With increasing reports of extreme weather and headlines about 2012 being the warmest year on record, climate change can no longer be ignored. This spring Cognoscenti teams up with the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University to bring you a series we’re calling Climate Change. Challenges. Solutions. Each week we will […]

But background checks would not have stopped most school shootings, in which the gunmen took legally obtained weapons from parents with spotless backgrounds, says Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University in Boston. Many gunmen have a clean criminal history – they are just having a really bad day, he says. […]

“Certainly there have been children at presidential press photo ops in years past, but usually more in a decorative way, not in a policy way,” said Alan Schroeder, an associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University who is an expert in political stagecraft. “I think what’s interesting here is that the children were a reflection, […]

What do we mean when we talk about the imminent threat of rapid and irreversible climate change? And what ethical responsibilities do we — especially those of us in the societies most responsible for the emission of destabilizing greenhouse gases — have in the face of that threat? Harvard chemist James Anderson and Northeastern philosopher […]

One of the problems with office work is that many of us are using chairs that don’t fit our bodies very well or give adequate support to the back, said Jack Dennerlein, a professor at Northeastern’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences in Boston who specializes in ergonomics and safety. If you are experiencing back pain, […]

By contrast, according to James Alan Fox, Northeastern University criminologist, between 1980 and 2010 there were, on average, 20 mass murders a year (defined by the FBI as four or more killings in the same incident) with an average annual death toll of about 100. That’s a mere 0.01% of the average homicide total. If […]

As thousands of Boston-area college students return to town for the spring semester, university officials are taking preventive measures to avoid further outbreaks of influenza. Some institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Simmons College, Tufts University, and Wellesley College, are offering free flu vaccinations to students. At a few of these schools […]

A report published by Ernst & Young called Nature or nurture? Decoding the DNA of the entrepreneur, argues that entrepreneurial leaders are made, not born. According to the report, “There is no single entrepreneurship gene. But there are traits and experiences that make it more likely that an individual will choose the path of entrepreneurship […]

The overall increase in violent crime should not be surprising or cause for alarm, said Northeastern University criminology professor James Alan Fox. With a steady decline in violent crime over the past two decades, “it is almost inevitable that some bounce back would occur,” he said. The number of murders was down 1.7 percent and […]

With the release of a long-awaited transportation financing report (PDF) on Monday, Gov. Deval Patrick is proposing to expand rail service across the state. Patrick is endorsing a plan by the state Department of Transportation that would fund rail service from Pittsfield to New York, provide year-round train service to Hyannis, and build a commuter […]

When it comes to going green, some universities are taking on the world. In its annual report, UI GreenMetric, a worldwide university ranking system, listed 215 of the world’s most sustainable and eco-friendly campuses of 2012. Schools were ranked on areas of setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, transportation and education. #4: […]

As one step, the speaker is creating a commission, which will include outside experts, to take a comprehensive look at the state’s gun laws. Led by Jack McDevitt, a criminal justice specialist and associate dean at Northeastern University, the panel will be charged with determining what works and what does not. McDevitt, who met with […]