Results tagged “mit”

President Barack Obama is in Boston today to tour MIT and to appear at a fund-raiser for Governor Deval Patrick at Westin Copley Place. (Expect traffic snarls on Huntington Avenue and elsewhere in the Back Bay.) He will be speaking to a select group of MIT faculty, students, and staff at 12:30 in MIT's Kresge Auditorium. We'd suggest shanking a student to get a ticket for the talk, but you probably won't be allowed past the doors with a shank or a stranger's blood on you. [Globe]

The MIT Communication Forum presents a discussion about "Race, Politics and American Media" from 5 to 7 tonight at the Bartos Theatre (20 Ames Street, Cambridge). The talk will focus on media coverage of race and politics, touching on Gatesgate, the decline of traditional media, and other locally relevant events. Participants include Juan Williams (NPR, Fox News), Phillip Thompson (associate professor of urban politics in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning), and David Thorburn (professor of literature and director of the Communications Forum at MIT). The forum is free and open to the public.

The Globe reports on the work of MIT students Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree, who invented online Gaydar. It's actually old news—the students won an award in 2008 because of their project—but who knows how deadlines work in the world of dead tree journalism? In short, the project invented an algorithm that can tell whether or not you're gay based on your Facebook profile—without even counting how many of your friends are topless men.

Harvard University has produced more billionaires than any other American university, according to Forbes. Anyone with a degree from University of Phoenix could have determined that. Forbes says 54 Harvard graduates need three commas to list their net worth. This translates to 5% of the world's billionaires. Ironically, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and became the richest man in the world anyway. Stanford is second with 27 billionaires and Penn third with 18. MIT has produced 11 billionaires.

-- State Police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office arrested nine suspects Wednesday night and Thursday after a six-month investigation into alleged cocaine trafficking. Cops seized at least 13 guns, ammunition, 200+ grams of cocaine and at least $45,000. Operation Lightning Bolt is still ongoing. [Herald]

-- As if a musical by Amanda Palmer wasn't enough, Lexington High grads also got a funny commencement speech. [The Incidents of Eugene Mirman] -- Did you know there was a series of "fascinating" tunnels under MIT? [Oobject] -- Someone has obtained Big Papi's eye exam chart. [Fack Youk] -- Dorchester criminals have secret identities like "Crackman" and "The Urinator." [C-11 Report]

When news broke that two private investigators were busted in the Kirkland House dormitory, we weren't surprised to learn that MIT, or, more specifically, MIT's Crime Club, was behind it.

It's almost graduation: you know, that time when the city is flooded with parents, graduates, and moving trucks as everyone prepares to move to their new job and city—or, in this economy, back in with the 'rents. What happened over the past year at the big (and small) schools around town? Bostonist looks back at some news stories, from Harvard's billion-dollar losses to Emerson's Holocaust insensitivity, and provides graduation information as well, including commencement speakers, in which category Berklee blows everybody away. Did we miss an important story? Let us know in the comments!

Each week Bostonist is dedicated to bringing you the most viral Boston and Cambridge-based videos the internet has to offer.

      

Blog favorites and future Passion Pit tour-mates Harlem Shakes dropped by MIT this weekend for a little performance outside of Kresge Auditorium as part of WMBR's annual Spring Weekend Festival Concert. The conditions were what weathermen, musicians, and students alike would call perfect: sunny with a light breeze flowing through the air, a manageable PA, and a homework-free Saturday. Though the show may have been sparsely attended considering the day's victories after a long, dreary winter, the Harlem Shakes ran with everything they were given.

                 

Saturday, Bostonist checked out the Science Carnival at MIT, the kickoff event to the nine-day Cambridge Science Festival, and decided to take some pictures of the action. There were plenty of opportunities for kids to get involved with science, and if the reaction of one girl during the Cool Science Live demonstration ("I LOVE science!") was any indication, it sounds like we have a few budding scientists—and science writers—on our hands. We'll be attending several other Cambridge Science Festival events all week, so stay tuned!

-- Passive aggressive notes from BC are "great practice for when you are living alone or with your husband." [Passive Aggressive Notes]

-- Boston and state police arrested Joseph D'Amelio, a uniformed MIT police officer, on charges that he and an accomplice were trafficking pain pills. Authorities say that D'Amelio was captured with 340 pills of OxyContin and even more Roxycodone. [Suffolk County D.A.]

