Small chemical explosion on the third floor, 590 Comm. Ave., around 8:45 p.m., hazmat team on the way.

Red Line, Green Line both having problems, the Twittersphere reports: People sitting in trains that aren't moving or jamming stations waiting for trains that aren't coming. Green Line especially fun: Switching problems at Kenmore at rush hour on a Red Sox game night.

Boston Restaurant Talk reports the seafood place at Kenmore Square's Hotel Commonwealth is closing this week.

Earlier:
Aujourd'hui deviendra Hier.

Cool photo from yesterday's rain.

Who knew the T was having problems with sightseers and swimmers in the Kenmore busway? Maybe that's why the project is so behind schedule. Saul Blumenthal is perplexed.

Copyright Saul Blumenthal.

Location

UPDATE: Not a bomb, but a dummy used to lock customers inside the bank branch by people protesting the bank's energy policies or something.

Looks like somebody heard about the fake bomb in Wellesley, so decided to try it out at the Bank of America branch in Kenmore Square this morning. Traffic and the T are, of course, affected.

POTUS32 had a camera trained on the Citgo Sign at 8:30 p.m. for Earth Hour:

Boston University Police report a man walking on the stairs Blandford Street to Beacon Street was mugged by a couple of Hispanic males. However, he managed to fend them off and they were unable to wrest his backpack from him.

Kat reports she was on a sardine-like C trolley this morning that stopped at Kenmore but didn't let anybody out:

... 10 seconds pass. Doors don't open. A business-suit guy next to me yells to the driver, "BACK DOORS!" 20 seconds pass. The train moves about 10 feet farther up the track, and then stops again. I look to the front of the train and see the doors up there aren't opening either. 30 seconds. More people start screaming "DOORS!" The train then starts up again and moves onto Hynes. Lots of grumbling and "Wait, seriously? Did the train just SKIP Kenmore?" ensue. ...

Technology Review reports that Kenmore Square start-up MTPV (yes, Kenmore, not Kendall) has won $10 million in funding to develop a new way to turn sunlight into energy - by using the light to heat up a special material that gives off light in a particular wavelength, which is then turned into electricity by standard solar cells.

... A conventional solar panel absorbs light from the entire spectrum, but it only converts certain colors efficiently. Much of the energy in the other wavelengths of light goes to waste. As a result, the maximum theoretical efficiency of a conventional solar cell is 30 percent, or 41 percent if the sunlight is first concentrated using a mirror or lens. In a thermal photovoltaic system, light is concentrated onto a material to heat it up. The material is selected so that when it gets hot, it emits light at wavelengths that a solar cell can convert efficiently. As a result, the theoretical maximum efficiency of a thermal photovoltaic system is 85 percent. ...