MIT professor shot at his Massachusetts home dies

Posted by mosura 8 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by JuniperMesos 5 hours ago

My prediction is that it was a random home invasion robbery committed by someone with multiple previous felonies who had no idea that the person living in the house they were trying to rob was a MIT professor.

But I have no more information than anyone else does, I'm making a low-confidence educated guess, and at some point in the near future it's very likely that the professionals whose job it is to investigate serious crimes will have a better idea of what actually happened than anyone posting in this thread.

Comment by screye 4 hours ago

Unlikely. He was killed in the foyer [1] of his building in an exceedingly safe city (Brookline, MA).

In a neighborhood with mixed SFHs and condos, it makes little sense to target a condo. Makes even less sense for someone to break in, but to shoot the victim outside, in the foyer.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmbmBNre5SQ

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Comment by SoftTalker 3 hours ago

Agree. Most killings are not random, but committed by someone the victim knows.

Comment by socketcluster 3 hours ago

Other possibility; a disgruntled investor who poured millions into dead-end fusion research and now wishes they had invested in AI research instead? Blames the professor for persuading them to invest in fusion.

It's a tough one to find a motive for...

Comment by screye 2 hours ago

Can you quote 1 other example of a disgruntled investor that has killed an American academic over the last 50 years ?

Comment by cmckn 3 hours ago

This basically never happens, about 100 people die a year in the US during a “burglary gone wrong”. People think it’s common, though; it’s the go-to cover story in almost any Dateline episode.

Comment by TiredOfLife 3 hours ago

That's 100 times more than I thought.

Comment by BobbyJo 3 hours ago

You thought only one person a year died during break ins gone wrong? Vending machines kill more than that.

Comment by TiredOfLife 3 hours ago

I am horrified about the huge amount of break-ins.

And even more horrified about the thread on homepage about surveilance cameras. I knew that shoplifting and car theft is essentially decriminalized in US. And now I learn that home invasions are also.

Comment by wewtyflakes 2 hours ago

This logic does not follow from or to "That's 100 times more than I thought." You can be both horrified at something and also understand that it is thing that happens.

Comment by karlgkk 3 hours ago

The us has a population of about 340,000,100. Notice where the 1 is.

Comment by roncesvalles 3 hours ago

Tangential but I think that's a terrible way of making your point because intuitively we don't look at digits of a numbers and think log scale. That looks more like 1/3 instead of 0.000029%.

Comment by Ao7bei3s 3 minutes ago

If it helps, 100 in 340 million roughly (within ±10%) corresponds to 1 pixel on a 2560x1440 pixel screen.

Comment by Hobadee 3 hours ago

If we are doing random predictions based on scant evidence, mine is a professional hit. Neighbor said he heard 3 shots. If it was a "pop pop...pop", that's 2 in the body, 1 in the head. Professional assassin.

Comment by mocha_nate 2 hours ago

My prediction: time traveler. Guy goes back in time to prevent an unspeakable tragedy that happened in the future. The simplest solution to alter the course of human history was this attack. We'll never find the killer because as soon as his work was completed, he vaporized into the ether as his timeline was culled.

Comment by DougN7 1 hour ago

Wish that guy had … well, never mind. Better not to say it.

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Comment by seanmcdirmid 3 hours ago

It could be a disgruntled grad student? That is shockingly not unheard of in academia.

Comment by mothballed 5 hours ago

It's a reasonable guess, but 8:30p seems like a dumb time for a home robbery. Usually they're committed during the day when people are at work, and if not that then deep in the night for maximum cover. 8:30 is almost like the ideal time if you actually want someone to be there and answer the door at an hour where it wouldn't cause enough alarm for them to answer the door with a weapon.

Comment by wat10000 5 hours ago

When it comes to small-scale crime like this, the smartest thing is typically not to do it at all. So the people who do it will generally not be very smart.

Comment by foobarian 3 hours ago

In this day and age who robs homes any more? You'd be liable to get paid to take a bunch of junk away instead

Comment by stevenwoo 3 hours ago

The little but wealthy town of Los Altos Hills next to Palo Alto had Flock come in and install their camera surveillance after a string of burglaries and one or two home invasion style robberies, it's a mostly rural/suburban area. Believe it or not there are also still folks who come from cultures where they do not believe in banks in the USA, so there is a lot of cash and gold in those people's homes.

