News Briefs
This past weekend, several MIT groups hosted engineering and hackathon events on campus. While HackMIT and Hacking Arts were returning annual events, this year marked the first appearance of MIT’s Maker Faire. Although independent from one another, the gatherings were all centered around building and sharing technical projects.
Maseeh still forgoing DormCon membership
Representatives from Maseeh appeared at a recent Dormitory Council (DormCon) meeting for the first time since Maseeh seceded from the council in 2013, but Maseeh executives claim that they are not actively seeking to rejoin.
Better microscopy earns chemistry prize Chemistry Nobel Prize awarded to two Americans and one German
Three scientists, two American and one German, received this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for circumventing a basic law of physics and enabling microscopes to peer at the tiniest structures within living cells.
Chemical spill reveals some flaws in MIT Alert
On Tuesday afternoon, a chemical spill in the Dreyfus Building (18) prompted the evacuation of the building and exposed problems in the campus-wide emergency communication process.
Murder charges against MIT alum dropped
Prosecutors dropped a murder charge against former Media Lab employee Geoffrey V. Wilson ’02 on Sept. 18. Wilson, who had been free on bail, was accused of shaking his baby to death in 2010.
Pleasant weather in store for Columbus Day
The period of seasonable and clear weather that Cambridge experienced this week will briefly come to an end as a low pressure system develops off the New England coast this evening. High clouds will overspread the region this afternoon and gradually thicken as moist air begins to stream northeast. Highs this afternoon should reach the lower 60s°F with winds out of the west. Rain will hold off until early tomorrow morning as an area of precipitation associated with the low rides along a stalled front to our southeast. Scattered showers should continue into the afternoon before clearing begins tomorrow evening. Expect highs tomorrow in upper 50s°F and northerly winds.
Parts of law limiting vote in North Carolina struck down
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a brief, unsigned order reinstating provisions of a North Carolina voting law that bar same-day registration and counting votes cast in the wrong precinct. A federal appeals court had blocked the provisions, saying they disproportionately harmed black voters. In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said she would have sustained the appeals court’s determination that the two provisions “risked significantly reducing opportunities for black voters to exercise the franchise.”
Russia seeks to play sanctions tit for tat
MOSCOW — The Russian Parliament on Wednesday took the first major step to authorize the Kremlin to seize foreign assets and use them to compensate individuals and businesses being hurt by Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
As growth in Germany fades, Merkel hints at shift in policy
As evidence grows that the German economy, the largest in Europe, is beginning to stall, Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed a growing willingness to use government spending to stimulate growth, a possible shift in position that could ripple across the entire eurozone.
Beijing youth see little to cheer in Hong Kong protests
BEIJING — The pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong would seem to have universal appeal, a David and Goliath tale, starring young idealists, polite and considerate in their defiance, standing up to a mighty authoritarian government with a history of mercilessly crushing dissent.
Shorts (left)
Patrick Modiano, a French novelist whose works often explore the traumas of the Nazi occupation of France and hinge on the themes of memory, loss and the puzzle of identity, won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. In an announcement in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy cited Modiano’s ability to evoke “the most ungraspable human destinies” in his work.
Shorts (right)
ISTANBUL — With the United States continuing to pressure Turkey to do more in the fight against the Islamic State, Turkey’s position has hardened around an idea it has pushed for years as a strategy to confront the chaos of the Syrian civil war: a buffer zone along its frontier with Syria.The idea is emerging as a possible way to end the standoff between the United States and Turkey, and U.S. military planners are said to be looking at how to implement such a plan, which would require a no-fly zone and stepped up combat air patrols to take out Syrian air defense systems.
Easier time in health marketplace is promised
WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials said Wednesday that consumers would have a much easier time buying health insurance in the federal marketplace this fall, and although they promised that HealthCare.gov would not crash, they provided few operational details to back up their confidence in the revamped website.
Looking back at the Hobby Lobby decision
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear cases from five states seeking to keep their same-sex marriage bans in place, effectively handing a tacit victory to the gay rights movement. In keeping silent, the Court prevented the religious preferences of some from limiting the life choices of others.
Traces at ArtsEmerson
In my dreams sometimes I fly. I just take a really long step and then the next without my feet ever touching the ground. It is a peculiar yet precious feeling. The Quebecois troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main (literally, the seven fingers of a hand), makes the dream a reality in their theater, dance, and circus crossover Traces, running in the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston’s Theatre District until October 12.
