Suzy Nelson, dean of Colgate College, will be vice president of student life
Nelson currently serves as vice president and dean of the college at Colgate University. She has held positions at Syracuse and Cornell, and was dean of student life at Harvard until 2012.
A return to relative warmth
The Boston area is experiencing a return to climatologically normal temperatures after record cold enveloped the region over President’s Day Weekend. The most severe part of the cold outbreak came on Sunday, when both the high (12°F) and low (-9°F) temperatures were the coldest ever observed in Boston on February 14. An extraordinarily cold polar air mass was to blame for the frigid outbreak, which spread throughout the northeastern United States. The unique extremity of the cold air mass was captured by a weather balloon measurement in Albany, New York, on Saturday night, which measured -23.4 °F at the 850 millibar level (a height of about 1.4 kilometers) — the coldest temperature ever observed at that height in Albany.
Gravitational waves from collision of black holes detected
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. We did it,” David Reitze, Executive Director of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, announced Feb. 11.
Gravitational waves, in the words of MIT researchers
MIT physicists gathered in the Bush Room under MIT’s dome on Feb. 11 to share some important news. The world knows what came next: in parallel with an event at the National Science Foundation, the scientists announced their breakthrough in making the first direct observation of gravitational waves. The cause of the waves was equally spectacular: a billion years ago, two black holes collided and outputted 50 times more power than all the suns in the universe.
Metropolitan Warehouse will not become dorm
The Metropolitan Moving & Storage Warehouse will not become a dorm. Instead, a new undergraduate residence will be constructed “from the ground up,” most likely in West Campus.
Physicists detect gravitational waves, proving Einstein right
A team of physicists who can now count themselves as astronomers announced Thursday that they had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding 1 billion light-years away, a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prophecy of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
As Apple resists, encryption fray erupts in battle
WASHINGTON — Last month, some of President Barack Obama’s top intelligence advisers met in Silicon Valley with Apple’s Timothy D. Cook and other technology leaders in what seemed to be a public rapprochement in their long-running dispute over the encryption safeguards built into their devices.
Freshmen internships: a bit elusive, but not impossible (and not all there is!)
Last week, The Tech ran a piece near and dear to the hearts of all of us at MIT’s Career Services: In search of an elusive freshmen internship by Zachary Collins.
Moore’s war of hearts and minds
The title of Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Where to Invade Next, seems to reflect ambivalence on the part of its creator. It is after all no coincidence that Moore’s trio of breakout box office hits — Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko — appeared during the administration of his antagonist-in-chief, George W. Bush. Though no one would pretend that mass shootings have subsided since the release of Bowling for Columbine, the election of President Obama saw the formal end of the Iraq War and the passing of health care reform — the subjects of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko, respectively. The working title of Moore’s latest project might as well have been, What To Tackle Next?
Ann Hirsch: “Sexy” (Un)Sublimated
I had never been in MIT LIST’s project exhibition room before. It was smaller than I expected, and yet somehow this almost claustrophobic quality lent itself to Ann Hirsch’s work. The darkened room was illuminated by the screens dotted about the walls, and the tiny crackles from the adjacent headphones were sporadically drowned out by the main speakers. With white fur rugs and black bean bags on the floor, it was easy to attach oneself to a screen and become immersed. This learned transportational quality of screens — our ability to willfully submit to their immaterial reality and allow it to transcend our surroundings — became more visible and reflexive as I explored each piece.
The NYC record industry comes to life in ’70s rock drama Vinyl
He’s a record man. Snorting coke in his car, his personal life on the verge of collapse, wanted for questioning for murder, trying to escape. Escape everything.
Van der Hoop takes fifth at cyclo-cross nationals
Julie van der Hoop G and Corey Tucker G finished 5th and 22nd, respectively, at the recently-concluded Collegiate Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championship held at Asheville, North Carolina.
Championship weekend preview: what to expect
Brace yourself! It is the championship weekend for winter sports. MIT swimming and diving (men and women), track and field (men and women), fencing (men and women), and squash teams will battle for regional or conference titles starting February 18. Here we include a snapshot of what to expect and where you can catch all the action.
Mary Tellers
Editor’s Note: Portraits of Resilience is a photography and narrative series by Prof. Daniel Jackson. Each installment consists of a portrait and a story, told in the subject’s own words, of how they found resilience and meaning in their life.
Love is...
I never thought I would have to worry about healthy relationships. My relationships seemed pretty great. I have a close group of friends, two amazing parents, and a wonderful group of women that I get to call my sisters. It took one conversation to make me realize that while I don’t have a directly unhealthy relationship myself, I certainly have felt the effects of one.
