The death toll in Jos, Nigeria after the most recent suicide bomb has climbed to 19. In our jaded world, that doesn’t seem so high. But nearly 13,000 individuals died from suicide attacks between 2003 and 2010, and clearly that number continues to rise. Professors Carey Rappaport and Jose Martinez are using their skills in ...
The other day I met pharmacy professor Roger Edwards, whose research focuses on the health benefits of breastfeeding. Edwards, who has a background in policy and improvement in public health, became interested in the area when he saw his wife struggle to fight societal and hospital norms in her determination to breast feed the first ...
Last week Coca Cola and Pepsi announced they would change the processing method for the molecule that gives our favorite soft drinks their caramel color, after California placed a chemical byproduct of the method on its list of known carcinogens. According to a study commissioned by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), ...
On my way to work this morning somebody on Morning Edition told me that the largest solar storm in years was “hurtling” through space and could disrupt all sorts of earthly systems like the utility grid, my cell phone, and the airline communications systems on my parents’ flight to New Orleans. I was worried. So ...
Happy day-after-super-Tuesday, everybody. If you’re as political as I am, you may not have realized that yesterday was different than any other day, but apparently it was. Last night, we got a chance to see if money really does talk, as the fab-four of remaining republican hopefuls — Romney, Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich — awaited ...
There’s a great story in the News@Northeastern today about Laura Lewis‘ ARPA-E grant — a $3.5million award from the Department of Energy, which Lewis’ team will use to identify new, super-strong magnetic materials. As Matt Collette explains in the article, China has a hold on the rare earth industry, currently the main element used to ...
Northeastern’s own network scientist Alessandro Vespignani weighs in on the ever-enticing question of predicting the future. Vespignani joins a blogger, a businessman, a tarot card reader, a psychologist and a climate scientist on today’s episode of Big Picture Science, the NPR-syndicated science and technology podcast. Before the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, Vespignani predicted the spread of ...
Anthony D’Onofrio studies dirt…or the bacteria that grow on dirt, to be more specific. He is a post-doctoral researcher in the Antimicrobial Discovery Center led by Professor Kim Lewis in the biology department and has started a non-profit educational organization, along with Professor Lewis, called Sample America to help him with a somewhat impossible task: ...
Albert-László Barabasi is a world leader in the emerging field of network science. In his research, Barabasi seeks to understand the properties of various types of systems, be they biological, information-based, technological or even social. “There are some common organizing principles that describe these different types of networks, he says. “In many ways these networks ...
Anand Asthagiri from the chemical engineering department sees cells as microscopic machines. He compares the cell to a BMW: “It’s the ultimate driving machine, but how do you drive it? How do you get behind the wheel and make it go where you want it to go? ” He is attempting to answer this question ...