on campus
BC alum to run for Finneran's old seat
Linda Dorcena Forry, Boston College '98, is planning to run for former House Speaker Tom Finneran's seat in the House, according to The Boston Herald. Forry, a Haitian-American, met her husband, Bill Forry, BC '95, at BC during a NAACP meeting. They were married in 2000 and had a son 11 months ago named John Patrick. They now reside in Dorchester, which is in Finneran's former district. For the past few years, she has been politically aligned with former state Rep. Charlotte Golar Ritchie, who now works for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Forry is planning her campaign, and is in the process of making her ideas and intentions for change known to voters.
Chem prof credited with new method
John Fourkas, a chemistry professor at Boston College, has developed the first discovered method for attaching synthetic materials onto microscopic pieces of biological tissue, according to Discover Magazine. With colleagues at BC as well as others from Boston University, Fourkas has inscribed the word "hair" on a single strand of human hair. The technique does not damage the tissue of the hair. It is hoped that the method will help doctors build miniscule sensors that can be placed on patients' skin. Biologists could also create tiny tweezers in order to study individual human cells.
local
Petition pushes for Greycliff T stop
Last week, 230 residents of Brighton signed a petition for the reinstatement of the B Line stop at Greycliff Road, according to the Allston-Brighton Tab. The MBTA closed four B Line stops last April as a response to complaints about the length of time spent for a ride on the train. The elimination of the stops was designed to cut an average of two and half minutes off the B Line. According to MBTA studies, the average number of riders at the stop was 109, which is considerably less than the 230 that signed the petition, giving hope to signers. The petition cited the large number of elderly citizens who used the stop.
Local teen arrested for bomb plot plan
A 16-year-old high school student from Marshfield, Mass. has been arrested after local police uncovered a sophisticated bomb plot he designed for his high school, according to The Boston Globe. The plan listed specific teachers and students as potential victims. Marshfield police turned up evidence of the alleged plan, which was to have taken place in the spring, authorities said. A search of the student's backyard turned up evidence that he had been constructing an explosive device, and a search of his house turned up a "shopping list" of guns and ammunition, police told The Globe.
universities
Harvard announces new VP position
Marilyn Hausammann has been named Harvard University's first vice president for Human Resources according to the Harvard University Web site. Hausammann is a professional in Human Resources with a background in consulting, financing, and banking. She previously served as the global director of Human Resources at the Boston Consulting Group, where she greatly rebuilt the firm's human resources capacity. Prior to the BCG, Hausammann worked at Thomson Financial as the senior vice president for Human Resources and Communication. As VP, Hausammann will help Harvard with its workforce of 15,000. She is set to put forth an effort to recruit more employees as well as maintain the current workforce.
MIT prof part of Nobel prize team
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physics professor Frank Wilczek won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize in physics for a discovery that involves the "color" force between quarks, which are the building blocks of the atomic nucleus, according to the MIT Web site. Wilczek shares the $1.3 million prize with David Gross of the University of California at Santa Barbara and H. David Politzer of the California Institue of Technology. The trio won for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of strong interaction. Asymptotic freedom is a phenomenon where quarks behave as free particles close together but become more attracted to each other as distance increases. Wilczek began his career as an MIT professor in 2000 and plans to continue his teaching as well as his research there.
nation
St. Helens edging closer to eruption
Mount St. Helens in Washington State blew off a large cloud of steam and ash on Tuesday, the largest in a series of indications that larger eruptions could be on the horizon for the volcano, according to The Boston Globe. The eruption sent clouds of dark, gray ash thousands of feet above the mountain, which eventually drifted to the Northeast. The mountain has been creating steam since last Friday. Following the eruption, the National Weather Service issued an ash fall advisory to Skamania County where the ash might fall. Scientists have long believed that another eruption is possible from Mount St. Helens, but said that they do not believe it will be as big as the 1980 eruption that blew off half of the mountain.
Flu vaccine firm to stop distribution
Chiron Corporation, the company that makes about half of the flu vaccine used in the United States, said it will not be supplying the vaccine this season, according to The Boston Globe. The company cited problems in its plant in the United Kingdom as the cause of the supply problems. A spokesperson for The U.S. Health and Human Services Department said that the loss of Chiron's supply will cause serious challenges to the United States for flu vaccination season, the Globe reported. About 185 million Americans receive the shot each year. Experts predict that a scramble for the vaccine will occur because it takes months to create the medicine each year. The Health and Human Services Department said that it is seeking ways to make more doses in time for the flu season. Chiron was expected to administer 48 million doses this year, already a drop from 100 million doses the year before.
Be the first to comment on this article!