Flawed US reactors
WASHINGTON — All 104 nuclear power reactors now in operation in the United States have a safety problem that cannot be fixed and they should be replaced with newer technology, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday. Shutting them all down at once is not practical, he said, but he supports phasing them out rather than trying to extend their lives.
Texas growers eye immigration laws
Dimmit County onion grower Bruce Frasier spends the pre-dawn hours drawing up spreadsheets balancing the day’s inventories of young plants with orders from big-box retailers, commercial farms and direct-mail buyers across the country. The variable is always labor.
City passes MIT plans for Kendall
The Cambridge City Council voted 7-2 last night to pass MIT’s Kendall rezoning petition, permitting taller, denser development on the east side of MIT’s campus. The rezoning is the first step toward realizing plans to bring new retail to Kendall Square and to replace parking lots along Main Street with three new commercial buildings and a residential tower called “Innovation Landing.”
First UTx classes added; Stanford joins work on edX open-source system
EdX will release the source code of its entire platform on June 1. The source code will contain four parts, according to an edX press release: its Learning Management System; Studio, a course authoring tool; xBlock, an API for integrating third-party learning objects; and machine grading APIs.
Rao/Cornish on plans for UA
This year’s winning ticket of the Undergraduate Association (UA) Presidential/Vice Presidential election is Sidhanth “Sid” P. Rao ’14/Devin T Cornish ’14, who ran unopposed as the other ticket was disqualified when its vice presidential candidate withdrew. As Rao and Cornish prepare to take office, they have decided to create a plan to implement changes in both the UA and the MIT community, all under the paradigm of their campaign slogan: “a vision with a checklist.”
Shorts (left)
BRUSSELS — Jacob J. Lew, the U.S. Treasury secretary, urged European officials to adopt more growth-friendly policies on Monday. But there was little indication that the recession-plagued European Union was moving away from the austerity path it has pursued to deal with the debts and imbalances that emerged in the financial crisis of 2008-09.
Unsettled weather for the rest of the week
Yesterday’s weather was glorious, with temperatures at the weather station on the roof of the Green Building reaching 65.1°F. We also experienced a common Boston spring and summertime phenomenon for one of the first times this year — the sea breeze. Around 4 p.m., the winds shifted from northwest to east. With the winds now coming off the ocean (with sea surface temperatures still in the 40°Fs), the temperature at the Green Building plummeted by 10°F in a little more than an hour.
Port authority fined for lapses in airport rescue, fire safety training
NEW YORK — The operator of the major airports in the New York metropolitan region has agreed to pay $3.5 million for failing to train its police officers to perform rescues and fight fires, under a settlement agreement announced Monday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Shorts (right)
For the academic elite — tenured professors at private research universities — average pay this year is $167,118, while at public research universities such professors earn $123,393, according to the annual report by the American Association of University Professors.
North Korea suspends work at shared factory site in border town
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday that it was withdrawing all of its 53,000 workers from the industrial park it runs with South Korea, suggesting that the North was seeking to portray itself as willing to subordinate financial gains to political and military priorities as it increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Wary of events in China, foreign investors take money to Cambodia
Tiffany & Co. is quietly building a diamond-polishing factory in Cambodia, a country popularly associated more with killing fields and land mines than baubles.
South Korea warns of possible missile launch by North this week
SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean government warned on Sunday that the North might launch a missile later this week, while a top military leader postponed a scheduled trip to Washington, citing escalating tensions on the peninsula.
Promoting open access at the federal level
With the increasingly prohibitive cost to access scientific journal articles and the significant amount of research that is funded by the U.S. government, many scientists and taxpayers support measures that increase public access to the results of federally funded research. This “open access” movement aims to establish a policy for federally-funded research to become publicly accessible after an established period of time post-publication, usually within one year. Because this research is funded by U.S. taxpayers, we believe that it is reasonable to expect free access to the fruits of our investment.
Women’s tennis falls short
Playing against a ranked opponent for the third time in as many days at the 2013 Nor’Easter Bowl, the No. 21 MIT women’s tennis team found itself on the short end of an 8-1 score against No. 24 Trinity (Conn.) College. The Engineers finished fourth in the eight-team tournament with the loss, with Lauren C. Quisenberry ’14 scoring the lone point for MIT with a victory in singles play.
MIT scores 11 runs in each game of doubleheader
Eleven was the magic number for the MIT baseball team Saturday as the Engineers scored 11 runs in each game of a New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference doubleheader against WPI. MIT had a five-run inning in game one and an eight-run frame in the second game that were keys to 11-3 and 11-5 victories that completed the three-game series sweep for the Engineers. Creed J. Mangrum ’14 drove in three runs in each game, combining to go 5-for-9 with a double and home run.
Events Apr. 09 - Apr. 15
Events apr. 09 – Apr. 15 Tuesday (4:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) Oil Dependence, “Oilpacity,” and U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa — 66-110 (7:30 p.m.) Screening of Spanish movie Blancanieves — 10-250 Wednesday (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) CAST Music and Technology Seminar Series presents Tristan Perich — 14W-111 (5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) IMES Distinguished Speaker Series: Is the Genome Useful in Medicine — NE30, Broad Institute Auditorium (6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.) The Neuroscience of Musical Improvisation — NW-86 Thursday (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) News or Entertainment? The Press in Modern Political Campaigns — E14-633 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Urban Films: Up the Yangtze (2008) — 66-110 Friday (4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Starr Forum: On the Rocks: China and Japan in the East China Sea — E15-070 (8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Roadkill Buffet Presents: The “Mandatory Class of 2017 Welcome Meeting” — 6-120 Saturday (1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.) Marvelous Molecules in Play — Cambridge Public Library Lecture Hall, 449 Broadway, Cambridge (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Music and Technology Bleep Blop Performance — 14W-111 Sunday (7:00 p.m.) LSC presents The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — 26-100 (8:45 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Game of Thrones Viewing Party, 21+ — Thirsty Ear Pub Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