Comment by randycupertino 3 hours ago

When BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) came to Pleasanton CA my fox-news brainwashed racist aunt and uncle and their neighbors where legitimately convinced black people from Oakland were going to come take BART out from Oakland and steal their TVs. And this was back in the day of the giant bulky heavy-backed rear-projection TVs. I was like... first of all they drive cars now and second of all who is going to take BART to come rob you and third of all who would want to carry this stupid heavy thing!! And if they were going to take your 150lb TV they would need a truck and a dolly, not take public transit to do so.

Pleasanton remained safe and bland despite allowing evil public transit.

Comment by Eisenstein 3 hours ago

> small-scale crime like this

You mean murder?

Comment by wat10000 2 hours ago

Yes. Smart criminals become CEOs where they can kill people wholesale and totally legally.

Comment by Supermancho 5 hours ago

Indeed, 8:30p is no different from 2p or 10a for the act.

It's most likely a matter of happenstance. It happened to be the warmest time of the day (even though it was evening). Maybe the thinking was someone was home to help them find the valuables, maybe not.

> 8:30p seems like a dumb time for a home robbery.

The assertion that there is some optimization for some specific imagined motivation, is literal fantasy.

Comment by pclmulqdq 2 hours ago

I would assume that the most likely options for for "rich person shot in home" are:

* Drug dealer

* Cheating on spouse and someone got jealous

* Suicide

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Comment by kazinator 4 hours ago

> Correction 16 December: An earlier version of this story incorrectly defined the kind of plasma that Professor Loureiro researched.

If I get shot and someone writes some libelous bullshit about how I worked with hygienic macro systems, someone kindly jump on that shit ASAP. Thanks in advance!

Comment by cryptonector 2 hours ago

lmaooo

Comment by RagnarD 4 hours ago

American MSM has carefully avoided mentioning a critically important fact pointing towards the motives of the killer: the professor was Jewish and openly pro-Israel.

https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2487170/jewish-...

Comment by woodruffw 3 hours ago

There are a lot of Jewish, pro-Israel professors in the US. I don't see any evidence that it was a factor in this man's death. I think it would be irresponsible for a news organization to speculate until more information is actually available.

(You'll note that even Yeshiva World News isn't speculating about motives here.)

Comment by root_axis 2 hours ago

What evidence do you have that the "MSM" are "carefully avoid mentioning" it?

Comment by acdha 4 hours ago

You’re trying too hard to make that conspiratorial take: most responsible outlets don’t speculate on motives until there’s some evidence of a connection. For example, the stories I’ve read quoted his neighbors wondering whether there’s a connection to what happened at Brown, which is just an hour away and still has the killer at large. If there’s any evidence of an anti-Jewish motive, I will be shocked if it’s not an NYT headline within minutes.

Comment by jimbo808 4 hours ago

The title of this article leads with "Jewish, Pro-Israel MIT Professor..." so I think they've already decided to go with the "victim of antisemitism" default until proven otherwise.

Comment by uselesswords 3 hours ago

> most responsible outlets don’t speculate on motives until there’s some evidence of a connection

That is simply not true, every single news outlet without fail speculates, uncritically quotes a speculator, or leaves out warranted critical speculation at their own discretion. Pick a news site that you think doesn’t do this and I will happily find an example from their front page.

Comment by alphazard 3 hours ago

Certainly it's more conspiratorial to assume that his death had something to do with his research, or that he was secretly a some kind of Walter White character?

Being politically outspoken on an issue which is contentious in that area, and which has caused violence before seems like the most plausible explanation that I have heard so far.

Comment by crazygringo 4 hours ago

How on earth are you making conclusions about the motive of the killer?

People also get burgled and shot. Lovers take revenge. A grad student loses their mind.

It's entirely irresponsible to suggest that something is being hidden if there's zero evidence so far that someone's religion or political views are even remotely relevant.

Comment by qball 4 hours ago

And media lies by omission.

