
Library extends hours
ARTS & CR AF TS
Director
of
University
Libraries Frederick Wagman
announced that the Shap-
iro Undergraduate Library
would
extend
its
hours,
remaining open to students
until 2 a.m. each night for a
trial period later that year.
The library was previously
only open until midnight dur-
ing the week. Wagman esti-
mated that it would cost an
additional $20,000 per year
to keep the library open for
those extra two hours.
Before a date for this trial
period could be set, Wagman
said the University would
have to find both additional
funds and employees to work
the added two hours. He also
mentioned that to attract the
necessary
employees,
the
library would offer workers
$2.00 per hour for the after
midnight hours instead of the
usual $1.55 per hour.
Wagman also said they
still have to consider possibly
limiting use of the library to
only one floor after midnight
and only allowing books to
be checked out before mid-
night. This would cut costs
and make it easier for them
to keep the library open for
those additional two hours.
In 2012, the University
announced the library would
remain open at all hours. Pre-
viously, it had closed at 5 a.m.
Sixteen years ago this
week (Nov. 2, 1999)
Members of the Univer-
sity’s solar car team returned
home from Australia after fin-
ishing ninth out of 40 teams
in the World Solar Challenge
in Australia.
Solar
car
teams
from
around the world competed
in the 1,864 mile race through
the Australian outback. The
race tested the endurance of
each team’s solar car and last-
ed for a total of five days.
“Being in the top 10 of the
world is a pretty good place
to be in,” team leader Jed
Christiansen said at the time.
—CALEB CHADWELL
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327
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Dancers as
diplomats
WHAT: Clare Croft will
discuss her book about the
role of dancers throughout
the 20th and 21st centuries.
WHO: Institute for
Research on Women and
Gender
WHEN: Today from 3:10
p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Lane Hall, 2239
FBI career
opportunities
WHAT: The Director’s
Resource Planning Office
for the FBI will come
talk to students about
opportunities working for
the agency.
WHO: The Career Center
WHEN: Today from 6 p.m.
to 7 p.m.
WHERE: Gerald R. Ford
School of Public Policy
Cotton candy mishap leads to
new way to model scar tissue
‘U’ team uses sugar
mold in testing how
the body responds
to internal scarring
By DESIREE CHEW
For the Daily
Just before Halloween, the
University announced that an
unsuccessful attempt at making
cotton candy inspired the dis-
covery of a new bioengineering
technique.
A University team, led by
Biomedical Engineering Prof.
Shuichi Takayama, announced
in a press release last week they
discovered a new method to
model extra-soft silicone for cell
research.
The team’s project studied scar
tissue formation in soft-celled
organs like the lung and liver, as
the body recuperates from inter-
nal scarring caused by diseases
such as diabetes and cancer.
“In
general,
our
research
group is concerned with using
small tools to understand what
happens in the body, by doing the
experiments outside the body,”
said Engineering graduate stu-
dent Joseph Labuz, a member of
the team. “This project works on
measuring the forces exerted by
cells, as well as the mechanical
properties of tissue.’’
Their original plan was to
position cells around tiny pillars
of soft silicone that acted as scar
tissue, then apply different treat-
ments to the cells and measure
the deformation of silicone as the
cells expand and contract.
But to do so, the team first
needed to figure out how to
mold the soft silicone, a mate-
rial known as Sylgard 527, into
the desired shape — which is
where the cotton candy came in.
The team’s initial instrument of
choice, hard epoxy molds, proved
unviable because silicone pillars
were so soft they disintegrated
upon removal from the mold.
However, a chance encounter
in the kitchen for a member of
the team, Christopher Moraes,
assistant professor of chemical
engineering at McGill University,
led to a new idea. Moraes worked
on the team as a postdoctoral
researcher at the University.
In the process of making an
unsuccessful batch of cotton
candy, Moraes noticed that the
hard slab of candy he was left
with captured every detail of the
pan in which it was molded.
