On both sides of the Atlantic, last weekend was a particularly bloody time. In Isla Vista, near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, six students were shot to death by Elliot Rodger, a young man who blamed everybody but himself for his inability to attract women. Hours later, a gun-toting terrorist […]

Open wide, this won’t hurt a bit. That might actually be true if the dentist’s drill is replaced by a promising low-powered laser that can prompt stem cells to make damaged hard tissue in teeth grow back. Such minimally invasive treatment could one day offer an easy way to repair or regrow our pearly whites. […]

In the months after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., some 40 gun control bills were filed in Massachusetts. Many expected a crackdown that would have gone further and faster than other states. Instead, a special commission spent a year carefully crafting an omnibus bill that DeLeo, who is considered a conservative Democrat in Massachusetts, […]

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo unveiled a proposal Tuesday for the most comprehensive changes to Massachusetts gun laws in 16 years, saying that the state cannot wait for federal action to curb gun violence. Under the bill, local police would be given expanded discretion to consider a person’s “suitability” to own a gun, the state […]

House Speaker Robert DeLeo, regarded as the most conservative Democratic leader on Beacon Hill, ventured into one of the most divisive political issues in American politics on Tuesday by unveiling what he is calling gun violence legislation. DeLeo’s bill, based on the recommendations of a commission he appointed last year, eschews more radical approaches to […]

WITH HIS column reporting on the work of engineers from UMass Lowell in Haiti (“Truly civil engineering,” Metro, May 19), Adrian Walker has touched on a significant transformation within American society. Quietly but surely, through the confluence of social responsibility, ingenuity, and youthful energy, the profession of engineering is becoming a prime instrument of fundamental change for […]

When Warren Buffett announced in 2006 that he would give away his billions, he was flooded with individual requests for help that still flow in today. Doris Buffett attends the Women for Afghan Women 12th Anniversary protecting women’s rights beyond 2014 at Tribeca 360 on May 30, 2013 in New York City. Instead of tossing the letters […]

Although mass murderers attempting to express their motivation in writing isn’t new, Northeastern University criminology professor Jack Levin said technology has changed the way that their messages are delivered. In the case of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, Seung-Hui Cho went to a post office and mailed videos to NBC, which eventually released them. […]

Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes. Sandy Hook school attacker Adam Lanza. And now Elliot Rodger. All were young loners with no criminal history who went on shooting sprees, leaving devastated families in their wake. Mass murderers tend to have a history of pent-up frustration and failures, are socially isolated and vengeful, blaming others for […]