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Comment by jimbo808 4 hours ago

Your only data point is the ethnicity of the victim, and that's all it takes for you to suggest it was a hate crime?

Comment by richardfeynman 3 hours ago

Another data point is that Jews are getting killed and assaulted around the world. With that said, I agree that for now there's no actual evidence supporting this allegation. But I wouldn't be totally shocked to learn that his ethnicity or zionist beliefs had something to do with this, if indeed he was Jewish (which hasn't been confirmed).

Comment by unmole 4 hours ago

Right, because American media is famously anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. /s

Comment by yieldcrv 4 hours ago

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Comment by juggerlt 4 hours ago

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Comment by shrubble 4 hours ago

Is it true that Brookline had very few murders in the past 5 years? Increases the chance of it being targeted instead of random.

Comment by stmw 3 hours ago

It is a very very safe town.

Comment by simple10 7 hours ago

Here's the local Boston news reporting on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmbmBNre5SQ

Comment by javiramos 7 hours ago

Could this be related to the Brown shooting?

Comment by ortusdux 7 hours ago

From ABC -

"Authorities have investigated whether his death could be connected to this weekend's Brown University shooting and, at this point, a senior law enforcement official briefed on both cases told ABC News there is nothing to suggest they’re connected."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mit-professor-shot-killed-home-bos...

Comment by mothballed 5 hours ago

Authorities and the university have also been asking for tips but then flipping the script as soon as they get them: "Accusations, speculation and conspiracies we're seeing on social media and in some news reports are irresponsible, harmful, and in some cases dangerous."[]

Also worth noting... at one point the arrested the wrong guy.

They have no clue. And become hostile when people try to come up with one. While scrubbing student profiles and simultaneously claiming they have no knowledge of doing so. The whole thing is a total clown show and nothing said by the authorities is to be believed without independent verification.

[] Brown University spokesperson Brian Clark

Comment by willis936 6 hours ago

Absolutely useless without a name and reputation on the line. It's an absurd to publish that multiple academics killed within an hour drive within one week have "nothing to suggest they're connected".

Comment by refulgentis 6 hours ago

Are you from Boston / have you lived there? I do, and thank you for your concern. But this is confusing to say the least.

1. No one should be stupid enough to put their name and rep on the line, in a fluid situation, where there’s 0 idea who did the first anyways, for days now.

2. Dunno what you mean by academics, students and professors? Usually academics refers to professors / grad students / has a job at university related to teaching, but Brown victims weren’t professors. Hard to see how that indicates a connection.

3. It’s a real stretch to put Providence to Brookline at a 1 hour drive. In general, it’s two different worlds, so it’s strange to use it as a clear indicator they must be related.

4. If it’s obvious they’re connected, and making any claim of probability re: their connection should require putting your name and reputation on the line, what’s your name?

Comment by willis936 5 hours ago

You are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of trust. Aaron Katersky and Josh Margolin put their name on the line because without that you wouldn't know the provenance of the information and wouldn't know if you should trust it. Citing an unnamed officer making claims that they have insufficient evidence for is not good journalism, so their reputation takes a hit. The officer also deserves this reputational hit since they are making the unsubstantiated claim.

To be very clear here, the claim is that "there is nothing to suggest the two sets of predmeditated murders within a week within an hour are related". The fact that they're the same demographic, high profile, using the same weapon, close in proximity, and close in time are all concrete things that relate them. It is embarrassing to state otherwise, so the officer was not named. However the reporters are not immune to this, so they take the hit.

I am not stating the positive "they are related", I am refuting the negative "they are unrelated".

And as for my identity: I am not a reporter or public official. You don't need to and shouldn't use me as a source of truth. I am a member of the public applying logic to facts. I am closer to this event than you but I won't say more. As a member of HN who respects privacy I'm sure that should be enough for you.

Comment by jabbywocker 5 hours ago

You aren’t refuting a negative because the statement isn’t “they are unrelated” the statement is “(with current information) there is nothing suggesting they are related”

If you’re close to the situation, and have a substantiated reason to believe the claim that there’s no current information suggesting they’re related is inaccurate, you should be able to back that up. Except we both know you can’t, because you’re attempting to refute something that wasn’t actually said.

