In central Bologna, there’s a street with no numbers called Via Mariano Tuccella. Hundreds of people live there, but you wouldn’t be able to find it on a map. Dozens of people, who may not even know each other, all live at the same address in Turin: 1 Via della Casa Comunale, while in Rome, more than 19,000 people live on Via Modesta Valenti. But even the residents wouldn’t be able to tell you what the street looks like…….
It’s not Moe’s Tavern, but dig into the history of this local bar and you’ll find the inspiration for the curmudgeonly barkeep of The Simpsons. In 1933, after the repeal of Prohibition, former heavyweight boxer Louis “Red” Deutsch opened Tube Bar in Jersey City. The bar was named for its location on top of “The Tubes,” as the train tunnels running under the Hudson River to New York City were then called. Red ran the place with an iron……
Seven MIT faculty members are among more than 250 leaders from academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced Thursday. One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications, as well as studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and……
It looks like an ordinary tree because in many ways it is an ordinary tree. However, what a lot of people may not realize is that this tree was in outer space and went to the moon at one point in its life. The Holliston Moon Tree is an American Sycamore grown from seeds that accompanied the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. To commemorate America’s bicentennial in 1976, states across the country were given two of these seeds. Massachusetts……
Diane Greene, the chair of the MIT Corporation, announced today in a letter to the MIT community that MIT’s presidential search committee had been formed and is ready to start a thorough and broad-based search to find the successor to President L. Rafael Reif, who in February announced his plans to step down at the end of this year. “Overseeing the selection of MIT’s next president is the Corporation’s most important responsibility. As we initiate the search process, we……
The Paul Street Boys (A Pal utcai fiuk) was a novel written by Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnar first published in 1906. It is one of the most famous novels in Hungary and is considered a classic satire of European nationalism. The novel is set in 1889 and focuses on a group of schoolboys who live in the Jozsefvaros neighborhood of Budapest. The boys spend their spare time playing on a vacant plot of land they call the “grund.” When……
Near Kaltenbach, a town located in southwest Germany, it’s said the devil traveled through the area one night, desperately looking for a place to have a midnight snack. He was in such anger that he took two gigantic rocks and constructed a table and chair to eat. According to the legend, he took the chair but left the table behind. However, the more scientific reason for such a weird formation of rocks is the result of millions of years of erosion……
Dr. William Knight first entered California in 1844 as a member of the John Fremont expedition. When gold was discovered in 1848, hoards of travelers would be arriving in the region in search of riches and adventures. Knight established a ferry service to shuttle passengers and supplies across the Stanislaus River. Shortly thereafter, he was killed in a gunfight, but the success of the ferry service continued. A toll bridge was built in 1852, but was destroyed a decade……
During Japan’s Edo period, an unauthorized crossing of a checkpoint was a capital crime that could lead to death by crucifixion. A few locations were exempt from this rule, and Yagiri in the Chiba city of Matsudo was one of those. Bordering Katsushika City across the Edo river, the Yagiri area has been known for its farming of scallion and mugwort for centuries. Around the 17th century, some farmers owned land on both sides of the river, so the……
The voracious appetite for energy from the world’s computers and communications technology presents a clear threat for the globe’s warming climate. That was the blunt assessment from presenters in the intensive two-day Climate Implications of Computing and Communications workshop held on March 3 and 4, hosted by MIT’s Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC), MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and the Schwarzman College of Computing. The virtual event featured rich discussions and highlighted opportunities for collaboration among an interdisciplinary group of……
Neurodegenerative diseases are defined by an increasingly widespread and debilitating death of nervous system cells, but they also share other grim characteristics: Their cause is rarely discernible and they have all eluded cures. To spur fresh, promising approaches and to encourage new experts and expertise to join the field, MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative (ABI) this month awarded five seed grants after a competition among labs across the Institute. Founded in 2015 by nine MIT faculty members, the ABI promotes……
Food and culture converge in Puerto Rico at legendary la Ruta del Lechón. Located along Road 184 in the mountain town of Cayey, the “Pork Highway” has earned cult status among locals and travelers alike. As the name implies, la Ruta del Lechón is known for its abundance of lechoneras, which are rustic, open-air roadside restaurants that specialize in slow-roasting whole pigs over hot charcoal. The Taínos, who are the original Indigenous people of the Caribbean, called this type……
To truly engage the climate crisis, as so many at MIT are doing, can be daunting and draining. But it need not be lonely. Building collective insight and companionship for this undertaking is the aim of the Council on the Uncertain Human Future (CUHF), an international network launched at Clark University in 2014 and active at MIT since 2020. Gathering together in council circles of 8-12 people, MIT community members make space to examine — and even to transform……
Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit a forest in Oslo, Norway, that will provide the trees for paper as part of a century-long art project featuring famed contemporary authors. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some fascinating people……
The colorful folk art is a centuries-long custom
