I agree about MIT students, I think they would really have no need to do a pump and dump, just researching the subject and various people and Reddit forums seem to think that is what's happening. I forgot to mention in the article but the announcement happens to fall on the same day that there is a potential for a BTC chain split. Who knows what could happen. I believe LTC could go up quite a bit more since its basically bitcoin but way faster, and now that its being developed and improved its chances of success are higher. This of course, doesn't mean that we wont see a drop before it rises again.