Changing the Rules of the Game

Changing the Rules of the Game

Date:

23 June 2015

Copyright OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, 沖縄科学技術大学院大学). Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Download full-resolution image

Tags

Research

Share on:

Related Images

Site of 300 Propellers

Site of 300 Propellers

Professor Shintake plans to station 300 huge propellers 100 meters underneath the ocean’s surface in the Kuroshio current. The propellers should generate one million kilowatts of energy in total – equivalent to the power of one nuclear reactor.

Sketch of Electron Microscope Design

Sketch of Electron Microscope Design

A skilled artist, Shintake’s often works the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, in the initial stages of a project’s design. This is one of his first drawings of the his eletron microscope design.

Buoys in Ishigaki

On the same day as the Coast Guard buoy deployment, Koichi Toda connects one of 18 OIST buoys with temperature sensors to a dock in Ishigaki Island.

Protein Folding and Random Matrix Theory

Protein Folding and Random Matrix Theory

Working in OIST’s interdisciplinary environment, Professor Shinobu Hikami, head of the Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Unit, has become especially interested in using random matrix theory to uncover correlations in complex biological systems, particularly in the intricate folding and entanglement of amino acid chains – an important process which eventually leads to a three-dimension protein, the building block of body tissue.

Spiny Neurons Receive Dopamine

Spiny Neurons Receive Dopamine

The dendrite branches of spiny neurons are littered with spines, or receptor sites, for neurotransmitters, including dopamine. Spiny neurons play a crucial role in initiating and regulating movements of the body, limbs, and eyes by receiving signals from neurons in other parts of the brain that produce dopamine. The Brain Mechanism for Behaviour Unit is studying these cells in order to understand their role in Parkinson’s disease. Gordon Arbuthnott, head of the Unit, had previously found that half of these spines are lost from the dendrites when dopamine is removed, as is the case in Parkinson’s.