Comment by SauntSolaire 5 hours ago

> using the same weapon

The same weapon being.. a gun? Hardly a notable connection.

Comment by refulgentis 1 hour ago

Other comments cover the “logic” being applied here. Dunno who those two names are. I’m genuinely worried about your grip on reality based on your writing, I don’t say that lightly and am very, very, serious, to the point I’d prefer to eat downvotes and offend you than hide that and possibly contribute to you worsening.

I hope you’re extremely close to one of these events and are extremely distraught, even though that’s tragic, because it would indicate you’re not just comfortable disassociated from reality.

Note the difference in your approach this morning versus now, to wit, you this morning: “ We have no info but he was the department head of the MIT PSFC. It's easy to imagine a deranged individual picking a high profile target by browsing MIT's website. Or it was a domestic dispute or road rage or any number of things that would drive someone to shoot someone in their home. We have no information and can only speculate.”

Comment by perihelions 6 hours ago

They're only 40 miles apart. Moreover, they're both (apparently) premeditated gun murders targeting academics at famous universities.

edit to add: (For those who weren't aware, the Brown University terrorist is still on the loose).

Comment by defrost 6 hours ago

One was a home invasion that may or may not be related to the victims work on fusion plasma. It is very likely unrelated to that work.

The other was a mass shooting style event that targetted an exam preperation review hall populated by econ students and led by a 21-year-old teaching assistant.

It's a stretch to connect an isolated murder of a field advancing physics researcher and a hall full of students just because all the victims are involved in book learning.

Possible connection, sure. At an improbable stretch.

ChatGPT can certainly knock up a Clancy like novel here, no doubt.

Comment by varenc 3 hours ago

Is there any evidence this murder was related to the professor's work?

Comment by sh34r 1 hour ago

If it is, do you think it’s the Iranians taking revenge on American civilian scientists, or a Ted Kaczynski type?

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Comment by neilv 2 hours ago

Flagged. The post is about someone just murdered, yet most of the HN comments on this post are strangely insensitive and dumb. HN ranks highly in Google, so friends and family members may see these comments.

Comment by HardwareLust 2 hours ago

Why is this flagged?

Comment by mxkopy 7 hours ago

This is his ORCID profile, which lists his grants and published works:

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9755-6563

Comment by ChrisArchitect 7 hours ago

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292708

Comment by shtzvhdx 5 hours ago

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Comment by buckle8017 6 hours ago

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Comment by reactordev 6 hours ago

The autocracy. Police under this administration have completely checked out. It’s up to the feds and we’ve seen from Brown how they handle things.

Comment by dmoy 6 hours ago

In the US at least, duty to protect and serve is just a marketing slogan.

There are multiple court cases decisions showing that police have no duty to protect people. All the way up to the Supreme Court

Comment by lovich 6 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

> Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine.

Comment by wagwang 6 hours ago

Why are you making this political; besides one of the brown victims was the vp of the college republicans so whats the angle here again?

Comment by OutOfHere 6 hours ago

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Comment by gopher_space 6 hours ago

I'm not sure why "bitter grad student" isn't everyone's default assumption.

Comment by bilbo0s 6 hours ago

Low percentage of grad students

Comment by eichin 6 hours ago

MIT grad students don't generally have classes, let alone finals

Comment by bilbo0s 6 hours ago

Which is not to say there are no bitter grad students or colleagues at MIT.

Which was gopher_space’s material point.

Comment by eichin 6 hours ago

Final exams at MIT started yesterday and don't end until Friday https://registrar.mit.edu/classes-grades-evaluations/examina... so grades are mostly not yet available.

Comment by ruggeri 6 hours ago

You’ve been downvoted by others because this is lazy stereotyping.

Comment by OutOfHere 5 hours ago

By your logic, anything that satisfies Occam's razor is lazy stereotyping. And that doesn't make the idea unlikely anyway.

Comment by dmoy 5 hours ago

Finals not being over might make the idea unlikely

Comment by OutOfHere 4 hours ago

They started yesterday. A student who is going to outright fail it will likely know immediately before the results are in.

