Martina Nacach Cowan Ros

Cambridge Day • 10th December 2025

Losing Simon's to construction would be ‘heartbreaking’ - Cambridge Day

Prapti Sekhon and Diego Lasso are two of the many regulars at Simon’s Coffee Shop. They meet there every other day, trading stories, life updates and advice over a small table and a few cups of coffee.
Lasso, 67, known as the “mayor” of Simon’s, travels from Roxbury to Simon’s every day to read the newspaper – yet he rarely gets to it, interrupted by conversations with other customers. Sekhon, 31, intentionally signed a lease on an apartment based on its proximity to the coffee shop.
Simon’s and...

Cambridge Day • 1st December 2025

An experiment in project-based education grows - Cambridge Day

At an exhibition last week, the students of NuVu High School showed off architectural models, a prototype of a ropeless lobster trap and a three-course meal. All of these are examples of the “new view” of education this project-based school in Cambridge provides to its 27 students.
Creativity and collaboration are the main ingredients at work in NuVu, which began as Saeed Arida’s 2009 Ph.D. dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Planning. Arida wan...

Cambridge Day • 10th November 2025

Digitizing the legacy of The Group School - Cambridge Day

Scattered across homes throughout Cambridge are faded curricula, pictures and worksheets stored in boxes that preserve the memory of The Group School, an alternative high school run democratically by students and teachers in the 1970s.
Now, more than 50 years after the school’s founding, these boxes are being opened and their contents digitized onto a new website dedicated to the school’s legacy, with the intention of inspiring educators and students today.

Among those trying to keep this memor...

Cambridge Day • 22nd October 2025

Close to a quarter of Cambridge lab space sits vacant. What happens to it now? - Cambridge Day

Four years ago, it was nearly impossible to find lab space for rent in Cambridge. Now nearly a quarter of it stands vacant.
Only 0.3% of Cambridge lab space was vacant in the third quarter of 2021, when rents averaged $113 per square foot, according to the real estate firm CRBE. Now the vacancy rate is 22% and rents have fallen to $93 per square foot. All told, 4 million square feet of state-of-the-art equipment and bench labs meant for life-saving discoveries instead sit empty.

These figures r...

Cambridge Day • 3rd October 2025

Here is what the most cited engineer in history has to say about biotech and research right now - Cambridge Day

Robert Langer, the world’s most cited engineer, has seen ups and downs in the biotech industry over the past 40 years, so he isn’t overly worried about the current slowdown. What concerns him is the spread of scientific misinformation.
Langer has won more than 220 major awards, written more than 1,600 articles, owns 1,500 patents and has been involved in dozens of startups, including co-founding Moderna, maker of a widely distributed Covid vaccine. His h-index of 319 – a measure of both the prod...

Cambridge Day • 2nd October 2025

Massachusetts backs AI-powered biotech startups with BioHub program - Cambridge Day

Thirteen artificial-intelligence-focused life science startups graduated Tuesday from a 12-week Cambridge program that gave them access to lab space, business training and tech support.
These companies are part of the first cohort to go through the AI Bio Accelerator Program, part of the new AI BioHub, a space in Kendall Square dedicated to the integration of biotech and AI resources. This program started when the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state’s economic development agency fo...

Cambridge Day • 16th September 2025

Biotech headwinds have Cambridge industry pros helping students transition to workforce - Cambridge Day

When Lila Neel walks through the streets of Cambridge, she imagines that any passerby could hold in their mind the cure for a sick child or parent. She said Cambridge, one of the biggest biotech clusters in the world, is a “beacon of hope” for people suffering from diseases and other health issues.
But signs are emerging that funding for research and development could become an impediment. The flow of money slowed industrywide in 2024 and the first half of 2025, according to the 2025 MassBio Ind...

The Week UK • 25th July 2025

Champagne problems: migrant vineyard workers treated 'like slaves'

Three people have been jailed by a French court for the "human trafficking of undocumented migrants" working "like slaves" picking grapes for the champagne industry, said France24.A director of recruitment company Anavim, from Kyrgyzstan, and her two male associates, one from Georgia, one from France, were sentenced on Monday. The Anavim director, who was also found guilty of "concealing employment of workers", will serve two years in prison with another two years suspended, while the two men wi...

The Week UK • 14th July 2025

Bangkok: the new 'international capital of fine dining'

Bangkok has outperformed Paris and Lima with six entries in the world's top 50 restaurants listing, sealing "its reputation as an international capital of fine dining", said The Times. It is the first time the Thai capital, better known for its "cheap and cheerful street food", has had more entries than any other in The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025, considered the "most influential rankings of its kind" in the culinary industry.The "quiet revolution" that has reshaped Asian fine dining is "o...

The Week UK • 10th July 2025

Wonsan-Kalma: North Korea's new 'mammoth' beach resort

North Korea has opened a huge new beach resort on its east coast in a bid to boost its struggling economy.The Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Area, which can accommodate 20,000 people, is a "pet project" for Kim Jong Un, who was pictured by state media "watching a man flying off a water slide in the resort", said France 24. Pyongyang has claimed North Korean visitors were "filled with joy at experiencing a new level of civilisation".Photos released by state media showed "children with tubes and inf...