This fueled an idea to make a
mold out of sugar, cast the Syl-
gard 527 in the candy mold and
finally, immerse the mold water
so it will dissolve, leaving only
the silicon pillars.
“I actually wouldn’t describe
it as a ‘Eureka’ moment, as much
as a ‘hmm … that’s odd’ moment,
before I threw away the candy
disaster in disgust and went to
bed,” he said. “I woke up the next
morning with the idea of what
that might mean in the lab. This
accidental process happens quite
frequently, but perhaps 99 per-
cent of the ideas that I have end
up failing.”
The team had by then spent
nine months trying to find the
right materials for their project
through repeated trial and error
— leaving them open to the new
idea.
After testing Moraes’ conjec-
ture with stunt glass, a common
feature of Hollywood action
films and an essentially sugar-
based material, the team formu-
lated the recipe for the perfect
mold: a simple, sweet-smelling
concoction made largely of sugar
and corn syrup.
“For me, this project is unusu-
al in that it really emphasizes the
fun and surprise of doing science
and engineering research, an
aspect that is often overlooked
when scientists reflect on their
work,” he said. “I mean — who
would have thought that candy-
makers would have figured out
the secrets needed to micro-fab-
ricate tissues?”
Nobel prize-winner discusses
study of molecules, motion
Harvard professor
talks complex
simulations in
chemistry
By IRENE PARK
Daily Staff Reporter
Nobel Prize-winner Martin
Karplus, professor emeritus of
chemistry at Harvard Universi-
ty, delivered the Oncley Lecture
in Biophysics at the Rackham
Amphitheater on Friday.
Karplus received the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 2013 with
Stanford Biology Prof. Michael
Levitt and Arieh Warshel, a
chemistry professor at the Uni-
versity of Southern California,
for their work on computational
simulations.
In a talk titled “Motion: The
Hallmark of Life. From Mar-
supials to Molecules,” Karplus
explained how the motion of
molecules makes the motion of
entire animals possible.
He began by quoting physicist
Richard Feynman’s “Lectures
on Physics,” which emphasized
the importance of understand-
ing the motion of atoms and
molecules
in
understanding
the motion of living organisms:
“Everything that living things
do can be understood in terms
of the jiggling and wiggling of
atoms.”
He pointed out several dif-
ferent applications of under-
standing how molecules move
— applications made possible in
part by the computation simu-
lations for which he and his
colleagues received the Nobel
Prize.
The simulations, which Kar-
plus, Levitt and Warshel began
in the 1970s, developed an eas-
ier method to replicate chemi-
cal reactions using computers.
Prior to their work, chemists
had to use advanced calcula-
tions based on quantum physics
to simulate reactions. Because
the calculations were so com-
plex, the simulations required
enormous computing power,
meaning chemists could only
simulate the reactions of small,
simple molecules.
To address this issue, Karplus
said he and his colleagues com-
bined quantum physics with the
simpler, less computationally
demanding Newtonian physics
to simulate chemical reactions
for more complex molecules.
They discovered that while
quantum physics is required for
simulating chemical reactions
at the specific site on the mole-
cules where the reaction occurs,
the simpler Newtonian physics
could be used for simulating the
impact of the reaction on the
rest of the molecule. Quantum
mechanics studies the activity
going on inside an atom.
The computational simula-
tions discovered by Karplus
and his colleagues are now fre-
quently used in multiple spheres
of chemistry research, such
as simulating how synthetic
drugs interact with proteins in
a person’s body and how defec-
tive proteins behave differently
from normal proteins.
KRISTINA PERKINS/Daily
Nobel Prize winner Martin Karplus, professor emeritus of chemistry at Harvard University, discusses the motion of
cellular molecules at the annual Biophysics Oncley Lecture on Friday.
CORRECTION
APPENDED:
A photo caption that
appeared in the Daily
on Oct. 30 incorrectly
identified Sally Hart
Petersen as an Ann Arbor
City Council member.
She is a former member.
Please report any
error in the Daily
to corrections@
michigandaily.com.
See CANDY, Page 3A
Read more online at
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