Comment by FloorEgg 7 hours ago

[flagged]

Comment by crazygringo 7 hours ago

Why would there be? I feel like I'm missing the context behind your question.

Comment by rany_ 7 hours ago

He is a nuclear scientist so he might have been working for some country's nuclear program?

Comment by firefax 6 hours ago

>He is a nuclear scientist so he might have been working for some country's nuclear program?

Or "some country" tried to recruit him and killed him when he said no to maintain the (nonofficial) cover.

Comment by reactordev 6 hours ago

Ya’ll read too many conspiracy theories. What makes you think other countries were interested in recruiting him, specifically? I want to see the logic behind this assumption.

Comment by tshaddox 6 hours ago

"Conspiracy theory" might be a loaded term, but it's a person with a fairly notable job position (nuclear science at MIT) shot multiple times in his home with apparently no persons of interest yet. Of course it could be something unrelated to his position, like a random burglary or a dispute with someone close to the victim.

Comment by dylan604 6 hours ago

If someone said the individual had a serious gambling problem and failed to payback his bookie, it would not be any less credible at this time. It also doesn't make it any more legitimate. Speculation is nothing more than that. Unfortunately, very few care to admit speculation and if it is something in the realm of plausibility, there will be many that accept it as true. People are suggesting Comet 3I/atlas could be under powered control, and convinced it is true with no real evidence.

Comment by FloorEgg 6 hours ago

World leading nuclear physicist in emerging abundant energy technology murdered in their home. I don't know. Sounds like part of a James Bond plot or something. The question was only 10% serious, but wow, has it sparked a lot of responses.

Comment by decremental 6 hours ago

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Comment by thelastgallon 7 hours ago

> His research addressed "complex problems lurking at the center of fusion vacuum chambers and at the edges of the universe", according to the university's obituary.

>He also studied how to harness clean "fusion power" to combat climate change, CBS said.

Clean energy is pretty controversial in US. Most people are against it.

Comment by barbazoo 7 hours ago

> In an open-ended question, 69% of respondents identified the primary advantage of clean energy as some form of environmental protection, like mitigating climate change or improving air and water quality. Only 13% offered lower energy costs as a central benefit, and 22% said clean energy offers no clear advantage.

https://www.thirdway.org/memo/poll-shows-americans-want-affo...

Comment by jelder 7 hours ago

“Most people” is not even remotely accurate.

Comment by dylan604 6 hours ago

> Clean energy is pretty controversial in US. Most people are against it.

It'll be the same cabal that killed the inventor of the engine mod that allowed for 99mpg.

Comment by dralley 7 hours ago

I would more easily believe that this is some fuckery with Iran.

Comment by bilbo0s 6 hours ago

And to be frank, both are pretty far fetched. His thing was plasma and fusion.

If people want a conspiracy theory, tell them to go with alien civilizations wanted to prevent humans from achieving fusion.

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Comment by wizardforhire 7 hours ago

It was covered extensively in canon[1]…

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8&pp=ygUhU2FyYWggY29ub...

Comment by 1970-01-01 7 hours ago

Yes. It was aliens trying to keep us from inventing warp tech until we are mature enough to stop creating conspiracy theories the minute something like this happens.

Comment by ricksunny 2 hours ago

If it was the aliens then they are about to learn what the Streisand effect is.

Comment by observationist 6 hours ago

The going story over at X right now is basically that a far-leftist stereotypically shaped reddit mod is killing conservatives and jews, with at least two prominent names being floated without evidence. I'd hold back any judgment until evidence hits the feeds.

I'd assume bsky is blaming Trump death squads being sent after scientists, exclusive reporting on MSNOW at 11.

The only thing that seems true right now, if it's related to the Brown murders, is that the suspect shown on crappy security footage is overweight and walks like they're out of shape.

These murders are being reported, but feel a bit strategically different than murders from even a few months ago, maybe there's a turn for the better. It seems like the whole social media frenzy and fallout is being taken seriously, and they're letting professionals do the investigating instead of conscripting the public and seizing the news cycles.

