Were there a Doomsday Clock on criminal justice issues, President Trump and his much-discussed small hands would be pushing the dial’s big hand toward midnight. It is hard to single out just one misguided idea from his array of proposals. So here are five not-so-easy pieces of Trump’s flawed agenda on crime control that make […]

Indeed, it was a hybrid robot that won the Darpa Robotics Challenge in 2015. South Korea’s DRC-HUBO looked like a humanoid, but could actually kneel and scoot around on wheels. And it crushed the competition of almost entirely bipedal humanoids. “They won so much time by going over flat terrain with wheels that they had […]

Valkyrie is one of the newest “kids” on campus at Boston’s Northeastern University. She stands 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 285 pounds and dreams about exploring Mars someday. However, Valkyrie isn’t a student. She’s an advanced humanoid robot that resides at the school’s Robotics and Intelligent Vehicles Research Laboratory (RIVeR). The organization is working […]

Tom Schmidt, a 27-year-old Marine veteran of Afghanistan, touched an American flag with his left hand and lifted his right one as he promised to abide by all the regulations of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. It’s an oath that millions of veterans have taken since the VFW took root more than a century ago […]

With thousands or even millions of dollars in sales at stake, companies aren’t likely to use AI within online stores unless they have some evidence that the effect on their bottom line will be positive. In this regard, researchers at Northeastern University found that, when sellers use algorithmic repricing, they’re more likely to be featured […]

In response to an international resurgence in the use of facilitated communication, Ralf W. Schlosser, a professor of communication sciences and disorders at Northeastern University, led a systematic review in 2014 of more than 20 studies of the technique. It found overwhelming support that the facilitator was controlling the message. “In the field of augmentative […]

Ultimately, says Ronald Sandler, director of the Ethics Institute at Northeastern University, analyzing the pros and cons of de-extinction varies from species to species. When framing a cost-benefit analysis in terms of conservation, he tells the Monitor in a phone interview, “it’s almost never going to be the case that the benefits favor engaging in […]

“Embedded within these communities are the linguistic skills, information and cultural insights necessary to assist law enforcement in its efforts to identify suspicious behavior,’’ Deborah Ramirez, a law professor at Northeastern University, wrote in 2004. “In order to have access to these critical tools and information, law enforcement recognized the need to build bridges required […]

We really don’t have a good handle on how expensive these resurrection programs might be, since are are lots of unaccounted-for costs we don’t need to think about when we protect existing species wrote Ronald Sandler, a professor in the Department of Philosophy, Northeastern University, in a Nature commentary. Those costs includes new technology, the […]

Lastly, there are moral arguments for and against de-extinction that no study can quantify. In a commentary that accompanies the paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Ronald Sandler, an ethics professor at Northeastern University, notes that the most prominent arguments in favor of de-extinction aren’t focused on a cost-effective conservation strategy. “They are instead based […]

Psychologist Rachel Rodgers with Northeastern University recently surveyed models. Many said they were not only told to lose weight but were threatened if they didn’t. Over half of them, 54 percent, had been told to lose weight. And otherwise, they would not be able to find any more jobs.

To prosecute an act of vandalism as a hate crime, law-enforcement officers face several important challenges, said Jack Levin, a professor emeritus of criminology at Northeastern University who studies hate crimes. First, they have to identify the culprits. Then, they have to provide evidence, from bigoted graffiti to suspects’ statements, that crimes were motivated by […]