A PEEK OFF-CAMPUS Tropical diseases infect powerless
Every year, 13 diseases that affect a fifth of the world’s population are responsible for the loss of 56.6 million disability-adjusted life years and 534,000 deaths. But because these diseases only afflict the world’s most impoverished and powerless people, the international community has forgotten about them.
Hurricane Irene safety tips
The massive Hurricane Irene — with wind speeds around 120 mph as of last night — is predicted to hit New England Monday morning, and it could be the largest storm the area has seen for years. The last hurricane to pass within 75 miles of Boston was Hurricane Bob 20 years ago. New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina have already declared a state of emergency in anticipation for the arrival of Irene, which could slam New England with winds above 60 mph.
New Mass. lottery restrictions in place
State Treasurer Steven Grossman severely restricted yesterday the number of Cash WinFall lottery tickets any store can sell in a day, closing a loophole that has allowed a handful of high-stakes gamblers to win most of the prizes.
Barbecue gathers prefrosh, alums
A range of generations of the MIT community gathered at Sidney-Pacific for the annual barbecue of the MIT Club of Boston this past Sunday. Alumni, their children, current students, and incoming freshmen mingled amid food and activities under the hot summer sun. The club sponsored the event for prefrosh and MIT affiliates in the greater Boston area, providing activities for children as well as opportunities for alumni to reconnect with each other and to meet current students.
Massachusetts lottery woes
SUNDERLAND — Billy’s Beer and Wine sold exactly $47 worth of lottery tickets the day before Marjorie Selbee arrived, just another sleepy day for the liquor store in this tiny Western Massachusetts town. But from the moment the 70-something woman from Michigan entered the store early July 12, Billy’s wasn’t sleepy anymore.
Swartz indicted for JSTOR theft
Aaron H. Swartz is an accomplished 24-year-old by anyone’s standards. He co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, was one of three owners of the massively popular social news site Reddit, and recently completed a fellowship at the Harvard Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption.
NEWS ANALYSIS Court rules for NIH in stem cell case
The latest battle over human embryonic stem cell research is over, and the National Institutes of Health has won — the research can continue. The war can still go on with appeals, potentially as high as the Supreme Court, but researchers are unlikely to face court-ordered prohibitions on research as that multi-year process continues.
New Building Services tool on MIT Mobile App allows for easy work order submissions
The MIT Mobile App service, available for the iOS and Android platforms as well as the most recent feature phones, has a new widget for the MIT Department of Facilities. The new Building Services tool allows users to easily report on-campus maintenance issues, such as problems with leaks, lighting, and locks. The widget can mark the problem site by detecting a user’s current location using GPS, or the user can select a building or area from a list. The user also has the option to upload a photo of the problem. The widget takes those data and submits a work order to the Department of Facilities. The new widget “allows our customers to report things as they see them,” said Ruth T. Davis, manager of communications for the Department of Facilities.
CORRECTIONS
The caption for the mood meter photo in the April 15 issue mistakenly identified the creators as M. Ehsan Hoque G, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Rosalind W. Picard ScD ’91, and Javier H. Rivera G from left to right. The creators should be, from left to right, Javier H. Rivera G, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Rosalind W. Picard ’86, and M. Ehsan Hoque G.
Beta alumni disband fraternity
Beta Theta Pi (Beta) has been disbanded, a decision that was made by its local alumni association, advisory board, and the national organization. Members were notified of the decision on June 5 and were asked to move out of their house within five days.
Facilities may move
The people who keep MIT running day-in, day-out are looking for a new home. The Operations group of MIT’s Department of Facilities is mulling use of the former California Products Corporation’s property at the corner of Waverly St. and Putnam Ave., just northwest of West Campus. At a June 22 meeting, MIT officials pitched the idea to residents of Cambridgeport — the neighborhood where this property currently lies dormant.
NEWS ANALYSIS Dorm transfers review
Next semester marks the first year of MIT’s new undergraduate dining plan, requiring students who live in Simmons, McCormick, Baker, Next, and Maseeh Hall to purchase meal plans ranging from $2,500–$4,500 per year. Opponents to the plan have suggested that the cost may be prohibitive for some, driving students away from dorms where they otherwise would have liked to live. Here we present a breakdown of requests for transfers to and from every dorm from 2008–2011. Data from prior to 2008 is not available, nor do we yet know how dining plans will affect how freshmen pick dorms. However, with these data we can begin to ask whether dining changes significantly impacted dorm popularity.
Boston celebrates July 4th
Despite the hot and humid weather, masses from around the world crowded into Boston for one of the most anticipated Fourth of July celebrations in America. Everyone was full of national spirit; children and adults alike wore red and blue foam Lady Liberty crowns and played games on blankets spread out along the banks of the Charles River. Those seeking the best seats for the spectacle arrived early in the morning, stretching clusters of lawn chairs from the Harvard Bridge all the way to the Hatch Shell, where the 38th Annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular would take place later in the day. Other spectators took to the seas, docking their boats around the barge from which the firework show would ignite and release its potential energy into the skies.
Here today, gone tomorrow, those cameras.
Surveillance cameras come and go in Lobby 10, with some frequency, it would seem.
Agarwal officially CSAIL’s director
Anant Agarwal, a professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, assumed his role as director of CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) last Friday on July 1. Agarwal will succeed Professor Victor W. Zue ’76, who held the directorship for four years. CSAIL is MIT’s largest interdisciplinary lab and is home to over 900 undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers.