Published May 6, 2011

In this June 8, 2009 file photo released by Brazil's Air Force, Brazil's Navy sailors recover debris from the missing Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean. (AP)

In June 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil. All 228 people on-board died. Nearly two years later, authorities have no idea why the plane went down.

Yet.

David Gallo, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, hopes to change that. He was the co-leader of the team that found the sunken plane last month, nearly three miles below the ocean’s surface.

Call Woods Hole

There has been no explanation as to why the plane crashed — it simply vanished from air traffic control radar screens somewhere between South America and Africa. No distress signal, no Mayday call.

A day after the plane vanished, Brazilian Air Force pilots found small pieces of the plane in the middle of the Atlantic, but the rest of the plane had sunk. Authorities hoped the answers to their questions would be contained in the on-board flight recorders that keep data on planes, but no one knew where exactly the plane (and the recorders) went down.

The crew prepares a Remus submarine to search the ocean floor. (Courtesy Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Enter Gallo and his team from Woods Hole. Turns out, if you lose something deep in the vast ocean, they’re the people you want to call.

“It was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere in the range of about two to three miles deep, we knew that much,” Gallo said. “We knew that it had come down somewhere on the flanks of an underwater mountain range. And the group of people on this planet that can work in that kind of area — that deep and that kind of rugged terrain — is very small. At Woods Hole, our teams have been doing that for about 30-40 years.”

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole scientists have been exploring the ocean for a long, long time. The institute was founded in 1930. In the 1970s, they explored the vast deepwater ecosystem. In the ’80s, they’re the ones who found the Titanic. They now have more than 1,000 ocean researchers.

Continue reading →

Published May 6, 2011

(Old Shoe Woman/Flickr)

What makes an A+ teacher? That’s the subject of our upcoming series at the end of May.

We’ll be looking at such issues as how teachers are evaluated and whether it’s fair. We’ll be looking at teacher pay: If you pay teachers more, will they really be better teachers? We’ll be looking at whether good teaching is teachable.

But we also want to hear from you. You have a few weeks to send us your stories about your personal experiences with great teachers and your experiences with not-so-great teachers. For example:

• If you’re a parent and your child had a bad teacher, what did you do about it?
• If your child had a great teacher, was that teacher rewarded?
• If you’re an administrator, how do you reward good teachers?
• If you’re a teacher, what do you do to make yourself better?

We want to hear from you. Share your stories in the comments or email teachers@wbur.org.

Published May 4, 2011

Celtic great Bill Russell reacts at a news conference as he learns the most valuable player award for the NBA championships was renamed the Bill Russel NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award. (AP)

The Boston Celtics announced today that the team’s charitable arm will be erecting a statue of Celtics great Bill Russell.

Long overdue, the statue will memorialize the Hall of Famer’s accomplishments both on and off the court, the team said in a release. It’s not known yet where the statue will be located.

One of the best NBA players of all time, Russell brought an incredible 11 championships to Boston and won four MVP awards. He ranks second in the NBA in total career rebounds with over 21,600.

Off the court, Russell is remembered as an outspoken civil rights advocate and, to many, a complex figure who never shied from speaking his mind. President Obama honored Russell with the nation’s highest civilian honor, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, in February.

“(Russell) almost single-handedly redefined the game of basketball,” the White House said in a statement at the medal ceremony. “The first African American to coach in the NBA — indeed he was the first to coach a major sport at the professional level in the United States — Bill Russell is also an impassioned advocate of human rights. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and has been a consistent advocate of equality.”

Back in February, local graphic designer Nate Morrow mocked up in Photoshop what a possible Bill Russell statue might look like.

Now that it’s becoming a reality, where should the statue go?

Published May 3, 2011

James Carroll (Courtesy)

The other day I had a conversation with James Carroll about our response to Sept. 11, the wars that were “unnecessary” and the moment of opportunity America now faces.

The Globe columnist, distinguished professor-in-residence at Suffolk University and author — most recently of the book “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” — regularly presents us with both the big picture of American foreign policy and the tectonic clash of Christianity with Islam and Judaism in ancient and modern history.

For my piece this morning, I availed myself of his brilliance as a chronicler of Boston, as well, for a look back to what began here 10 years ago and ended with the killing of Osama bin Laden.

I had far too much to share and so little time, so here’s an extended interview:

Published May 3, 2011

Authorities investigate white powder found at Sen. Scott Brown's office at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston Tuesday. (Steve Brown/WBUR)

Authorities say there is no threat from white powder found earlier today in envelopes at the offices of Attorney General Martha Coakley and Sen. Scott Brown.

Boston Fire Department officials found the first envelope at about 11 a.m. when an employee in Coakley’s office opened a piece of standard mail and the powder spilled out.

“Initial field tests have been conducted and the results do not indicate that the substance poses a risk,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement. “In an abundance of caution, additional testing will be conducted.”

The second envelope was found a short time later at Brown’s office in the John F. Kennedy Federal Building.

There were no injuries and no evacuations.

Update:

The AP reports:

A third letter containing a suspicious white powder also was being investigated Tuesday at the Franklin County Courthouse in Greenfield, which was evacuated as a precaution.

Published May 3, 2011

The Twin Towers stood tall in this photo from the 1970s. (AP)

With Osama bin Laden’s death, many of us thought back to the event that seared the terrorist mastermind into America’s consciousness. Sept. 11 was on the mind of much of the world Monday, including WBUR News Director Martha Little, whose view of the LA skyline was drastically altered.

After the second plane hit the World Trade Center towers, the world sat in shock. Like many others, Jonathan Bohan was concerned for friends and family in New York.

Bohan remembers “frantically worrying about my cousin whom I mistakenly thought worked in the towers,” he wrote on WBUR’s Facebook page.

Barb Moser’s son was a sophomore at New York University. “I couldn’t reach him because the phone lines were jammed,” Moser wrote on Facebook. “He finally got through to me about six hours later. I was never happier to hear his voice.”

Some shared with us stories of people they lost.

“I remember most vividly the moment I learned that my friend John Ogonowski was the captain on Flight 11 which was the first plane to hit the World Trade Center,” Sonya Dunne wrote on Facebook.

“I lost my brother on 9/11/01 in South tower,” commenter Mflenihan wrote. “It was horrible then and continues to be for our family and the world. My mother has never been the same.”

Ten years after the attacks, it’s sometimes hard to remember just how scared we all were. We had no idea what the attacks were about, or where they might strike next.

[pullquote author = “commenter Mflenihan”] “It was horrible then and continues to be for our family and the world. My mother has never been the same.”[/pullquote]

WBUR’s Fred Thys remembers the world glued to its TVs and radios. After learning the news, Thys was assigned to head to Logan to cover the story from there.

“I ran to my car shouting repeatedly, ‘Oh, my God!'” Thys wrote. “In those days, before the I-90 Connector tunnel was open, it could take an hour to get to Logan. I made the trip in eight minutes. No one was on Boston’s roads.”

Some recalled other specific scenes.

“If someone was crying on the T or on the street, people stopped to comfort them,” Gretchen van Ness wrote on Facebook. “People asked complete strangers, ‘Did you lose anyone?’ and wanted to know the answer. I think it was at least a week before I heard a car horn again.”

Matthew Juros said he remembered “the silence of skies without air traffic.”

That fateful day is burned into the memory of most of us. It always will be.

“Can still feel the sun and see the clear blue sky and have the images from TV replaying in my head today,” commenter Shakespearegoddess wrote.

How do you remember 9/11? Share your story in the comments or on WBUR’s Facebook page.