The evolution of science and engineering in the 21st century has transformed the role of these professions in profound ways that affect research, scholarship and the practice of teaching in the university…
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has for decades been a center of debate on the tradeoffs between environmental protection and oil drilling.
Alaska Region US Fish & Wildlife Service
In a few months, we will mark the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The accident released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing extensive impacts on the marine…
In this January 2015 photograph, a man walks through the ruins of Old Aleppo, a designated World Heritage site.
Hosam Katan/Reuters
Recently in Aleppo, Syria, the Jabha Shamiya militia has started carrying out a new urban warfare strategy: tunnel bombing. Aside from the human damage wrought by this tactic, it is also extremely damaging…
On January 22 Houthi rebels put pressure on the Yemeni government, causing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his Cabinet to resign, in what was essentially a soft coup. This most recent Yemeni political…
Who IS in the middle class?
Stephen Melkisethian/Flickr via CC BY-ND
One of President Barack Obama’s main goals this year, as laid out in both his 2015 budget and State of the Union address, is to provide relief to the middle class. The divergent responses to two of his…
How many of them are vaccinated?
Henrik Winther Andersen/Shutterstock
The measles outbreak traced back to Disneyland has spread to eight states, with as many as 95 cases reported by January 28. Media outlets are highlighting the rise of anti-vaccination sentiments. Scientists…
Hosting the Olympics offers a chance to remake Boston.
Boston 2024
Editor’s Note: Last month the United States Olympics Committee picked Boston to lead the US bid to host the Summer Games in 2024. Mayor Martin Walsh recently began a series of community meetings intended…
Guys, I’m just trying to hibernate over here.
Jason Cohn / Reuters
Not since the 1960s has a sitting President engaged in issues around higher education as frequently as Barack Obama. He’s had little choice. With runaway student debt, diminishing state and federal investments…
Why is it that women can retain their heterosexuality if they kiss, but if men do the same they’re labeled gay?
David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons
If women can kiss women and still be straight, what about men? Some scholars have argued that female sexual desires tend to be fluid and receptive, while men’s desires – regardless of whether men are gay…
With snow comes shoveling, and with shoveling can come heart attacks.
Trudy Wilkerson/Shutterstock
Snow shoveling during or after a blizzard may be the “perfect storm” for a cardiac event. Doing warm-up exercises beforehand can make it safer.
Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades. Films like 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front were significantly altered to appease Germany’s Nazi Party.
filmjunk.com
Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction. Awards…
Welcome to Boston - and two feet of snow from one storm.
Peter Eimon/Flickr
As first glance, asking whether global warming results in more snow may seem like a silly question because obviously, if it gets warm enough, there is no snow. Consequently, deniers of climate change have…
In this photo a researcher from the virology institute at the Bonn Faculty of Medicine looks at cell cultures.
Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters
If you’ve never heard of coronaviruses before, you may know about some of the illnesses different types of they can cause, like SARS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and the common cold.
Budweiser hopes this little guy continues to win hearts.
Budweiser
Millennials, that evasive group born from 1982 to 2002, featuring characteristics and dispositions unlike any other age segment, are increasingly becoming the target of Super Bowl advertisers, as fans…
There’s science going on here, no test tubes or lab coats necessary.
USA Today Sports / Reuters
Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman gets called a lot of things. He calls himself the greatest cornerback in the NFL (and Seattle fans tend to agree). Sportswriters and some other players call…
Charles Lewis, American University School of Communication
This week’s news brings an important “ah hah” moment. The conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries and their political network of donors and opaque outside groups are…
Writing on the domestic history of the United States in the twentieth century has been dominated by work on the great reform movements of the era - Populism, Progressivism, and the New Deal. What is striking…
Average Americans don’t view science issues the same way scientists do.
Man image via www.shutterstock.com.
A new set of surveys of scientists and the public finds the two groups have widely different views about scientific issues. Conducted by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Association…
If you’re in favor of copyright extensions – and aren’t a corporation holding the rights or a descendent of the original author – you probably need some sense knocked into you.
Flickr
In 1998, if Congress hadn’t extended copyrights by 20 years, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind would all be in the public domain…
How does feeling you inhabit a body different than your own affect your racial biases?
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Maister et al.
In 1959, John Howard Griffin, a white American writer, underwent medical treatments to change his skin appearance and present himself as a black man. He then traveled through the segregated US south to…
The National Children’s Study may have been flawed, but it was still a valuable endeavor.
Children running via glenda/Shutterstock
Environmental health research has confirmed that chronic, low-level exposure to toxins in our environment – including our food, air and water – can have a significant impact on our health. We need to expand…
But what awaits her at home?
Dell's Official Flickr page
David S. Pedulla, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts and Sarah Thebaud, University of California, Santa Barbara
The latter part of the twentieth century saw a dramatic increase in women’s participation in the workforce as well as a rise in ideological support for women’s employment in the United States. However…
Big ideas are more likely to follow when directors look beyond shareholders.
Shutterstock
For firms to survive and thrive, innovation is crucial. Innovative companies can respond to changes in today’s dynamic business environment. Countries and regions that are home to innovative companies…
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
In the early morning hours of Sunday, December 14th last year, climate negotiators in Lima, Peru concluded the COP-20 talks with an agreement among 195 countries. The Lima Call for Climate Action, or Lima…