Several New England research universities, scrambling to protect the federal subsidies and grants funding part of their work, are calling on the Obama administration to protect science and technology spending by the Homeland Security Department.

Rents in the Boston area hit record highs in the last quarter of 2011, pushed up by increased demand and declining inventory, maintaining the region’s reputation as one of the country’s most expensive places to live.

It is hard to disagree with the headline on Bill Galston and Mark McKinnon’s op-ed in The Hill on Jan. 17: €œTime for up-or-down votes in Senate on appointees.€ The recent, highly partisan tit-for-tat demeans senators and the president, intensifies the polarization of the parties and deepens the public’s cynicism about Washington.

Until now, college students mostly have relied on word of mouth, professors’ reputations, previous student evaluations and the often rude and anonymous comments (complete with a “hotness” ranking) on RateMyProfessors.com before choosing a professor for a particular class.

Ten years after the clergy sex abuse crisis hit the news, we talk with two reporters who were instrumental in uncovering the scandal, WBUR’s Sacha Pfeiffer and Northeastern University distinguished professor Walter V. Robinson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the subject.

A quarter-century after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first prescription drugs based on the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, additional medicines derived from or inspired by the cannabis plant itself could soon be making their way to pharmacy shelves, according to drug companies, small biotech firms and university scientists.