Don’t you hate it when people pass the buck on important decisions? They’re supposed to come up with an answer, and instead they bow out and delegate. But people with this annoying habit might actually be looking out for your best interests as much as they are trying to avoid responsibility. New research into buck-passing […]

In word and in deed, Obama has emphasized resilience to terrorism more than many other U.S. leaders, said Stephen Flynn, a national-security expert at Northeastern University. But the shift Obama embodies actually began during the second term of the George W. Bush administration, as U.S. officials came to recognize that their overseas war against al-Qaeda […]

Ravi Ramamurti, a professor and director of the Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University, said if there were a U.S. military confrontation, “the shipment of goods out of Asian factories could be suspended indefinitely, which would be particularly catastrophic for companies that sole-source out of Asia.”

There are differing theories about why the issue is so polarizing — Northeastern University’s Matthew Nisbet says that because climate change requires collective global action, “for conservatives that’s especially difficult to accept”; Yale’s Dan Kahan ties it to America’s growing political Balkanization, noting that if you ask Americans, “they know that scientists say we’re screwed” […]

Recall the 20th century, with its race to the moon, advances in medicine and information technology, and “this incredibly strong belief in the promise of science,” says Matthew Nisbet, a communications professor at Northeastern University. People in the 1960s “had faith in science, had hope in science. Most people thought science was responsible for improving […]

Police said they’ve received more than 600 tips in the case and have narrowed down who they’re looking for. Authorities said the killer is a man who likely has bruises and scratches from a struggle with the 27-year-old. “Most homicides that are solved are solved within 48 hours,” said James Alan Fox, a Criminologist with […]

Kim Lewis directs the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. He wrote a commentary about the discovery in Nature Microbiology. “So if you have lugdunin in your nose, chances are you are not going to be carrying staph aureus. So that was the initial finding of that study.” Just like animals in the […]

Authorities have been tight-lipped about the evidence they have, but DNA from the gunman would be almost impossible to recover from the crime scenes unless the shooter touched one of the victims or left behind an object, said Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. The first shooting happened in a neighborhood several […]

Will Donald Trump try to weasel out of the presidential debates? On the one hand, he has verbally committed to three joint appearances with Hillary Clinton this fall. On the other, he seeks to renegotiate the terms under which the matches will take place. At some point, and soon, Trump will have to decide which […]

Many of us tend to see Israel in terms of its unique attributes – perhaps as the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people or as the target of more than 70 United Nations resolutions. Yet in terms of the way that residents there handle intransigent bureaucracies and slow-to-change norms, Israel is no different from other […]

Andrea Matwyshyn, a professor at Northeastern University Law School, and David Greene, Civil Liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, discuss Twitter’s Wednesday victory after a federal judge ruled that the social media platform cannot be held responsible for the Islamic State’s use of the network to spread propaganda. Twitter claims that it’s already suspended […]

Sarah Jackson, a professor at Northeastern University who studies political movements, explained the cycle to me this way in 2014: first, people who knew the victim or witnessed the fatal encounter turn that victim’s name into a hashtag. Then the story spreads to local activists and news outlets. Finally, the story lands on the radars […]