Cambridge

After seeing "Car Talk, the Musical" there tonight, Paul Levy has the bruises to prove it. But he says what's worse is the theater's apparent indifference to a problem that can send people just sitting in their seats plummeting to the floor:

[I]nstead of talking with friends about the wonderful show we had seen and the great performance by talented actors and musicians, we found ourselves talking about the unsafe condition at the theater and what we felt was a poor response to harm that had occurred.

The Washington Post reports a state agency has upheld a Cambridge citation against Uber because there are no state regulations allowing the use of GPS devices as replacements for taxi meters.

The ruling could spell trouble for the company, which acts as a sort of broker for local drivers, across the river, where Boston Police also require cabs to be equipped with meters.

Harvard University Police report a woman was raped in the Yard around 3:15 a.m. today.

The victim was grabbed as she entered the Yard through the Johnston Gate and was pulled behind Massachusetts Hall and attacked.

The victim described the offender as a very tanned, possible Hispanic male, mid-twenties, 5'7" in height, medium build, dark hair, wearing a white shirt.

Cambridge Day reports on a Cambridge City Council vote yesterday that effectively blocks a proposal to replace the All Asia block into a new building for a biotech company.

Genzyme, which makes a drug to treat a rare genetic disease, yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against a competitor that issued a press release saying its analogous drug is superior.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Genzyme charged that Shire, an Irish company with an office in Lexington, misrepresented Shire's own clinical studies and that nobody has yet proven that its drug works any better than Genzyme's for treating type-1 Gaucher disease. People with the disease are unable to dissolve certain types of fats, which can build up in various organs and cause a variety of problems.

Genzyme said the press release was particularly troubling because it targeted not just medical professionals - who presumably would know how to look up the data - but patients, whom it said could be misled into seeking a change of drugs from Genzyme's Ceridase to Shire's Vpriv.

Genzyme wants a judge to order Shire to issue a "corrective" press release, give it all the "ill-gotten" profits it made as a result of the press release and pay damages and lawyers' fees.

Greg MacKay strolled the North Point Bridge, which lets pedestrians and bicyclists cross the train tracks out of North Station between Charlestown and Cambridge.

Copyright Greg MacKay. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Globe reports car traffic in Kendall Square is dropping even as employment is increasing. Credit goes to employer incentives for bike riding and T taking - spurred by city regulations that require landlords to foster car alternatives in exchange for permission to build new parking spaces.

In the early 1960s, MIT professor Kevin Lynch did a three-minute time-lapse movie of a car trip from Cambridge to Brookline. Now somebody's recreated the ride on a bicycle.

Via Bostonography.

Nature reports on some interesting work done by a team of researchers at Harvard and Mass. General, who found inspiration at the jellyfish exhibit at the New England Aquarium.

"We took a rat apart and rebuilt it as a jellyfish," one of the researchers said. But don't worry - they're not all sitting around in a secret underground lair going "mwa-ha-ha!" as they build giant tanks to house their earth-conquering ratfish. We think. They say the work, in which rat heart cells were grown on a thin plastic layer, could aid in battling heart disease and developing drugs, by giving researchers a better understanding of the "fundamental laws of muscular pumps."

Ed. question: In a battle between Harvard rat jellyfish and MIT zombie moths, who would win?

The Harvard University police log has the following entry for July 18:

Officer dispatched to take a report of a stolen unattended and unsecured pair of fruit of the Loom underwear valued at $5.00.

Tim Sackton photographed the post-storm sky over Cambridge yesterday.

Posted under this Creative Commons license and in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that four men convicted of first-degree murder for the beating and stabbing death of Io Nachtwey in 2001 got a fair trial.

The ruling means the four men - all frequent visitors to the area behind the Harvard Square T stop, as was their victim - will spend the rest of their lives in prison for murdering Nachtwey on the train bridge across the Charles by the BU Bridge. Two other Pit habitues received reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony against the four.

