Technology

Federal officials swore today they have not yet carried out billions of dollars in threatened cuts for biomedical research and that they won't slice the funds until at least after a Boston judge decides at least one of the lawsuits filed over the cuts announced on Friday. Read more.

Update: Massachusetts and New York hospitals and a national group of medical schools ask to join suit. Complaint linked at the end of the story.

A federal judge in Boston today blocked the National Institutes of Health from making immediate cuts in research grants - many already approved by the government - and to file proof now and then every two weeks that it is continuing to distribute the money. Read more.

Carl Bergstrom details the impact of a federal rule announced yesterday that could mean the immediate loss of hundreds of millions of dollars paid to research universities, including funds already budgeted -  a key part of the Project 2025 that the Liar in Chief swore he knew nothing about.

MIT News reports researchers have figured out how to use 3D printers and mud to make "formwork molds" into which contractors can pour concrete at construction sites, replacing the more expensive wood formwork now used. "We found a way to make formwork that is infinitely recyclable," one researcher said. "It’s just dirt."

Northeastern Global News introduces us to Mike Foley, who is in the process of perfecting a device that, when fed silverware in one tray, and napkins in another, folds the former into the latter. He got the idea talking to his brother, who works in the restaurant business and who told him one of the things waitstaff hate the most is the monotony of silverware/napkin folding.

A South Boston man was arrested this week on a federal wire-fraud conspiracy charge for his alleged role in a scam ring that took a 75-year-old North Adams man for $420,000 after he responded to a popup message that his computer was frozen. Read more.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans to convert a long unoccupied Victorian and its carriage house at 43 Hutchings St. in Roxbury into a residential Web-programming school for 14 young women - over the objections of neighbors, who say they want to keep their street a place of single-family homes rather than a place where do-gooders can dump yet more transitional housing. Read more.

Update, 2:25 p.m.: RMV says its officers are open for appointments again but that the statewide vehicle inspection system remains offline.

The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles reports it's been hit by the same Windows security-software screwup as Mass General Brigham, which means it's had to cancel all customer-service-center appointments before noon "as many workstations at centers are not operational." Read more.

Several of the nation's largest record labels today sued Suno, a Cambridge firm started by AI gurus whose offering lets users create their own songs - based, the labels charge, on their copyrighted work. Read more.