Comment by lowdownbutter 6 hours ago

"Don't ask questions, just consume submission and then get excited for next submission"

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Comment by ekjhgkejhgk 7 hours ago

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/419454

Comment by simple10 7 hours ago

The article might be too hasty to report that he's Jewish, especially implying that was the motive by including it in the article title. Lots of chatter X/Twitter about it.

Kinda crazy (scary?) how fast tragic events like this get instantly politicized on social.

Comment by 627467 6 hours ago

Given his background somehow doubt he is jewish, could be pro-israel. But all this could well be totally unrelated to the event itself.

Isnt it more likely that's due to him living in the US or the Terminator hypothesis?

Comment by simple10 6 hours ago

It's possibly related to mistaken identity. There's apparently some guy with a similar name that has some tie to Israel. Articles and social just seem to be running with it without any fact checking.

Comment by dzink 7 hours ago

“Renowned for his pioneering research on plasma dynamics - the component of blood that carries platelets and cells throughout the body - Loureiro also focused on harnessing clean fusion energy to combat climate change. He was appointed director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center in May”

Comment by gs17 7 hours ago

The Hebrew version doesn't seem to have that error, I wonder what they used to translate it, it feels like a rare hallucination for recent LLMs.

Comment by danparsonson 7 hours ago

I can believe that our dystopian future will be powered by dark fusion reactors that only achieve containment through human sacrifice

Comment by typeofhuman 7 hours ago

Story as old as time. For the crops!

Comment by dvh 7 hours ago

Holy shit, they really wrote it there

Comment by m4ck_ 7 hours ago

I wonder if that's some particularly sloppy AI writing or if he really was working in biology (apparently he pioneered research on blood plasma) while also working on fusion energy. Bro was either a 10x professor or AI is just doing AI things I guess. Either way RIP.

Comment by eichin 6 hours ago

it's slop. (If you look at the ORCID link posted elsethread there's literally nothing biology related in his 70 publications in the last two decades - and it seems unlikely one would become director of the PSFC with that sort of distraction...)

Comment by rany_ 7 hours ago

I can't spot anything conspiratorial in that article, though?

Comment by QuercusMax 7 hours ago

There are already other articles claiming he was shot because he's Jewish and has supported Israel. Seems like the cops haven't arrested anybody yet, so we don't really know anything.

He was working on fusion technology, so you could just as well speculate it was fossil fuel interests involved, but that also seems purely speculative.

Comment by rany_ 7 hours ago

First thing that came to mind is that he might have been secretly working for Israel's nuclear program but this is all very speculative. It does feel plausible though given that Israel has already assassinated plenty of Iranian nuclear scientists; so there is some precedent for it.

Comment by BurningFrog 7 hours ago

It does sound like something Iran might to in retaliation.

Comment by rany_ 6 hours ago

There are lots of different scenarios you can conjure up. Another could be that Israel assassinated him after he refused to support their nuclear program OR to silence him.

Comment by garbagecoder 7 hours ago

You're right, it's only fair that we let Iranian assassins kill people in the US.

Comment by lawlessone 6 hours ago

>He was working on fusion technology

BigFission

We'll probably find out it was mugging.

Comment by QuercusMax 6 hours ago

Or something intensely personal completely unrelated to politics. Could be a disgruntled student, lover, business partner, etc.

Horses, not zebras.

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Comment by andrepd 6 hours ago

Please don't link to such a rag. There's absolutely nothing of substance in this article and even several glaring factual mistakes.

Comment by FilosofumRex 2 hours ago

Pros always use silencers - but amateurs instigated/inspired by security services/spies, are meant to be caught and will confess

Comment by david_shaw 6 hours ago

>"The theoretical physicist and fusion scientist was known for his award-winning research in magnetised plasma dynamics.

Magnetised plasma dynamics is the study of the state of matter in which the motion of charged particles is influenced by the presence of an external magnetic field, according to Nature.

Loureiro joined MIT's faculty in 2016 and was named director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2024."

Although it may be a total red herring, it may be worth noting that there are (debatably pseudoscientific) theories -- primarily Plasma cosmology[1] and the Electric Universe theory[2] -- that are related to (and potentially in conflict with) this field of research.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology

2: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Electric_Universe

Comment by 5 hours ago