After the longest stretch of cloudy summer days in Boston since 1903, the long-awaited sun finally beamed down across the red-white-and-blue-adorned city and all of its Fourth of July festivities on Saturday. As part of the 36th annual July 4th Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, an estimated 500,000 Bostonians, tourists, MIT students, and others gathered along the Boston Esplanade, around the Hatch Shell, and across the banks of the Charles for the nationally broadcast entertainment and patriotic fun.

Since the Madoff scandal and the collapse of the Picower Foundation, the MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has successfully continued its operations despite some sharp, unexpected loss of funding. Money for several high-risk, high-gain projects has vaporized.

MIT professors spend their summers on European excursions, quiet New England retreats, and studies that encapsulate both work and play.

Beginning this summer, Information Systems and Technology has begun transitioning portions of the MIT e-mail system to Microsoft Exchange, as well as changing the way spam is handled.