Course 7 head Kaiser picked to run NIGMS
Biology Department Head Chris A. Kaiser PhD ’88 has been selected to run the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) beginning next year, the MIT News Office reported on Tuesday. Kaiser will oversee NIGMS’s $2 billion budget for funding basic life sciences research.
MISTI, HASS changes in Faculty Newsletter
The September/October Faculty Newsletter (FNL) is out, opening with an editorial calling for the scientific community to speak “more clearly, more loudly, and more effectively” to counteract the “deeply disturbing” scientific skepticism of some presidential candidates.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK Occupy Boston takes to streets
Oct. 10, Columbus Day, marked the Big Labor and Student Solidarity March, the largest Occupy Boston protest so far. Since Sept. 30, Boston-area residents have come together to protest in Dewey Square, acting in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. On Columbus Day, the number of participants in the march was estimated to be around 10,000, according to Nadeem A. Mazem ’06, an Occupy Boston spokesperson and MIT squash coach.
Leland Cheung runs for re-election
Leland Cheung, a former Sloan School of Management student who made headlines in 2009 for being the youngest person and first Asian-American elected to the Cambridge City Council, is running for re-election. This season, Cheung’s main initiatives include promoting the local economy, affordable housing, public education, energy conservation, and government transparency. Cambridge residents will head to the polls on Nov. 8.
CORRECTIONS
A pie-chart infographic published Nov. 2, 2010 incorrectly indicated that 20 percent of respondents to a political survey answered “unsure” when asked which political party best represented their views. Only 13 percent of the more than 2100 graduate and undergraduate students respondents answered “unsure” to that question (though the relative size of pie-chart segments did reflect this).
UA restructuring plans surface again
The Undergraduate Association is developing a new proposal that aims to restructure MIT’s undergraduate government into a more cohesive body. According to a plan released by the UA Restructuring Committee, the UA Senate could be replaced by a council composed of independently elected dormitory and FSILG leaders. If approved, the UA hopes to instate the new government during an IAP transition period.
Register to vote by tomorrow!
Elections are just around the corner! You have until tomorrow, Oct. 19, to register to vote in the Nov. 8 Cambridge municipal elections. The deadline to register in Massachusetts for the Nov. 2 general election passed on Oct. 13.
As online education rises, financial aid fraud grows
While serving nine months in a South Carolina prison on forgery charges, Michelle N. Owens capitalized on the explosion in online higher education to tap into a new — and highly lucrative — way to profit from fake documents.
Hybrid & electric cars gain traction in fuel economy
The formula for better fuel economy in cars has long been a simple equation: The smaller the vehicle, the farther it goes on a gallon of gas.
MIT tackles hunger
What’s for lunch? Next Friday, participants in Hunger Strike will be tackling significantly larger-scale hunger issues. The planned 12-hour fast marks the conclusion of Hunger Week, a series of events and fundraisers sponsored by MIT Fighting World Hunger (MFWH). Community members are welcome to commit to the Strike by paying $5 for an event T-shirt.
House dining popular with 15’s
The new House Dining program is popular among freshmen, but less so among upperclassmen, according to enrollment statistics released to The Tech by the Division of Student Life. The mandatory meal plan for residents of Maseeh, Baker, Next, Simmons, and McCormick amassed a total enrollment of 1,888 students, 45 percent of which are freshmen.
Former MIT police officer D’Amelio sentenced to 2.5 years in jail
Former MIT police officer Joseph D’Amelio, charged in 2009 for trafficking prescription drugs, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail at his trial Tuesday.
Not so fast, neutrinos
On Sept. 23, European scientists announced that they had observed neutrinos, a class of subatomic particles, traveling faster than the speed of light — the universe’s fundamental “speed limit.” The experiment, OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus), was a collaboration between the Italian Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) and Europe’s high-energy physics laboratory CERN. Since the announcement of this anomaly, the scientific community has been hotly debating its validity, as well as the possibilities that could arise from such results.
Black smoke covers Cambridge
On Wednesday afternoon, large plumes of black smoke billowed from the MIT Power Plant after a water feed pump stopped functioning at the plant. The smoke lasted for two hours.
Postdocs get an independent voice in new self-government Postdoctoral Association to replace Advisory Council
Postdoctoral researchers at MIT have decided to take matters into their own hands. Postdocs will be represented by the new, autonomous Postdoctoral Association (PDA) instead of the Postdoctoral Advisory Council (PAC), which was organized by the office of the vice president for research. The move gives MIT postdocs an organization more similar to the Undergraduate Association or the Graduate Student Council.
Steve Jobs leaves legacy of innovation and leadership
Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies, and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56.