The following letter was sent to the MIT community today by MIT Chief of Police and Director of Public Safety John DiFava. To the members of the MIT community, In my 46 years of policing, I have seen the good and bad, the brave and cowardly, but what we saw in Minneapolis last week with the brutal killing of George Floyd left me shaken and angry. It breaks my heart to see such cruel violence against another human being, and……
Torre Bissara is a tower in Vicenza, located near the city’s Basilica Palladiana. With its height of 82 meters (269 feet), it is the tallest building in the city and one of the tallest bell towers in Italy. The original tower was built in 1174 by the Bissara family, but it was later bought by the municipality of Vicenza. After surviving a strong earthquake that hit the area in 1348, the tower was renovated during the 15th century and……
NEW YORK (AP) — Though Black Out Tuesday was originally organized by the music community, the social media world also went dark in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, joining voices around the world outraged by the killings of black people in the U.S. Instagram and Twitter accounts, from top record label to everyday people, were full of black squares posted in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Most of the captions…
The iconic Minneapolis concert venue First Avenue has hosted thousands of musical artists since its opening in 1970, but none has been as profoundly intertwined with the club’s legacy as Prince. The venue was originally called the Depot, then Uncle Sam’s, and then just Sam’s by the time Prince first took the stage on March 9, 1981. By 1983, the purple one was a worldwide celebrity and Sam’s had been re-christened once again as First Avenue. Prince loved the……
Brown dwarfs are the middle child of astronomy, too big to be a planet yet not big enough to be a star. Like their stellar siblings, these objects form from the gravitational collapse of gas and dust. But rather than condensing into a star’s fiery hot nuclear core, brown dwarfs find a more zen-like equilibrium, somehow reaching a stable, milder state compared to fusion-powered stars. Brown dwarfs are considered to be the missing link between the most massive gas……
In the parking lot of the Queens Museum, at the heart of one of the American neighborhoods most impacted by the coronavirus, a masked face now looks up at the sky, large enough to be seen from space. This is the face of the late medical doctor Ydelfonso Decoo, who was thinking about retirement before the pandemic struck. Rather than retire, he treated coronavirus patients from his community, and subsequently died of COVID-19. Decoo’s portrait was completed in late……
On a warm December day in one of the last cemeteries in Singapore, Man Zu begins to chant. His orange Taoist robes stand out amidst the thousands of gray gravestones; his round face is tan and leathered from years of working in the sun. He is here today to help a group of siblings exhume and relocate the remains of their father, mother, and uncle. Choa Chu Kang Cemetery does not look like the busy metropolis that is Singapore…….
Possibly the largest and oldest archaeological site in Palau, the Badrulchau Stone Monoliths can be found on the hill slopes at the northernmost point of Babeldaob Island. The site consists of 52 basalt megaliths lined up in two rows, crude faces carved into some of them. Archaeologists estimate its construction dates back to around the year 161. The purposes of these stone monuments have been a question, but it is believed that they served as pillars for a bai, a……
On August 19, 2011, Diego Felipe Becerra, or Tripido (his graffiti tag), was 17 years old and was painting graffiti under the bridge of Avenida Boyacá with 116th Street in Bogotá, Colombia. He was intercepted by a police officer and was would be expected to undergo a search. Afraid of the consequences, Becerra tried to escape, and was shot him in the back. He died almost instantly. The officer contacted his superiors and they all agreed to say that……
Known to its most devout patrons as Church Bar, or simply Church, this beloved institution’s walls are plastered with faux-religious pop art, velvet posters of Jesus, and pithy inspirational quotes celebrating its unique brand of defiant independence. Church is the brainchild of Grant Henry, who now goes by the moniker of Sister Louisa—a former divinity school student who opened the dive bar after growing disillusioned with theology. The decor draws heavily on Southern Baptist iconography, striking a delicate balance……
Down a narrow, one lane dirt road in Big Sur, California, lies a secluded beach hidden by large, steep cliffs. The cliffs keep a beautiful rock formation known as Keyhole Arch hidden from the hustle and bustle. Located just off Purple Sand Beach, Keyhole Arch is a natural hole carved into the rocks from the crashing waves around it. Every year around the winter solstice, for just a couple of days a beautiful light show happens at the Keyhole Arch…….
How can the world combat the continued rise in global temperatures? How about shading the Earth from a portion of the sun’s heat by injecting the stratosphere with reflective aerosols? After all, volcanoes do essentially the same thing, albeit in short, dramatic bursts: When a Vesuvius erupts, it blasts fine ash into the atmosphere, where the particles can linger as a kind of cloud cover, reflecting solar radiation back into space and temporarily cooling the planet. Some researchers are……
The Po River ends its long journey through northern Italy in a large delta, mostly located in the province of Rovigo. The area formed just in the last few centuries from sediment brought by the river, and it is now sparsely populated and protected as an interregional park. So it may seem surprising that a large power station was built in the 1980s near the very tip of the delta, on the Po della Pila branch of the river,……
Normally, the immune system is able to differentiate between healthy and abnormal cells. Peptides, fragments created by the synthesis and breakdown of proteins inside each cell, are presented on the surface as antigens and act as signals to immune cells whether the cell should be left alone or flagged for destruction and removal. Because cancer cells display a small number of tumor-associated antigens and antigens that result from genetic mutations, they can be targeted by the immune system. However,……
The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. TOP OF THE HOUR: — Singapore has reopened 75% of economy as part of end to virus lockdown — South Korea reports 38 new cases of COVID-19 — China reports five new cases of coronavirus, all brought from outside country — More than 225 global…