We had to do a double take at this image from photosbyfletch. It reminds us of a nice warm mid-winter day after a snowfall, but it was actually taken at night! A 59 second exposure gives us a great example of what can be done with a little patience and a good eye for photography.

Bill Arning, the energetic curator of the List Visual Art Center at MIT, will be leaving Cambridge to be the new director of The Contemporary Art Museum Houston. A former punk rocker and independent curator once referred to as a "cowboy" by Boston Magazine, Arning has organized numerous shows for the List showcasing multimedia and conceptual art that have made the center a destination for experiencing exciting contemporary work. Bostonist once took a tour of the List and learned the history of video art from an excitable Arning dressed jeans, t-shirt, and Chuck Taylors. Arning was a major part of the Boston art scene outside MIT as well, and his absence will be strongly felt in the area. [Houston Chronicle; Big, Red and Shiny]

Some MIT students created Ok Cupid, a free dating site for introverts, nerds, weirdos, overachievers, weirdos, creative types, and folks on the autistic spectrum, as well as their admirers. Many members of the Fang Friends entourage visit the site quite frequently, looking for some type of romantic, but not codependent, love. The crew has become frustrated, nay, disgruntled, as of late because of the lack of hot dates on Friday nights resulting from their usage frequent doting upon of the OKC moniker. Readers of the Bostonist could change all that, however. Consider signing up, okay?

As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, we were able to talk to a handful of the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) teams during their poster presentations last Saturday evening. Here’s the (slightly) distilled version of what we found.

Over the weekend, one of the most prestigious student research contests took place in the labyrinthine halls of MIT’s Stata Center. 2008 marked the fifth year of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, in which 84 teams created anything they could think of, using the techniques of the burgeoning field of synthetic biology. Over the next three days, Bostonist will be giving everyone a crash course in this new biological frontier.

We start with the research of BU computer engineer Thomas Little, who is currently working on transmitting wireless internet through room lighting. Using LED’s from a flashlight and a router, Little has already developed a prototype of his system, which has received interest from several communications firms, and may be available for purchase in a year or two.

Yesterday, the Globe ran a feature on MIT's "cool" side--the one where students participate in sports and theatre, and study things other than math and science. That seems all right--even engineers can be (and often are) well-rounded. We certainly know a large contingent of hard-drinkin', uber-athletic engineers (men and women). But then the article unfortunately equates the wide-ranging opportunities at MIT with the phenomenon of MIT girls posing for fundraising calendars self-described as "a thinly veiled excuse to ogle hot engineering and science chicks."

MIT economist Jiang Wang worries about the government's bailout of bad investments, pointing to the success of past private bailouts and suggesting this matter could have been resolved privately as well. Jiang also wonders if the bailout will falsely improve stock prices, hurting investors' ability to make money off the market's downturn. His final concern is about the distorted effects that the bailout may have on the housing market, distorting home prices even as it reduces foreclosures. What's a consumer to do? There's always the mattress.

12:30pm today

-- Yesterday was "OneWebDay" to celebrate the Internet? At least we didn't have buy a card for anyone. [OneWebDay]

More MIT madness leads off this edition of Beaker Hill. We’re always thoroughly impressed by these Cantabridgian crusaders, not just for the intriguing work they put together, but also for the way completely off-the-wall concepts make perfect sense in their world.Take their new cancer-targeting system loosely modeled after a Viking longboat. No, it’s not a mashup of Beowulf and Fantastic Voyage (as entertaining as that would be) but a contraption out of the lab of Stephen Lippard. The system uses a carbon nanotube as the “boat,” which carries two passengers: a folate derivative used to target certain types of cancer cells, and the cancer-killing drug cisplatin. Once the boat reaches shore by virtue of the cancer cells’ folate receptors, the cisplatin is released to loot, pillage, and destroy everything in its wake. The Lippard team’s article can be found in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, along with a teaser for their next project: a Robespierre-inspired obesity targeting compound that slices through fat cells like a guillotine and screams, “Let them eat cake!”

Every Saturday, Bostonist brings you the best Boston-based viral videos YouTube has to offer. From tea parties, to hula hoopers, to free art tours -- if it's viral, Bostonist has caught it.