The Harvard Gazette reports a global shortage of helium, caused in large part by sanctions on Russia, which ships much of the world's supply, is beginning to affect research in physics, engineering, chemistry, biology and medical research, all of which use the gas to cool things down to temperatures way, way below freezing. Read more.
A Riverside Line trolley had some pantograph performance issues in the tunnel between Haymarket and Government Center shortly before midnight. Not long after, Transit Police reported numerous drunk young men running on the tracks from Government Center to Park after one train was evacuated to Government Center. Before the dead train was emptied, Charles reported:
A bunch of fellas are yelling at each other and I think they’re about to do the Good Will Hunting bar scene.
MassLive reports a robot named "Alfred" is now working as a sous-chef at Bonapita, a pita place in the Star Market strip mall on Spring Street in West Roxbury. No word if he gets paid in cans of motor oil.
They did it, of course, for science: MIT News reports physics students who puzzled over why the cream in an Oreo tends to stick to just one wafer when you unscrew it not only developed a device to apply different amounts of force to the unscrewing process but realized they had a good experiment for hands-on rheology: "The study of how a non-Newtonian material flows when twisted, pressed, or otherwise stressed." Read more
The Supreme Judicial Court today set out ways that police can subpoena tens of thousands of cell-phone records to try to link specific phone calls to crimes, in a case in which they used the technique to connect a Canton man to the murder of Jose Luis Phinn Williams at a Dorchester gas station and to a series of other similar, if less deadly, robberies that year in Mattapan, Canton and Cambridge. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Suffolk County prosecutors can use as evidence a gun seized from a Roxbury man after a gang-unit officer watched him in a Snapchat video displaying the weapon. Read more.
The Boston City Council agreed today to look at creating a public alternative to private broadband providers, saying events of the past couple of years have proved broadband has become a necessity that private business may be unwilling to provide at a price that all residents can afford. Read more.
The engineers did change the colors on their slide on the left, company says.
A Boston-based startup that says it can revolutionize the way engineers can find out what's sitting underground before they begin large construction projects says it first has to dig itself out of the mess left by some programmers it had hired who allegedly not only stole the company's ideas and data but destroyed the information before they left to start a competing company. Read more.
Northeastern University reported a "major data center outage" this morning that made it impossible for students and staff to use their Husky Cards, their IDs that normally give them access to everything from cafeteria food and library checkouts to printing and washing machines as well as to the portal that lets students access their class information. Read more.
Magnetic tape for donut-shaped tokamak reactor. Photo by Gretchen Ertl, CFS/MIT-PSFC.
While most of us were enjoying the Labor Day weekend, researchers at MIT and a spin-off fusion company in Cambridge were powering up the world's most powerful version of a new type of superconducting magnet, one they say could help lead to fusion power actually becoming a reality. Read more.
The Boston Public Library reported today it's restored WiFi and that employees are beginning to input all of the book checkouts they'd had to record by hand since somebody knocked many of their systems offline last week. Read more.
A new report from the BPDA says that what is already the nation's largest biotech region keeps adding jobs, which is why the industry has exploded out of Kendall Square across the river and down the Charles. Read more.
Blackstone, a New York investment firm, announced today it's buying International Data Group from the Chinese company that had acquired it in 2017. IDG runs a market consulting service and a variety of Web sites focused on IT buyers and sellers, both in the US and abroad.
Shortly before 8 a.m., Carol Beggy spotted at least 60 people - and one dog - lined up outside the Cambridge Micro Center, waiting so they could rush in and snap up $600 graphics cards. Read more.
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