Timing was critical for Cambridge startup Biobot Analytics. “We didn’t know there would be a pandemic,” one executive said. “But the vision was already there that there’s a data trove living in our sewers that can tell us so much about human health and human behavior.”

Public meetings this week look at stemming rat infestations, free dog licensing for seniors and an accounting for snow season; Café Batifol’s arrival in Kendall and Vitality Bowls in Central; ending off-street parking requirements; free CharlieCards for students; converting the Sacred Heart rectory into affordable rentals; and more.

Public meetings this week look at bike lanes through Porter Square, honoring the RSTA program’s Michael Ananis, ending single-family-home zoning and a real estate “linkage” fee leap, a plan for sidewalk and street work and MBTA news, putting labs in neighborhoods, school district budgeting and more.

As Cambridge nears the end of its indoor mask mandate, the city’s Covid-19 case rate continues to rise. Yet levels of the virus in Cambridge wastewater – which was thought to track and even predict waves of illness – have generally been dropping.

Public meetings this week look at bike lanes and off-street parking, a Net Zero Action Plan update, IQHQ’s life-sciences campus near Alewife, the search for a new city manager, using millions in American Rescue Plan funds, landmarking the Maria Baldwin House and much more.

It’s no secret that Kendall Square is packed so tight with life sciences that firms are getting squeezed out and landing in Alewife, Somerville and Boston’s Seaport. Now a second mainstay of Cambridge biotech in a week has revealed it has its eye on Burlington, a town of some 26,377 people about 15 miles to the northwest.

The Kendall Square Association’s president since March 2018, C.A. Webb, said Thursday that she would leave at the end of February, assuring members facing a new search for leadership that “the KSA has never been stronger.”

The remaking of Harvard Square’s Garage mall has been revised to include lab and life-sciences space but less overall square footage; there’s an innovation in the signed community benefits agreement at Somerville’s Boynton Yards; and Harvard has photos of its renovated divinity school.

Rents were down 1.8 percent in December after a year in which Cambridge saw a 25.2 percent rise in prices and Somerville rose even more, according to some real estate industry analysts. Another local trend continued too: Life-sciences clusters spreading from Kendall Square.

Developer Boston Properties plans to build 465 dwelling units at its 135 Broadway tower in Kendall Square, up from 425, HubSpot has terminated its lease for digs nearby in East Cambridge and there’s much more going on in local real estate and development.