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Almost all Rhode Islanders have been affected by the  Iway Construction Project, which has moved the intersection of I-195 and I-95 further south. Sometimes it has been painful, but the results seem to make traffic flow better.

Recently, outside our  corporate and Providence office, demolition work has begun during the evening to remove the old sections of I-195. This has started at the intersection of Wickenden, South Main, and South Water Streets.

If you had driven under the old highway, you would have noticed steel beams constructed to reinforce the overpass supports. This partially obscured the view of the brightly colored murals painted onto the concrete support structure.

Most of the overpass is now gone, revealing the murals once again. But now they are visible in full daylight. So, we sent out our media team and recorded the following film for history and for those who may not travel over the Point Street bridge onto Wickenden Street. Enjoy.

Kathryn Higgins hot med dude: "is your friend single?....what kind of dorks are you guys?"

DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres.

For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not detected any gravitational waves so far, but it might inadvertently have made the most important discovery in physics for half a century.

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram."

The idea that we live in a hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard 't Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.

The "holographic principle" challenges our sensibilities. It seems hard to believe that you woke up, brushed your teeth and are reading this article because of something happening on the boundary of the universe. No one knows what it would mean for us if we really do live in a hologram, yet theorists have good reasons to believe that many aspects of the holographic principle are true.

Why is the singular form "ho" but the commonly accepted plural "hoes"? Has always perplexed me.

Photo of 342 Williams Street, Fox Point borrowed from Forgotten Providence

The Providence Preservation Society is calling for nominations for their 2010 Most Endangered Properties list.

Every year, the Providence Preservation Society compiles the Most Endangered Properties List with the help of concerned members of the public who submit their nominations. Most resources on the list represent an important aspect of local community life and character. The sites reflect threats such as deterioration, neglect, insufficient funds, insensitive public policy and inappropriate development – problems that frequently threaten properties throughout Providence.

The purpose of this list is to generate interest and support for the preservation of these significant properties; educate the public about the benefits of historic preservation and the unique historic properties in our city; and work toward solutions with property owners, developers and other interested parties to bring about positive change in each property.

Generally, the Society lists buildings individually, but have in the past been known to name groups of buildings. See 2009 when the Downtown Providence National Register District was listed and two structures, the Providence National Bank Façade and Teste Block, were nominated together.

This year, I plan to nominate en masse, all the houses in Providence being foreclosed on. I encourage others to follow my lead if so inclined. Randomly traveling the streets of Providence (or flipping through the pages at Forgotten Providence shows the toll the foreclosure crisis is having on us. This is a preservation problem beyond buildings, the displacement of people (both owners and renters) decimates communities. Living somewhere littered with abandoned buildings is… is… well, it’s depressing.

I’m not an economist nor a real estate expert, but I have to believe there are creative ways to hold onto these buildings, to allow people to continue living in them, and protect them from rotting away. Stimulus money, co-ops, non-profit trusts, squatting… something. I think PPS shining a light on these buildings is a good start for the creative thinking process we need to have to figure out how to end this neglect.

Visit this page to download a nomination form. Nominations are due by February 19th.

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When Barney is about to complete the perfect week - landing seven different girls in seven days - the gang roots him on in order to forget about their own miserable week.

Fourteen students at Johnston High School are suspended for producing a 25-song rap CD that, among other things, refers to violence, binge drinking and sex with other students. Schools Supt. Margaret Iacovelli said the students involved were given five-day suspensions and were ordered to perform 10 hours of community service and receive some in-school sensitivity training. "We had to address the disruption at the school that the CD caused," Iacovelli said. "We looked at it in a different light because it also disrupted the community. So we gave them 10 hours of community service to help repair that damage." On the CD, which was made off school grounds but sold by at least one student in school, the students spout off on anything from football games to how their cars fit their personalities, over some popular hip-hop beats. Some of the students also rap about drinking alcohol: "Take shots of Jack and a glass of Absolut / When . . . we get together you know we gonna puke / If it's in a toilet or out the car door / It don't matter we just keep going back for more."

Providence Journal archives

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Liberty Elm Diner, a vintage 1947 diner in Elmwood that the state preservation society says represents the city's role in creating the modern American diner, was placed in the National Register for Historic Places for its contributions to the history of commerce and architecture.

According to the state Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, Liberty Elm Diner is a "rare and well-preserved example of a distinctive 20th American building type," embodying the changes in the Providence diner business in the decades after World War II.

The National Register is the federal government's official list of historically and architecturally significant properties worthy of preservation. Listed properties get special consideration for federal assistance and are eligible for state tax benefits and loans.

Owned by city resident Carol "Kip" DeFeciani since 2006, The Liberty Elm has been in the news of late for other reasons.

In July, the diner was one of 1,200 businesses statewide that received notice last July that it must close up shop unless it pays its overdue sales taxes immediately.

It remained opened, however, and, this past fall, the diner was featured on the popular Food Network show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" hosted by Guy Fieri. That episode, which will include other city restaurants, will air Feb. 22.

Located at 777 Elmwood Ave., the one story, red, yellow, and black diner remains largely the same as the day it opened in 1947 in downtown Providence as the Central Diner.

It measures about 10 ½ feet by 40 feet, with an attachment added in the 1950 to the rear for more kitchen and dining space. Inside, the diner has the original a long pink marble counter with chrome stools for 14 patrons, the original oak booths, yellow and blue tile floor, light-blue porcelain enamel ceiling, and metal hat racks.

According to the state Preservation & Heritage Commission, the concept of the American diner originated in downtown Providence, when in the 1850s, an enterprising teenager named Walter Scott sold sandwiches and snacks from a basket to late-shift workers at the Providence Journal and other night-time denizens of downtown.

When his business outgrew his basket, Scott acquired a pushcart, which allowed him to sell hot coffee as well. Successive "night lunch" providers built bigger and better wagons, and eventually companies were launched in several northeast states to manufacture "lunch cars" for the trade.

The Central Diner was built by the Worcester Lunch Car Company of Massachusetts in 1947 for Providence businessman Ralph Narducci and opened it for business at the corner of West Exchange and Gaspee streets in downtown Providence, where the Westin Hotel stands today.

In 1953, after business declined in the downtown post-World War II, Narducci relocated 2.75 miles south to the diner's current location and built an addition in anticipation of bigger business, according to the state Preservation & Heritage Commission.

At the time, Elmwood Avenue was a thriving commercial corridor, with the Elmwood Theatre and numerous other in the immediate neighborhood.

The diner retained the name the Central Diner through 1972, but as it changed hands, it changed names and received a number of facelifts, according to the state Preservation & Heritage Commission.

Over the years, it has been known as the Elmwood Diner, Jenn's Elmwood Diner, Ole Elmwood Diner, Louie's Diner, Roberto's Café, or La Criolla Restaurant.

In 2006, Carol "Kip" DeFeciani purchased the property and restored the diner to its historic appearance under the name the Liberty Elm, a reference to the elm trees that once lined Elmwood Avenue that have since succumbed to disease and street widening.