State/New England

Published: Sunday, December 24, 2006

Metal detector finds $4k ring

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) – As a real estate agent, Winslow Frank of Auburn knows the importance of one element: location, location, location.

That’s certainly true when Frank goes treasure hunting with his new metal detector. He hit the jackpot Thursday when he unearthed an antique 1.1-carat diamond ring buried 6 inches underground.

“I just stood there for a few minutes thinking, ‘This is really exciting, but with my luck, it can’t be a real diamond,’ ” Frank told the Sun Journal of Lewiston.

He was wrong. An Auburn jeweler appraised the European-style platinum ring with a diamond center at $4,000 and estimated that it had been buried for more than 50 years.

MIT professor vows hunger strike

BOSTON (AP) – A black professor at MIT has threatened to go on a hunger strike and “die defiantly” outside the provost’s office if the university does not grant him tenure, which he said was denied because of racism.

For two years, stem cell scientist James L. Sherley has asked senior administrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to overturn the decision by his department head not to put him forward for tenure. On Monday, he was told by provost L. Rafael Reif that the decision would stand, The Boston Globe reported.

Shirley said if MIT fails to take action, he’ll start his hunger strike outside Reif’s office Feb. 5.

MIT grants tenure to less than half of its junior professors. It has struggled to recruit non-Asian minority professors, who are scarce in most science and engineering programs.