Perry and Obama diverge on border
To the president of the United States, the 1,200 border miles that stretch from Brownsville to El Paso are either “among the safest in the nation.” But to the governor of Texas, the border is “not safe.”
OBITUARY Nicolás E. Del Castillo ’14
Nicolás E. Del Castillo ’14 was found dead in his East Campus dorm room on Sept. 4. He was 18. His death was the result of an apparent suicide by asphyxiation. A memorial mass was held for him at the MIT Chapel the following Sunday.
FredFest IV showcases local bands
Last Friday marked the fourth anniversary of FredFest — MIT’s largest outdoor concert — held in East Campus courtyard.
Activists, doctors split on HIV bill
A proposal to change how people give consent for HIV tests has divided AIDS advocacy groups in Massachusetts and upset major medical organizations, stymieing legislators trying to bring the state into compliance with federal recommendations aimed at promoting more testing.
Alchemist to call MIT home
Alchemist, originally on loan for the duration of MIT’s 150th anniversary celebration, can now call the Institute home. The sculpture, which sits between the Student Center and Massachusetts Avenue, represents a thinking man comprised of numbers and math functions.
We’re number five!
MIT is in a five-way tie for fifth place in U.S. News and World Report’s 2012 national university rankings. The Institute took the No. 5 spot along with Caltech, Stanford, UChicago, and UPenn. Havard and Princeton tied for the No. 1 spot, followed by Yale in third and Columbia in fourth.
173 bids given as recruitment ends
Sorority recruitment wrapped up on Sept. 7 with 173 women receiving bids. Recruitment this year was marked by a higher retention rate — the number of people who stick through formal recruitment — and by more women applying for recruitment sooner.
NASA detects planet dancing with pair of stars
From double sunrise to double sunset the show goes on, always changing.
Castillo death ruled suicide
According to an article published by the Boston Globe on Tuesday, the death of Nicolas E. Del Castillo ’14 has been ruled a suicide by the medical examiner’s office. Castillo’s death certificate, filed on Monday, lists his cause of death as asphyxia. Castillo’s body was found in his room on the 4th floor of East Campus’ West parallel on Sunday, Sept. 4.
Baltimore institute sued for lead dust & kids study
A class-action lawsuit was filed Thursday against a prominent Baltimore medical institute, accusing it of knowingly exposing black children as young as a year old to lead poisoning in the 1990s as part of a study exploring the hazards of lead paint.
Famine hits hard in a world now less likely to intervene
DOLO, Somalia — Is the world about to watch 750,000 Somalis starve to death? U.N. warnings could not be clearer. A drought-induced famine is steadily creeping across Somalia and tens of thousands of people have already died. The Islamist militant group al-Shabab is blocking most aid agencies from accessing the areas it controls, and in the next few months, three-quarters of a million people could run out of food, U.N. officials say.
Questions raised over startup’s integrity
Winning the Grand Prize in MIT’s $200K Clean Energy Prize contest in May was only the beginning of an MIT startup’s success. CoolChip Technologies, which develops cooling systems for electronics, was automatically entered as a finalist in the MIT $100K Business Plan Contest as a result of winning the CEP. CoolChip has also been covered by CNN Money, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and Electronic Engineering Times since their CEP win. At the end of August, however, an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education cast a shadow over the success of the young company.
Engineered T-cells vanquish cancer in patients
PHILADELPHIA — A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. Ludwig, then 65, a retired corrections officer from Bridgeton, N.J., felt his life draining away and thought he had nothing to lose.
CORRECTIONS
Due to police error, the police log published on April 11, 2008 misstated the identity of Mikhail Shklyar of Beverly Mass., who was reported arrested for trespassing on March 18, 2008. The man who was actually arrested shared the same name, Mikhail Shklyar, but was from Brooklyn, New York at the time of the arrest.
Ex-Genzyme chief gives $10m to MGH cancer unit
Retired biotechnology executive Henri A. Termeer, who built Genzyme Corp. into the largest US company specializing in drugs to treat rare genetic disorders, is donating $10 million to Massachusetts General Hospital to establish it as a world leader in personalized medicine.
UA elections begin tomorrow
Voting in the elections for the Undergraduate Association Senate and Class of 2015 Council will begin on Wednesday. Online voting will begin on Wednesday at 9 a.m. and run until Thursday at midnight, while paper voting will occur between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday in Lobby 10. There are currently five candidates for 2015 president, one for vice president, and one for publicity chair, but no candidates for social chair.
MIT remembers sacrifices made on September 11
This is the second segment in a two-part series on MIT’s response to the attacks on September 11, 2001.