The decision by the state's highest court lays out the legal arguments for ensuring the four will never see freedom again. But it also details the violent and sad lives of a group of homeless people who hung out at the Pit who decided to form a Harvard Square chapter of the Crips:

Cambridge Day reports on the recovery of a statue that disappeared from Cambridge Rindge and Latin during renovations. The statue is by Cyrus Dallin, best known locally for his "Appeal to the Great Spirit" in front of the MFA and Paul Revere in the North End.

The Globe reports the T is rolling out a credit-card system at the parking facilities at four large subway parking facilities and one commuter-rail stop this month.

Left Bank of the Charles reports.

State Police announced today they've terminated Adam Paicos, a trooper caught off duty driving the wrong way on Memorial Drive in April. In a statement, State Police add:

On a date in May, Paicos was observed by a senior command officer engaged in further conduct unbecoming a state trooper, also while off-duty. Paicos was still on probationary employment status when the incidents occurred. The internal investigation into the Memorial Drive incident is ongoing.

MassPoliticsProfs:

The Karma of Dirty Politics
by Jerold Duquette

The “news” that Scott Brown imagines himself a frequent secret counselor to “kings and Queens” looks like a vivid example of political karma, but does it honestly reveal anything troubling about Senator Brown? If you are a Democratic partisan, it reveals plenty and none of it good. Granted, it’s hard to feel badly for Brown, who manufactured the so-called “Indian heritage” scandal out of thin air to discredit his opponent Elizabeth Warren, but for the few non-partisan observers paying attention to this stuff presently, it should reveal only the absurdity and rampant anti-intellectualism of modern American political campaigning.

read more

Cambridge Police report that an overnight investigation showed that a guy who initially reported he'd been shot in a drive-by on Rindge Avenue around 11:50 p.m. in fact shot himself in the leg. Police say they recovered a spent shell casing and two guns.

A third-rail problem on the Kendall side of the Longfellow means delays in both directions on the Red Line, as in, power had to be shut off between Park and Kendall so workers can fix it. At 9:41 a.m., Alice B tweeted:

Just deboarded at Central. Red line inbound not moving due to 3rd rail fail at Kendall. No inbound trains for at least 20 min

UPDATE: T announced at 9:52 a.m. the problem was fixed and that service was resuming, with, of course, the ever popular "residual delays."

The Crimson reports the Loews chain is shutting the Harvard Square movie theater forever on July 8.

Drew muses:

Great opportunity for Kendall or Davis theaters to step up for the Rocky Horror kids. Much needed social outlet for many teens.

Oh, Harvard: The Crimson reports a construction company doing work on campus has taken down a sign asking workers to "show respect for Harvard" and refrain from swearing, drinking and drug use while on the job, after future 1%ers protested that the sign was just so patronizing and patriarchal.

Avinaash Subramaniam '14 said that he was "shocked" by the sign and that it held workers to a different standard than Harvard students.

"There are students who drink and smoke at Harvard and the final clubs blast music late at night," he said. "How is it any less wrong when Harvard students do drugs?"

Happened on April 3, WBZ reports.

Around 8:15 p.m. yesterday, Rachel Zarrell spotted Sob Story Guy getting on the Orange Line at Chinatown:

Needed money to get to Worcester to "treat his staph infection." Was pretty gross.

But by 11, he'd either gotten it looked at or had just become resigned to it. Colin Steele reported from the Red Line near Harvard:

No story this time, just "anybody? Anybody?"

Updated after today's council meeting.

Cambridge officials will take a look at emulating former Medford resident and current New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's edict against soda drinks larger than 16 oz., Saul Tannenbaum reports.

The city council agreed today to ponder the issue after City Councilor and current Mayor-not-for-Life Henrietta Davis clarified that her request for a study was really to copy Bloomberg's plan, and not, despite the use of the word "ban" in her formal request, to actually boot all sugared drinks out of local restaurants.

State Police are investigating a crash on the Mass. Ave. Bridge around 2:30 p.m. that left a motorcyclist dead.

State Police released few details except that the motorcycle rider was a 20-year-old man who was pronounced dead at the scene and that driver of the SUV is being treated for "emotional distress."

Doug, who took this photo, said the SUV "had major front damage and airbag deployment."

Another view from the WBZ helicopter.

The driver of a Boston-bound 1 bus eventually executed a U-turn to get back to Cambridge: